Local Biz Bits
Local Search Marketing Information for Small Business

Wanted to bring your attention to a few articles that I have had sitting on my stack of stuff.

The Ten Commandments of Online Marketing for Small & Local Businesses by David Mihm is a great piece on what small business need to do with their website.

Some of what he covers is:

research keywords
create good content
build website simply
link freely
list contact info on all pages…head over to his article for the rest.

Another good overview is Local search Optimization 101: get Found by Ian Lurie. I have been referring to his web site quite bit recently-excellent site of information. This is a nice step by step post on how to get started in the major local search engines.

As always, if you have any questions about get listed, please zip me an email!

I think the biggest issue facing small business owners, who are not very Internet savy, is what Internet marketing is all about. Educating my clients and potential clients is done on a daily basis. I do not mind explaining things to folks but it can be frustrating.  Unrealistic expectations is the #1 problem I have seen with folks. So many folks thinks that once you build a web site, you are done and “they will come”

I came across two articles that I think address this issue really well.  In Marketing, There Are No Guarantees by Ian Lurie of Conversation Marketing, is nice post that is short and sweet and to the point. “In this business, anyone who guarantees results is sneaky at best. There’s fine print somewhere. A Internet marketer can no more guarantee the results of a campaign than predict the weather.”

Small business owners need to understand this. A good Internet marketer will explain what he will do and how but really won’t (shouldn’t) promise the world since things change so much with the search engines.

The other component small business owners have “issues with” are the costs involved.  My associate Andrew Shotland, has put together a nice piece on The True Cost of SEO. Andrew lists some of the things to keep in mind when hiring an SEO person.

Andrew hits the nail on the head:

“While SEO can provide an amazing ROI, there still are costs associated with it — and they can add up….Even if they don’t know exactly what they are going to recommend, a good SEO consultant, like a good hair stylist, should have an idea of where they are going before they start.”

Take a few minutes to review these articles.

Well…when you are at a hotel for a week and you need to pay for Internet access.  I was in St Louis this week and if I wanted to use the Internet in my room, I had to pay for it. Now I could get free Internet in the lobby.  I am not a world traveler but I thought having free wi-fi was pretty common. Also the major airports I was in also had wi-fi but you had to pay for it, but in the smaller airports, wi-fi access was free.

I know the reason is money but I think hotels could set up their own local portal and then get local merchants to advertise on it (thus covering the cost).  Same would go for the airports. This would seem to be like a win-win. Travelers are natural local searchers!

Well it is nice to be home again and once I get caught up, I will begin posting again!

Yokl’d is a “Best Of” local business ranking social platform that is 100% compiled and commented on by users. The idea behind Yokl’d is simple, the more times a business gets voted for, or against, the higher or lower in the Yokl’d rankings it will be listed.

Below are a few of the features that Yokl’d provides users:

• Build a personal list of favorite businesses for reference and sharing amongst peers
• Discover great businesses that are constantly being added by the Yokl’d community
• Rank local businesses across multiple categories with the simple 1-click voting process
• Interact and follow Friends & Family to get “Best Of” recommendations
• Post, review and rank positive or negative comments for each listing
• And a lot more…

Yokl’d provides aspects of social networking and business ranking not seen in other top local search sites such as Yelp! and CitySearch. Whether you need to find a great restaurant for a night out on the town or a new hair stylist, Yokl’d is quickly becoming the premier solution for the discriminating consumer, business traveler or weekend connoisseur.

(This update was provided by Jay Mallinckrodt)  Thanks Jay!

The other day I was speaking with a client (I helped her finish a web site). She wanted to do some SEO for her new business web site. She knew she needed to market on-line and that the search engines were important. [Hooray!]

Her question to me was “who to use?”  She had spoken to a number of SEO companies and got a variety of ideas/services/prices and was not sure which to use.  (I could have said me, but I was not going there.)  I told her that there is no “industry standard” for SEO and that you are going to get a variety of answers.  I warned her against anyone who guarantees results overnight.

Finding someone to do SEO can be hard to do. If you can’t find someone you know and trust to recommend someone then you need to do some research.

[Check out a post over at Paul Jahn's LocalMN Blog: Search Engine Marketing Firm Gets $100,000 Fine - What to Look for in a Search Marketer.]

For those who would like to learn more about on-line marketing, I recommend you read, Converstaion Marketing, Common Sense Internet Strategies by Ian Lurie.  Ian does a nice job providing down to earth info and comments regarding on-line marketing strategies.

Ian has also written an excellent book, Converstaion Marketing, An Internet Marketing Strategy That Works.

The article I wanted to draw your attention to is The Internet Marketing List: 59 Things You Should Be Doing But Probably Aren’t

This is a great list of things to check over yourself or things to ask your web designer or SEO person. If they know anything, they should be able to answer and explain to you anything on this list.

As I have always said, knowledge is power. Educate yourself as best you can; that will be your best bet when trying to evaluate someone to help you.

Today begins LocalBizBits second year!  Man time flies. As I look over the first year, I must say blogging has been a  lot of fun (and a lot of work).  I have meet a lot of neat folks and learned quite a bit myself about local search marketing.  So today, I just want to take a minute to thank everyone and let you know that I look forward to this coming year.

Q. Where do you get your listings from, what database/sources?
A. We obtain our listings from several different sources. The bulk of our listings have come from Acxiom, but we do have several other sources from which we obtain listing information. The fact that we are powered by Network Solutions also provides us access to a significant small business client base that can benefit from getting listed on ThinkLocal.com. We have key platform integrations with the Network Solutions account manager and the Search Engine Visibility product which includes a ThinkLocal Enhanced listing as part of the package.

Q. When I searched for my business, could not find it, why?
A. In order to be found within our listings you would have to either be included in the Acxiom database or opted into a ThinkLocal listing directly from our site or through some of our other submission channels with Network Solutions. Right now we provide two primary methods of finding business listings. We have a keyword search for users to enter in phrases like ‘pizza’ or ‘lawyers’ and get a set of results back based off of our algorithm. Our second type of search is the business name search that allows you to search for specific businesses if you are already familiar with their name.

We have some exciting new developments that will be released in the next month. We are focusing on the presentation of all of the local information that we have and putting it together in a much more user friendly manner. Our homepage, search results, and business profile pages will all have new designs and layouts that are geared towards usability and ensuring we are highlighting the information people come to look for from our site. The search results page in particular will have a cleaner look while at the same time offering users more functionality for finding the business information they are looking for. It will be easier than it ever was before to find local business information using our website. So stay tuned to the site over the next month, we will be rolling out some exciting changes in April.

Q. Why should a small business use ThinkLocal?
A. A small business should use ThinkLocal as piece of their overall, online marketing puzzle. Getting listed on our website isn’t going to be the end all marketing solution for your small business, but it does play an important role in increasing your online visibility. Driving traffic and getting more eyes to your business information is essential in helping your business to succeed. The level of targeting that you can achieve through local search and local business listings, such as the options we have on ThinkLocal, provides small businesses with a captive audience who is more likely to convert into a phone call, a store visit, or even a sale. Moreover, our clients have access to statistic reports that show how many times their business listing is being viewed by our users. Plus, for those with Enhanced listings, we give them additional reports on how many clicks their listing received as well as what keywords brought up their listing. That type of information can help any business determine what phrases they should target to drive the most relevant visitors to their business.

In addition, a business listing on our site is a great way for brick and mortar businesses to take that first step to having an online presence. The majority of small businesses do not have a significant online presence, if one at all. Signing up for one of our Standard or Enhanced listings and customizing your business profile page is a simple way for these businesses to start exploring the online space and hopefully get leads to grow their business. Being powered by Network Solutions also sets us apart from nearly ever other local search because we have all of the end to end solutions to help small businesses get online. Getting a business listing on ThinkLocal is an important step, but our small business clients can also benefit from the online solutions we offer whether it is a domain name, website hosting, design, or online marketing.

Q. Where do you see local search going?
A. Local search is an exciting space right now and will continue to be in the forefront of where search is heading. When the internet started, it was thought of as a means to access and communicate information all over the world. While we still have that ability, people now are using the power of the internet to see what is going on in their environment, where they live. More and more people will want instant access to the businesses, events, weather, and other happenings in their local area. And with the increasing mobile device capabilities, that instant access is becoming more widespread than ever. As a result, the importance of quality local search will only continue to grow and play a role in the way our society and business behaves.

Thanks for your time Julia.