Local Biz Bits
Local Search Marketing Information for Small Business

Just got done talking with my good friend Nick Stamoulis over at Brick Marketing about a new service his company has set up–Local Search Engine Marketing Submission Service.

I have worked with Nick; he and his company do fine work. In addition to Brick Marketing, Nick runs a number of informative marketing blogs (see below).

As I am always looking for new info and services dedicated to local search, I decided to quiz Nick on the new service:

Q.  Could you tell my readers a bit about you and Brick Marketing?
A.  Actually everything you need to know is on the site  :o)

Q.  What is your new local service?
A.  Our service helps small businesses save time and money by letting us get their business listed in 7 top local search engines. Then each month we re-submit their site to these engines and make sure they remain listed in each of these local search engines.

Q.  Why do you think local search marketing is important for a small business?
A.  It is very important because local search marketing is much more cost effective than traditional offline local marketing and advertising.

Q.  Where do you see local search going in the near future?
A.  The future of local search engine marketing is a full intergration of social marketing and web 2.0+ features including the customer review systems that many local website currently have.

Q.  You mention to me, a special for the LocalBizBits readers?
A.  Yes I did, we can give your readers, when they sign up, 1 month for free. They can contact me for details.

Thanks Nick. Getting your website listed in the local search engines should be your top priority. So if you want some help, free feel to contact Nick and his crew at Brick Marketing.

Click here for the official press release on this service.

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Nick’s blogs:
Search Engine Optimization Journal
Local Advertising Journal
Pay Per Click Journal
Social Marketing Journal
Blog Marketing Journal
Email Marketing Journal
Online Publicity Journal

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.