1. Pilgrims  (Tim Dineen)

2. Metropolitans  (me)

3. The LinkBaiters

4. LongDistance (Steven Meyers)

5. Boston Hard Heads (Ben Saren)

6.Spammers (Matt Crouch)

 

1.Pilgrims 75.5  (Tim Dineen)
2.Dial 9 4 LongDistance 75 (Steven Meyers)
3.Metropolitans 73.5 (me)
4.The LinkBaiters 71
5.Boston Hard Heads 56 (Ben Saren)
6.Spammers 27 (Matt Crouch)

 

As a small business myself, I am dealing with the current economic situation as best I can. It is pretty tough right now for small businesses in many parts of the US.

“I am holding off right now”

“We are downsizing”

“We are no longer keeping our website”

“Let”s hold off for a while”

I have been hearing these and many other statements for months and clients locally have been dropping like flies.  This is good and bad. I have gotten rid of some “more difficult” clients but finding news ones has been a challenge.

Online marketing is still important and should not be overlooked. Many small business (that I have worked with) are cutting back because they do not feel Local Internet Marketing is worth worth the investment or they have not seen the returns yet. Local online marketing can be very beneficial but one has to evaluate the current market where you are at and create realistic goals for your area. To succeed, you need to specialize or customize to fit your needs.

Despite the tough times, my recommendation to small business is still the same. Get online, even partially and stay there. The economy has to get better some day and when it does you want to be there!  So if anyone needs local online marketing assistance, let me know, I got time.   LOL Hope everyone has a great day

 

-I have added a new page to include my Quora feed on local search topics that I am following. Quora is a Q&A site where you can find out what other think or are thinking about any topic. I have only been following Quora for a short time but have found it very interesting.

-I have renamed the Twitter feed page on the site

-I have added a sidebar link to the Local Search Marketing Daily paper

-Planning on continuing the weekly update of cool articles

-Hope to do some live Twitter interviews in the coming months.

-If there is anything you would like to see on the site, let me know.

Have a great day!

 

Just found this huge article from Matt McGee: The Big List: 168 Marketing Trends, Predictions & Resolutions For 2011 so if you have the time, there are ton of articles for you!  LOL

No one can really say what is going to happen. We can look at trends and concepts that have been introduced but in the end, no one really knows. Following the trends from 2010 and where were are today (Jan 2011), here is what I see continuing to grow:

1. Local search, no I am not bias, the facts speak for themselves
2. Mobile, iPhone to Verizon? Android based phones share of market growing…this will only get bigger
3. Social, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquares etc. These are all services or area that small business need to find a way to tap into.

Here are some articles I liked:

5 Predictions for Mobile in 2011

5 Social Marketing Predictions For 2011

2011: The Year of Facebook

Ten Search Marketing Hot Spots To Watch In 2011

What Is Ahead For Online Marketers In 2011: Search Engine Optimization Search Engine Optimization- number of SEO  guys giving 2 cents.

What about local search predictions? That is for another post….

 

Competitive Analysis for Local Search by Mary Bowling

Competitive Analysis for Local Search–Part 2

Competitive Analysis for Local Search-Part 3

The Journey From Clicks To Conversion: Local Search Marketing, Part 1 by Jeremy Burton

The Journey From Clicks To Conversion: Local Search Marketing, Pt 2

The Journey From Clicks To Conversion: Local Search Marketing, Part 3

The Journey From Clicks To Conversion: Local Search Marketing, Part 4

Finally a nice podcast: Local Search Growth Phenomenon over at Webmaster Radio

 

1. Metropolitans -  ME! 85

2. Pilgrims – Tim Dineen 84.5

3. Canseco Link Juice – Gib Olander 82.5

4. The Ripper’s  – Todd Salerno 81

5. Dial9 4LongDistance – Steven Meyers 72

6. Boston Hard Heads – Ben Saren 58

7. Moustache Rides – Bob Leland 39

8. Rankers – Matt Crouch 38

If you are curious to see how the rankings were throughout the year, here you go.  (Anyone want to do some fantasy basketball?)

 

Do I have any Android phone users out there?

Well I have recently seen the light and switched from Blackberry to Android and what a difference. Got the Droid X and holy cow..it is a great phone. What makes it so good?….the Android OS. I am amazed at the number of apps out there. Now Blackberry is not bad but for what I wanted and needed to do on the phone, Android is the answer. (Yes I know the iPhone i out there but my carrier does not have it and switching carriers was not an option.)

With that in mind, myself and my good buddy Ben from Sparatan IT Solutions have set up a new site, BizOnAndroid. This site is going to be a clearinghouse of information, resources, and commentary on Android based smartphones and will have the small business owner in mind.

I use my phone a lot for my business (as I assume many of you do too) and things we want to cover is how small business owner can/should use their Android smartphone to build/manage/grow their small business. I, of course will be covering topics of local mobile marketing!  There is will app reviews and accessories reviews too. LOL. In the short time I have had the phone, I have discovered a lot of neat things and thought it was worth my time to share them.

We are excited about this new site, so if interests you, head on over to BizOnAndroid.com, follow us on Twitter @bizonandroid, Facebook or our RSS feed. Have a great weekend!

 

Who Will Own Local Data? Search Engines, Yellow Pages, Aggegators Or Social Media?

Google Announces Full Support for Microformats in Local

Universal and Local Search over at Webmaster Radio – Interview with Mike Belasco

Advertising Opportunities Abound In Hyper-Local News & Video

New Mobile Possibilities Force Marketers to Check Into Local

Small Businesses Expect Social Media Usage to Become Profitable

Just as an FYI: I have added a new plugin here, the Evernote plugin (it is the green elephant). I have been using Evernote for some time and really like it. It is an easy way to clip and save articles, links, web pages etc. If you have not tried the service, give it a shot.

 

For example, mainstream keyword research all seemed to miss the most simple of SEO techniques which is to build on your site’s successes …

So if your site is successful for the single (or exact) keyword pizza delivery then it can easily be successful for thousands of other keywords containing pizza delivery including pizza delivery boston and pizza delivery chicago.

These keywords are part of the pizza delivery keyword niche – all keywords containing pizza delivery.

There was another problem with targeting single keywords. The keywords most sites might target could often bring no more than a handful of sales at best. Worse, some keywords on their own will bring your site very few visits. Or just one visit!

In fact, it is normal for 80% of the keywords that bring traffic to your site to bring just one visit each. This might be tens or even hundreds of thousands of keywords. And no person or company can separately work on so many keywords.

So I quickly learned to find a site’s most successful keywords and then target those keywords’ niches.

Do this and you soon discover there is an almost unlimited number of different keywords in any keyword niche …

… you’ll have discovered the long tail of search marketing.

Success with one problem

Over the years I developed an SEO process to find and target keyword niches and then exploit the long tail. It has been incredibly successful, but the research required for each site took a long time and it had to keep being repeated. I needed a tool to help me …

… I dreamed of a keyword research tool that would do the job quickly.

Wordtracker Strategizer is the solution

I’ve worked with Wordtracker to build that tool. You can start using it today.

The new tool is called Wordtracker Strategizer. The ‘Strat’ automates the successful process for search engine optimization (SEO) I’ve developed and refined over the last 10 years.

You can read more about Wordtracker Strategizer and try it for a month for just one dollar at:  http://strategizer.wordtracker.com/introduction.

See you at the top.

Mark Nunney
Wordtracker Strategizer Team

Sign up now! http://strategizer.wordtracker.com/introduction