Local Biz Bits
Local Search Marketing Information for Small Business

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.

Reading the post, Anatomy & Optimization Of A Local Business Profile, got me thinking about business profiles again. I had previously mentioned them  here.  Also Brian Wool, wrote about them in his post, Is One Good Web Site Enough for a Local Business?

Brian said: “I don’t think these profile pages are meant to — or can — replace a well-built Web site. But for some business categories, where in-depth product details, services, or inventory are necessary, profile pages can help drive traffic.”

Chris also expressed this sediment, “Optimizing business listings and profiles can make all the difference in enabling potential customers to find you and in selecting you from your pack of competitors.”

They, as do I, think small businesses should take advantage of using local business profiles. It probably should not be your primary web presence but consider it an easy way to get a link to your web site.

Today, I wanted to mention there are tons of business directories on-line and I do not think you should blindly start listing in every one you find. Your time is valuable so choose wisely. Some directories do a good job listing buisnesses, while others are useless.

If you decide to do this yourself, use the article by Chris as a guide. Look to see what options the directory offers, look to see how much advertising is present, how SEO friendly it might be, and also to see if they submit or have partnerships with the search engines/IYP/directories.  A couple that I like and have used are CitySquares, ShowMeLocal, Superpages and of course Yahoo and Google.

There are many directories out there being run by those who know nothing about marketing, local search, etc.  Why? There are many companies/programs that will sell you (for a monthly fee) your own local directory. “a great home business opportunity”, “after a small set up fee and a low monthly fee and you keep 100% of all sales!”  Please! Those I have seen look cheap,  very “canned”, and definitely are not search engine friendly. I won’t name names, but you should be able to tell them apart. 

If you need some help with your local business profile, please feel free to contact me.
 

There are three articles I would like you to read (if you have not yet).

Understanding the Needs of a Searcher by Gareth Davies over at Marketing Pilgram. This is a summary of a presentation given at SMX London in 2007. It is a long article but has some great info and definitely will make you think (no pun intended).  It covered some psychological theory to help explain the psyche of a searcher.

Smooth Sea Never Made a Skilled Mariner by Bill Slawski.

“As a small business owner, the web holds a lot of challenges that if navigated successfully may yield some treasures.”

Bill covers a number of topics that should be of interest to small business owners today- mobile search, social networking, and audio podcasts. These are all areas that a small business can use to make themselves stand out from the crowd.  I really like how Bill ended the post:

“..there are no clear guidelines or maps leading to success in these relatively uncharted waters.  Like any business opportunity, it can pay off doing some research, and mapping out possible directions before committing too much time and resources into any one effort. In facing these challenges, small businesses can as easily be trailblazers as large businesses.”

Yes, small businesses can compete and set the curve like the big guys, if they put their mind to it!

The final article is  Anatomy & Optimization Of A Local Business Profile by Chris Silver Smith.

“Optimizing business listings and profiles can make all the difference in enabling potential customers to find you and in selecting you from your pack of competitors.”

A great listing of the potential the small business profile can have. When I build user profiles for small businesses, I basically go through the list Chris presented here. I have a bit more to say about the business profile but I will comment in the next post.

Why Small Businesses Don’t Invest in Online Marketing by Janet Meiners was a great article at MarketingPilgram last week. Before I read the article, I took a guess on what it would say. You will have to trust me, but my answers were pretty close to those in the  article.

Janet says education is the key to getting small businesses moving. Hey that is what this blog is about!  Local search marketing is all about getting listed and optimized for your neck of the woods. Please if you have questions, let me know and I will address them here.

Small Business Guide to Optimizing Universal Search, by Lee Odden is another great article for those who want to learn more about the search engines. Lee defines what universal search is and how it works on a number of search engines.

He goes through the various aspects or angles small business can use to promote themselves and increase their visibility. Lee wraps up his article:

“The Work Will Never End But the Benefits Are Long Term
As long as there are search engines, there will be some kind of optimization for improving search engine visibility. What small business marketers need to consider are all the digital assets they have to work with and enable content creation, optimization and promotion processes to give both search engines and customers the information they’re looking for in the formats they’ll respond to.”

Yes there is some work involved smal business owner, but it is worth it. If you need help, contact a professional but it is important that you do something! You can’t win if you are not in the game…Ok I am off of my soapbox now

Small Business Branding Part 2 by Stoney deGeyter is out.  I spoke about part 1 last week.

Stoney says branding does not need to cost a lot and small businesses can and should do some branding. It might take a little bit of planning but it can be very productive for the small business.

“I’m fully convinced that there isn’t a company in the world, regardless of size, that shouldn’t be working on branding itself in some way or another. Branding for your web site or company name is usually the easiest thing to do as most web sites inherently come to the top of the results for those types of searches…”

Overall  a good set of articles.

Increase The Visibility of Your Small Business Web Site on a Shoestring Budget is by Dave Wallace and is a good article for those who want to do things themselves. Has a nice list of inexpensive resources.  Dave concludes his article:

“Keep in mind that as your business grows, you will probably want to increase your budget to advertise in productive ways so as to keep the momentum going. I don’t recommend operating on a shoestring budget forever but sometimes that is necessary to get things rolling along.”

I agree, this is one of the mistakes many small business make- they do not increase their advertising budget as needed. The old saying goes “It takes money to make money.”

The Power of Branding for Small Business Part 1, is an excellent article by Stoney deGeyter. The term branding is a common one when speaking of marketing any size business.  If you are not sure that means or you think you are too small a business to brand, read this article.

“Branding isn’t just for big companies any more. With the internet and search, it’s become easier and cheaper to for companies to brand their names in front of their target audience. “

Having a marketing plan no matter where you are doing it (either on-line or off-line) is important. You simply just can “wing it” these days.  Hopefully through my posts here, you have gotten this message. If not, I found two articles that summarize it nicely.

Kevin Stirtz, wrote a nice general article at SiteProNews, Top 10 Tips for Using Web 2.0 to Promote Your Business  commenting on many of the things we have discussed here.

The second article I found was by Chuck Aikens The 4 Features of a Local Search Marketing Plan. Again a good article providing some more specifics on marketing in the local search arena. Local search optimization, paid search, link building, and social networking are the main points Chuck covered.

Update 8/7/07: Forgot to include a link to this article: 11 Local Search Resources for Your Local Search Marketing Campaigns