Welcome to the Local Marketing Industry Weekly Update. This presentation is brought to you as part of the Local Marketing Source professional development series for the local marketing industry. (Note: This is an audio presentation so turn up the volume on your speakers)

Join the discussion at Local Biz Builders: www.localbizbuilders.com

Welcome to the Local Marketing Industry Weekly Update. This presentation is brought to you as part of the Local Marketing Source professional development series for the local marketing industry. (Note: This is an audio presentation so turn up the volume on your speakers)

Join the discussion at Local Biz Builders: www.localbizbuilders.com

Welcome to the Local Marketing Source Weekly Update. This presentation is brought to you as part of the Local Marketing Source professional development series for the local marketing industry. (Note: This is an audio presentation so turn up the volume on your speakers)

Join the discussion at Local Biz Builders: www.localbizbuilders.com

Welcome to the Local Marketing Source Weekly Update. This presentation is brought to you as part of the Local Marketing Source professional development series for the local marketing industry. (Note: This is an audio presentation so turn up the volume on your speakers)

Join the discussion at Local Biz Builders: www.localbizbuilders.com

When you’re marketing a small business online, one of the most important steps that you take in putting together a marketing campaign will be choosing the right keywords. Small business search engine marketing is all about targeting the right keywords, because if you get that step right, you can help to bring in the right kind of qualified traffic to the website.

Of course, when picking keywords for any website, keyword research is where it all begins. When you first are preparing to promote a new site, you need to dig out the keyword tools like Google’s External Keyword Tool and start doing some research. You want to find keywords that are related to the industry but which are specific enough that there aren’t hundreds of thousands of searches for them monthly, or the competition will be far too high to rank highly. You want to find the terms that you think that you can reasonably expect to rank for in a reasonable amount of time.

Another important part of keyword research is looking into what keywords the competition might be using. You can do this in part by just looking at their site and going through some of their online marketing materials, but there are also some keyword research tools that are designed specifically to investigate what keywords the competition is using. This might give you some inspiration for your own keyword choice. You could try to directly compete with them on those keywords, or instead focus on appropriate volume keywords that your closest competitor is not paying much attention to yet.

It’s important when doing your keyword selection that you remember to focus on long tail keywords as well as shorter key phrases. Long tail key phrases are the phrases that people might search for that are four or more words long, instead of the usual one or two that most people put into the search engines. The reason that these can be good to focus on is because people who search with a long tail key phrase tend to have something very specific in mind that they are looking for. If you can rank highly for that key phrase and they visit your site, there is a good chance that they will be a highly qualified visitor.

Of course, when focusing on long tail key phrase, you should also focus on long tail key phrases that incorporate local search terms. This means targeting some of your SEO efforts on keywords that include the location of the store that you are promoting. These keywords can be very specific, but there is still a good reason to target them. As with all SEO efforts, the ultimate goal is quality qualified traffic. This means that the person that clicks the link is someone that would actually potentially buy a product from that company.

The concept of qualified traffic is something to always keep in mind when you are selecting keywords for any business. Basically, unless a person is ultimately a potential customer, you don’t stand to gain much by having them visit the website. So, in the case of a local business, especially one that only sells products through their physical store, there is not much to gain by attracting searchers from the web at large. However, attracting visitors from the local area can be very valuable. By focusing your keywords on local search terms, you can help ensure that everyone that ends up clicking through to the site either lives or is currently close enough to the store to actually walk in and make a purchase. This is a strategic way to search engine optimize a site for small business.

In the world of online marketing, not all businesses are created equal.  When it comes to marketing to small businesses, your SEO and local online marketing strategies will differ from business to business. A lot of this is dependent on whether the business offers a product or service.  If the business offers a service, the focus of the online marketing campaign will be geared more towards the review type strategy, where as those offering physical products will have an online campaign that is a little more complex and diversified.

With service based small companies, it is more common for customers to patronize local businesses as most services cannot be offered from long distances.  This is where the customer review strategy comes in to play. When a customer is researching companies locally, they want to know that the business is not only competent, but offers the best value for the money.  This is very simple to do by allowing customers an avenue with which to provide positive feedback. This feedback can then be converted to reviews that can then be published online.  The bottom line is, these reviews will make the small business name stand out in the crowd and sets it apart as the premiere business for a particular industry.

Local businesses offering physical products however, have more competition. Many products can be purchased online with the customer never having to leave the house. This requires the online campaign to have a little more focus. Often, this requires the local business to offer something of value that precludes the customer from purchasing online.  In most cases big name products are everywhere and the customer is inundated with offers.  A local business could use the review strategy to set themselves apart, but in the case of most physical products, consumers are looking for the best value.  This is where local online marketing becomes a bit more complex with the implementation of an online store.

An online store allows the small business owner to compete with the big boys on a smaller scale. While large retailers have a large catalog of products, small local businesses would do best to focus on a specific product or niche within their industry.  It’s easier to achieve rankings for specific products or niches than a generalized category that would cause the small business to compete with sites such as Amazon, Best Buy or Wal-Mart.  These large retailers are trusted names and it’s difficult to compete with them for the customer’s business.  By presenting the local business as an authority in an industry, a consumer might be more likely buy from them based on knowledge and experience.  Yes, they can buy that particular fishing pole at Wal-Mart, but is the Wal-Mart associate going to know anything about bass fishing and what bait would work best?

As with any market, research is essential in qualifying a small business for online marketing.  Knowing the customer behavior in any given industry will help you gear the online local marketing in a direction that benefits the small business. Having a successful marketing campaign involves a lot more than putting up a website and hoping customers find it. A good way to find out where customers go is to browse forums that customers in the industry frequent.  Customers will say what they want and where they go to get it. This helps you when marketing to small business for online campaigns. You know exactly who buys these products and how to get them to buy from your client.

When meeting with prospective clients, do your research first. This way you can approach the meeting with the best strategy for marketing the business online. This allows you to establish realistic expectations on the part of the customer, building their confidence in your online marketing abilities. Qualifying the business for online marketing insures a positive outcome in the future.

Watch Local Internet Marketing blow up

I’m writing this post while visiting my parent’s home in Canada for the Christmas holidays in 2010.  While I’m reflecting on our accomplishments of 2010, our vision for 2011, the changes in 2010 and what the future might hold, I was surprised when my father picked up the phone book to find the phone number to a local establishment to order some grub.  I let him find the right page in the yellow pages before I opened my computer screen, and the race was on. It took me less than 15 seconds to open my computer, navigate to Google.com and type in the name of the business, hit enter and read the information out loud before he could find the listing on the page, that he was already on.

Why in 2010, someone who was managing a Computerland retail chain in 1984, owns a brand spankin new iMac and MacBook Pro, an XP laptop and XP desktop and a windows 7 laptop….still uses the darn phone book!  Oh yeah, they’re owners of some fancy wireless devices as well. So the question becomes, why are we moving into 2011, 19 years after the inception of the public Internet, that it’s still so common to use the phone book?  Even worse, why are less than 10% of SME’s in North America adopting Internet Marketing practices? What’s even more surprising, a recent study by BIA/Kelsey reveals that, get this

97% of consumers research products online

Sure, these are people that are already online, but 77% of Americans are online, increasing at an average rate of almost 5% increase year over year for the last 10 years. Yet it still gets better!  Kelsey has also reported, in 2010, that 90% on local consumers are using search engines (Google has a whooping 66%) 48% use Online Yellow Pages, 42% use comparison shopping and 25% are using vertical websites.

In addition, over the years, consumers are using 7.9 different sources to find information about local products and services! To add to this, the Google-Groupon failed deal of $6 billion left many people wonder what the heck Groupon knew that other’s didn’t, why they’d turn away $6 billion for a two year old company generating $600 million in revenue. What the heck is going on???  Are you seeing what’s going on here?  This reminds me of the milk industry in the early 80′s.  Farmers around the country needed to sell more milk, so they created a demand for calcium.

Still in 2010, most offline business owners are clueless to the opportunities online.

Running into a Google Employee at lunch

They may not be an online business, but their customers are online!  Plain and simple.  There are tremendous opportunities online for SME, small business, local business, brick and mortars, whatever you want to call them. This is definitely a surprise for me though.  Why did we have to wait until 2011 for this to be the top rated trend of 2011 by one of the top leading Search Marketing websites?  yeah, our friends at Search Engine Land rated this.  I would say they are right, by a long shot.

However, as a brick and mortar myself, I reflect back to 6 years ago when I got my first brick and mortar to #1 for a lucrative keyword with a geomod. I mean, concepts like NAPAREX emerged in many local markets quickly even in 2008.  What about 2011?  Well, open up the Yellow Pages in my town in Lake in the Hills, IL and I find two full pages for a local dentist…hmmm, maybe $1500 a month for this ad?  How come if they are reviewed online, searched online and decided upon online, they don’t show up on the first SERP for their top keyword (Dentist) with their Geomods? Bottom line is that local companies are operating in the most dangerous quadrant of the circle of knowledge.

These business owners DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY DON’T KNOW! That is scary!  So what is being done?  Well, let’s consider the behemoth of Internet Marketers…Google!  In mid 2010, the Google Small Business Blog was introduced.

The fourth quarter we saw Google Boost introduced.  We saw the integration of Google Places into the main SERPs.  We saw test after test after test after test in the local SERPs (follow Mike Blumenthals).  We saw Yelp saw a 50% increase in traffic and practically DOUBLED the number of reviews in one year.  We witnessed the previously mentioned company called Groupon, who generated more than $600M in revenue in 2010 (prorated for 12/10).

We saw the introduction of Local Internet Marketing education like Local Marketing Source, Nitro Marketing, Traffic Geyser and IM leadership among several  others emerge.  We saw introductions of new advertising mediums like Google TV in our living rooms, Mobile OS’s skyrockets and smartphone usage exploded past laptop usage among executives!

We learned Google was actually calling local businesses to verify listings!  Google couldn’t even crack the automated local business code and needed to get some human power in to garner the best online database.  To your left, was a Google employee I met on a business trip in Buffalo, when I learned in October 2010 that they were taking pictures of companies on the inside.  Here’s a link to get them to come to your local business.

I could go on with the changes in 2010, but this one is the blatantly obvious move by the 800 pound gorilla as to what is really going on here.  Check this out, our favorite Internet Marketer resorts to direct mail!!!  Google mails 50,000 businesses information about being a favorite place! Alright, so is the picture being painted here?  I hope I’ve provided enough evidence to demonstrate exactly what the message is here.

Local Business don’t yet get it, but the rest of the world does!

For a variety of reasons, many of which could take up a entire post, brick and mortars haven’t yet jumped on.  This is great, adoption or change takes time, right?  Well, this is the perfect storm for local Internet Marketing.  There is no doubt that 2011 and 2012 are going to be massive years for brick and mortars getting online to gain more business.

Oh yeah, aren’t we in the greatest recession of our lifetime?  Isn’t that further motivation for a local company to explore a new avenue of revenue in Q1 2011?

You decide, I’m already convinced.

If you are a local business owner, grab this free report from my marketing agency here.  No Opt-in, direct download!

If you are marketer who aspires to provide these services to local companies, opt-in to grab out free introductory report here!

Useful links related to using Google Places

Link to Google Places account login page.

Link to Google Places User Guide.

Business listings in Google Places must have correct information about physical, local businesses, as they appear in the real world. Adhere to these guidelines for best results.

These are the items you need to comply with to avoid issues with Google such as denial of access, removal of one or all of your listings, being blacklisted from adding future listings, or deletion of your Google Account.

Useful resources from Google for business owners and consultants working with Google Places.

Guide to reporting and correcting incorrect listings and/or data within a listing.

Link to the YouTube channel for Google Places.

Link to the Google Places help form.

Link to known issues with Google Places.

Details and application instructions for getting Google business photos.

Includes hundreds of studies, videos and webinars about local business industries for Mobile and Search

Internet marketing small business techniques are about much more than creating a website and taking it online. You cannot just carefully create a website and expect it to be a success overnight. Creating a successful website requires careful planning and strategic decisions. Without this, your website is almost guaranteed to fail. But this doesn’t mean that you have to give up. With the right planning it is possible to create a website that gathers a great deal of web traffic and leads to successful sales of your products.

Before you worry about marketing strategies, you need to strategically create your website. Begin by thinking of the products you are going to sell or offer on your site. Decide what audience is suited to these products and services, and what you can do to attract these potential customers. You also want to target these customers’ needs in the design of your site.

Don’t just build a website that is based on gimmicks and scams. People may visit your site, but they will quickly leave without making a purchase if they do not trust its legitimacy. Creating a legitimate website that potential customers can trust is the only way to make sure your web traffic leads to purchases on your site. Consumers want to feel like they are buying from a well-established company, and not just some random site on the internet. You want to make your online business seem as legitimate as one with an actual store that you can go to visit.

There are many ways to do this. Provide actual contact information so customers have a way to contact you with questions or concerns. Be upfront about all details of the business, including the payment options, return policies, and shipping costs. Make sure to offer payment methods that are well secured and from trusted companies.

Also consider what it is that you are trying to sell or offer. You have to offer a product that is unique and different from the competitors. If the product isn’t something different, then you should make sure that you at least offer a very competitive price. After you are sure that you have a product that is rock solid and a web site that customers will be willing to shop at, you can begin to implement the internet marketing small business strategies that will lead your business to financial success.

One of the internet marketing small business strategies that has been proven to increase web traffic is search engine optimization. Search engine optimization focuses on incorporating commonly used search terms for your business industry and products into your website. This helps draw customers looking for your product to your site by improving your web site’s ranking with various search engines.

Search engines have a vast influence on the way people navigate through the pages of the internet. It is much easier to type a common phrase into a search engine such as Bing or Google than remember an entire website URL. As a business, you want to research the phrases that people would use to get to a product or site like yours. Incorporating those keywords is a sure fire way to make your site appear higher in search engine results, which will help you draw in more web traffic.

Internet marketing small business strategies, such as SEO optimization, help you to increase the web traffic to your site, but this increased traffic will not lead to sales unless you also have a legitimate website that builds trust with potential customers. Using both of these methods is the best way to guarantee that your site becomes a success.

It is very common for business owners to dismiss the internet. Many people still hold to the old beliefs in marketing, and are convinced that only ads on TV, the Yellow Pages, radio, or print media are valid ways of promoting their business. This couldn’t be further from the truth. What has really happened in the world of marketing is that online small business marketing has actually become the best return on investment option available to a business looking to promote their services. What remains is for more business to realize the opportunities which will become available to them as soon as they consider the internet a valid way to market their services.

There are several ways to convince business owners that the internet is the most advantageous media for them to pursue in terms of their marketing. The first way to do this is by example. It is always important to have access to success stories. When you can point to businesses that have expanded their operations or become more profitable since they started marketing online, it goes a long way to helping convince business owners that they can also profit from online marketing. A business owner should also take the time to talk to peers or colleagues to find out what benefits they have had when they started marketing online. The results will be almost universally the same. Almost every business notices their business pick up once they commit to a proper online marketing effort.

The next way to show a business owner how the internet can work for them is to talk about the ROI which is involved with internet marketing. The cost of marketing and advertising through traditional media is incredibly expensive. Often, the return seen through this type of advertising, especially if a campaign is not maintained long enough, is very low. However, the ROI on internet marketing can be extremely profitable. There have even been studies done which have shown that email marketing is one of the best ROI investments that any company can make in their marketing funnel. When small business owners come to understand this, they start to see why marketing on the internet is something that they need to be strongly considering.

The next step in showing business owners why the internet is a valid means of marketing is actually being able to explain to them what kinds of services they should be paying for or receiving. The reason that many people fear advertising on the internet is because they don’t know exactly what types of services they should be pursuing, and what types of benefits they can expect to see from them. When a business owner starts to understand the value of social networking, social media, local business marketing and search engine optimization, they will start to see why they need to be marketing on the internet.

The final reason that local business owners should consider internet marketing is that the internet is how people find businesses these days. People no longer open up the yellow pages or flip open a newspaper to find a certain type of business. Instead, they pull out their cell phone, punch in a search term into Google, and see what businesses are suggested to them. This trend has been growing more and more over recent years, especially with the huge increases in the use of mobile web technology. The real truth of the matter is that, if a business doesn’t start consider online marketing, they won’t just find it difficult to grow their business, they could actually start to lose business as their competitors find ways to attract customers over the internet.