Local search engine marketing myth #1: Locals don’t search online. Wow, this is a big one. Locals do search online for things that they will later go and buy at the store. Therefore, you need to make sure that you are meeting their online search needs. This trend is going to rise alongside the mobile web because people will search on the go.

Local search engine marketing myth #2: Your competitors can work to achieve the same keywords, too, so what’s the point. This makes some sense. If you want to aggressively target some other kind of brand in the hopes that people will search for that instead, it’s perfectly understandable. However, there is a lot of opportunity in local search right now because consumers are searching locally more often but local businesses haven’t caught up to the demand yet.

Local search engine marketing myth #3: It can be done by the business owner. This is a pervasive myth because small businesses may not have the budget to create big local SEM campaigns. However, SEM isn’t done well simply by buying a book or asking your web-savvy cousin. SEM is best done by a marketing professional with proven experience in it.

I was recently interviewed by Aaron Hoos, a business writer and strategist who also runs a regular Twitter-based networking group called BusinessLunchClub. We spoke about Twitter as a useful tool for local business marketing.

Here is a copy of the transcript of the Twitter-based interview. The tweets are color coded for your convenience.

@AaronHoos: It’s social media week at #BusinessLunchClub. Each day this week, we’ll talk about a social media and your business.

@AaronHoos: We have Jonathan Harr talking to us about using social media to market local business. #blc

@AaronHoos: Jonathan is the founder of http://localsemexperts.com, a company that helps businesses with local internet marketing. #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Hello there, good to be here #blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr Why should businesses use social marketing to reach a local audience? #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos This so called web 2.0 wave provides so many vehicles to make your local presence stand out from the crowd.#blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr How does LOCAL social marketing/networking differ from more conventional social marketing we’re familiar with? #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos With social networking you could be all over the world not really benefiting you locally so you really want to…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos start targeting locally with your social networking time if you have a local small business. #blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr Which social networks do you recommend businesses use for local SEM marketing (and why)? #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Facebook is a huge player to build out a fan page all about your business and link it with your…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos We all know YouTube. YouTube has a huge growing audience of 80M+ monthly people…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Get your video channel out in front of them… #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Use blogspot.com and wordpress.com to build out business blogs by posting relevant content linking…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Twitter of course to build out your local audience and get locals to RT your business affairs and recommendations… #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …another social media network coming into play really big is Google Wave. Use It. #blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr Great! YouTube is on my “must do” list for 2010. And I’m looking forward to using GoogleWave, too. #blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr Can you talk about how to make specific sites effective locally? #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Yes, I can talk about them…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Twitter: Establish local followers, practice reciprocity, in return establish local network of tweeters in city…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …use wefollow.com,chirpcity.com to find locals …#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Facebook: Establish facebook business fan page for product or services, make local friends and invite to fan page…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …promote fan page thru bookmarking…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …Linked In: Establish profile at linkedin.com and invite your friends, clients, etc… to help build your…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …with social proof – testimonial, reviews, feedback, your experience, etc…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …YouTube: Setup your business channel with videos of product/service demonstrations…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …connect videos to facebook fanpage, and your websites as well as web 2.0 properties. #blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr That was a great list. Very practical… and all within 140 characters. Nice! #blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr How do you build an audience of LOCAL followers/friends/etc.? #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Just like in real life you want to get to know your followers by simple conversation and providing news,…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos info, and fun entertaining chat without a sales pitch all the time, mix it up. They will like you for this.#blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr How do you increase foot traffic to your business with local social marketing/networking? #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos You want to promote your business thru content, audio, and video targeted locally…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …using the different web 2.0 properties you see all over the place online.#blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr When you coach people on local social media, what questions do you answer/challenges do you encounter? #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos I always a get the question “how do you do that?” It’s a lot of work especially maintaining it, and you have to…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …do it right otherwise it could backfire. You don’t want to be or look spammy with…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …these sites or Google will knock you down for it. I find a lot of business…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos …owners don’t have a grasp on marketing and its just too overwhelming to maintain.#blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr What best practices do you recommend business owners apply to local social marketing/networking? #blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Learn it and take it one step at a time. Don’t rush into it. Just apply and do it and don’t spam!…#blc

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Be genuine, true, and transparent with your followers. If you will reciprocate they will too.#blc

@AaronHoos: @jonathanharr Thank you for spending time with us today. Your local social marketing insights were extremely valuable. #blc

@AaronHoos: Thanks to those who tuned in for today’s #BusinessLunchClub interview. Be sure to visit @jonathanharr at http://localsemexperts.com

@jonathanharr: @AaronHoos Thank you Aaron, Glad to help out. #blc

You can read the article here but I will summarize it for you:

Open Source Yellow Pages. In his article, he talks about how Twitter has the potential to become the clearinghouse for local Yellow Pages information, replacing current options.

Google will continue to grow. Google is going local and Andrew believes that they will increase their emphasis on local businesses this year.

Demand Media Strategy. This is where content no longer becomes arbitrarily created but strategically created and written. A colleague of mine who is a business writer does exactly this kind of work — content strategy — and is noticing a trend toward it as well.

Local guides. Shotland derides this method but I think it has legs for a while and will be the advantage for first movers.

Small Business SEO budgets will increase. This is good to hear. Businesses need to market themselves and invest in doing that successfully.

Want to read more about local search engine marketing trends? You can read all eleven plus additional insights here.

Want to read more about online marketing trends and how local fits in?
SEO Trends to Watch for In 2010
Predictions for the Changing Local Search Landscape in 2010

Marketing with this “[your city] [your service]” technique has some advantages: It’s faster to achiever higher search engine ranking placement and it costs less because you’re not competing against larger multinational conglomerations with huge search engine optimization budgets.

But there’s something else that is important to consider about the psychology of searchers who are searching locally. Let’s say you are thinking of buying a car. You type in “car” into a search engine and see what comes up. Maybe you narrow it down by manufacturer.

So, let’s say that as you do your research you go from searching for “car” to searching for “midsize car” to searching amongst “general motors”, “ford”, “dodge”.

This is all at the conceptual level; the research level. What happens when you’re ready to buy? You don’t just type in “Ford dealership”.

No. If you live in Atlanta, you type in “Atlanta Ford dealership”… Notice that’s the [your city] [service] search.

So, the psychology of people search locally is this: They are ready to buy.

The web is a powerful research tool, but the terms used to research are general and broad. Searchers hit credible, authoritative sites to get more information. And when they’re ready to buy? They add a local modifier and look to a solution provider in their neighborhood.

• Chicago Pizza
• Cincinnati Wine store
• St. Louis Dairy
• Bethesda Chiropractor
• Bethesda Maryland Lawyer
• etc…

One of the ways to do this is to create  search engine optimized anchor text. Here’s the difference between the most frequent form of links and the superior SEO anchor text:

Let’s say you’re me. And let’s say that I’m marketing on other sites (i.e., forums, blogs, or article distribution sites). When I have the chance to include a link back to my site, I could simply link like this:

Visit LocalSEMExperts.com

When search engines see this, they think: “oh, that LocalSEMExperts.com word points to http://localsemexperts.com”… and so my site gets a “vote” which contributes to my search engine ranking. That’s what most businesses do when linking back to their site.

BUT if I instead linked my website address to the phrase:

Visit the Maryland Internet Marketing Agency

… then I get the “vote” for the link back to my site PLUS the search engines associate my website with “Maryland Internet Marketing Agency” and I can begin to appear for that phrase, too. So next time someone types “maryland internet marketing” or “maryland marketing agency” into the search engines, I’m more likely to appear.

These custom anchor texts give your local business a very powerful way to target your business to your local clients. So, identify a few keyword phrases you want to be searchable for (usually your locale and a main keyword) and create anchor links with those as I’ve shown above.

If you don’t want to do this work yourself, please see our Local Domination Service Packages

1. Domain names… lots of domain names. McCarthy doesn’t say that having lots of domain names is a bad thing. In fact, it’s a good thing. But what you do with those domain names is the real key.

2. Spider blocking. I had no idea that this was as common as McCarthy suggests. Apparently, lots of businesses accidentally keep their website from being indexed because of some incorrect code. Easy to fix (and devastating if you don’t).

3. Expiring domains. This one makes sense. Google tends to rank sites higher if their domain name or SSL registration is set to expire soon. The thinking is: The longer a website is registered for, the better.

Local businesses can benefit by carefully navigating these SEO pitfalls. Read McCarthy’s article to find out how to make sure that local buyers can find you.

Here is a great example of someone who did just that with the phrase “video SEO in Google”.

Why is video such a great opportunity? Search engines are designed to search written content — words — for clues to index things. In a page of 500 words, the search engine might make its indexing decision by looking for keywords that amount to only 2% to 4% of the total words on the page.

But a video can’t be searched in the same way. So search engines rely on far less information (through descriptions, tags, and perhaps outgoing links) to indicate what the video is about. The density of information is far greater. It’s like fishing with dynamite instead of a hook and worm.

What does for local businesses? You may not want to search for a broad term like “restaurant” or “plumber”. But you can still search pretty high with far more local terms — like “Miami plumber” or “Cincinnati restaurant” — using video.

Video gives good SEO benefits, but it also is a nice way to give a personal touch (which is one major reason why people buy from local vendors).

If you don’t want to do this work yourself, please see our Local Domination Packages.

Focus on Local Markets
“When Apple first introduced the iPhone, Matt McCormick, who runs a phone-repair business called Jet City Devices, saw an opportunity. Knowing that the iPhone’s screen was prone to damage, Mr. McCormick began bidding on keywords like “iphone repairs” and waited for business to flood in. A problem soon became apparent: while his site was swamped with traffic, very few people were actually mailing in their phones to get them repaired. But, after changing his campaign to run only on searches initiated within 50 miles of Chicago and Seattle — cities where he had physical shops where customers could drop their phones off in person — Mr. McCormick says his conversion rate jumped to 10 percent: ‘If you’re in business in only one or two cities, then Google’s localization feature can save you a ton of money, reduce AdWords competition, and bring great traffic.’“

(From the New York Times article “Real Life Lessons in Using Google AdWords“).

This is a great example of local Google AdWords in action. A broad category like “iphone repairs” would get all kinds of clicks from everywhere. But a narrower target — through the use of a local keyword ”bethesda iphone repairs” – would lower the number of clicks but dramatically increase the conversion rate. In short, adding a local modifier to your Google AdWords can reduce your costs but increase your revenue.

Check out out our pay per click search ad services and local organic search domination services.

How much time do you spend in social media sites? A few minutes a day? A few hours a day? What about your kids and their friends? What about your customers?

It’s possible that you’re the rare exception to the rule. Many peole “confess” to spending hours online, primarily in social media engagement via Twitter or Facebook. Internet usage has skyrocketed, according to a study published in May 2009 by the Center for Media Research.

Some stats from this study include:

• There are 87% more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883% more time devoted to those sites.
• In the last year, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73%

And Charles Buchwalter, Senior Vice President of Research and Analytics at Nielsen Online says: “The Internet remains a place of continuing innovation, with users finding new ways to integrate online usage into their daily lives.“

In other words, savvy businesses are using video and social networking and other internet marketing techniques to reach out to their customers where they are spending their time: online… and, specifically, in video and social media sites.

Neilsen also concluded that: “Given the increased focus on digital marketing [...] the Internet’s share of commerce will continue to rise.” For offline businesses that are ignoring the online marketing opportunities, this is a scary thought. Internet commerce is already huge and stealing a large piece of local business revenue… and it’s expected to grow.

Is your business marketing where your customers are spending time?

If not contact us now to get started today.

Local businesses need to market themselves and they spend a lot of money on offline marketing to do so. Sadly, these “offline-marketing-only” businesses have missed the boat and they are being eclipsed by their larger online competitors.

According to a recent study by online marketing firm Internet-Engine, offline businesses have not kept up with the shifting needs of their customers.

This excerpt, from the CEO of Internet-Engine, says it all: “On-line retailers have developed and maintained a dominant presence in search marketing… To put this in perspective, when a shopper does a search on the Internet, he or she will find three listings from on-line retailers for every one listing from a traditional retailer. I find it very surprising that brick and mortar retailers have not invested more dollars in search marketing, since e-commerce sales have grown 28% since 2006 (according to comScore) while total retail sales have grown by only 3% over the same time period.“

With more and more shoppers starting their shopping “process” online, it’s no wonder that they are turning to online stores who outnumber local stores by 3-to-1.

Your organic local marketing domination today.