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

A fictional biography is a synthesized description of a typical or ideal target audience who sees and responds to your marketing. For example, a company targeting a term like “Orlando car repair” might describe their typical or ideal target audience like this:

“Our ideal audience is a vehicle owner located in Orlando proper or within fifty miles of the city. They own a popular domestic or import vehicle that is no more than 10 years old and consider it to be a valuable asset and their second biggest investment (next to their home). Although they may or may not have a lot of discretionary income, they see their vehicle as a critical part of their lives and are willing to spend money to maintain it. They seek our services for repairs and for regular preventive maintenance. Most importantly, they live in or near Orlando and search for ‘Orland car repair’ when they need our services.”

A fictional bio, then, helps you to identify important elements in your marketing so you can adjust it and target it more effectively. In the example above, the marketer might note that the age of the car could become a modifier in a search. So they might research to see how often someone searches for “Orlando car repair” versus “Orland new car repair”, for example.

First, you need to apply “pull” techniques inside your website to attract local searchers to your site. These “pull” techniques might include:

• Keyword optimization
• Alt tags
• Compelling local content

Second, you need to apply “push” techniques outside of your website – at other marketing locations, for example – to drive people to your site. These “push” techniques might include:

• Article distribution
• Press releases
• Google AdWords
• Videos posted on YouTube
• Appearance on Google Maps

When it comes to online marketing, there isn’t one strategy that is more important than another. They are both equally critical to ensure that you will search when someone types in your service plus your local target market.

When creating a search engine marketing plan, be sure to include both onsite “pull” techniques and offsite “push” techniques to appear in the search engine listings you’d like to target.

And as you do this, be sure that it doesn’t replace the offline marketing you are currently doing. If you use print or display marketing, billboards, or networking, those things should continue. Rather, your online push and pull local internet marketing should enhance – not replace – your current marketing practices.

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.

2. Build a free site using Google Sites. Yes, you’re not going to use this free site as your own business site. But why not create one that talks to your customers about their needs (and subtly promotes your organization through backlinks or a “brought-to-you-by” notice.

3. Sign up at Google’s Local Business Center. You can create and manage information about your site, locate your business on a map, and add information and coupons there for users to find. You’ll also be able to track online searches and other analytics about your business. (Click here and watch the video).

These three strategies are free and can profoundly impact the traffic that arrives at your website… and at your front door.

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

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.

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.