Check Your Local Search Rating

So I spent an exciting Saturday night researching new methods for optimizing local search and found a site that gives you a local search ranking! Very exciting stuff for someone who makes his living in local search.

Getlisted.org has a simple interface that allows you to enter in your business name and your zip code.

So I plugged in my own information "Business Local Listings" and my zip code "33606" and I got the following:

So I only have a 45% ranking because, although I've done my Google listing, I haven't yet sat down to do my Yahoo, MSN Live, or Best of the Web listings. It'll come as no surprise to a lot of business owners that I neglect my own company to take care of my customers.

You can even drill down further to see exactly what you need to do to increase your ranking, from adding photos to getting citations on other websites to getting reviews. All things that, coincidentally, I can help you with. Surprisingly, there's no mention of video, and I can't stress the importance of video enough.

So how do you rank? If you're not happy, I can help you out with it!

Feedburner, YouTube, Business Networking Life 3-in-1!

Here's a quick video that I did with my friend Joe Malinowski last week. His website is Business Networking Life. On it I'm discussing some of the benefits of Feedburner for your blogs.

Kathy Perry Presentation

Kathy Perry, Marketing and Web Coach, was the speaker at the TWBAonline Tampa Meetup last Thursday and provided an interactive presentation using her unique Marketing Tree Matrix process that reveals gaps in your strategic communications. The presentation was designed to provide a tool that will help businesses identify specific areas that may need to be "pruned or nurtured" in order to increase overall marketing effectiveness. Kathy covered 5 critical areas of marketing - Sales, Customers, Off-line Marketing, On-line Marketing and Community - and the various marketing tactics that can be used in each of those areas.

Some of the highlights of Kathy's presentation focused on improving strategic communications, identifying gaps in current marketing efforts, exploring new ways to get customers, and ideas on increasing customer satisfaction and retention while proactively educating customers.

You can check out Kathy's website at: www.kathyperry.com

I <3 Animoto

So I've been hearing a lot about Animoto at my networking events, but I didn't really understand what it was about. So I shot over there about 30 minutes ago. Here's how my 30 minutes went:

5 minutes - Read the brief instructions and register.
10 minutes - Choose and upload pics and music.
5 minutes - Compile the video.
5 minutes - Upload the video to Youtube.
5 minutes - Post this blog.

Here's what I got.

Sometimes It's Faster Than Others

It's not an easy thing to explain what I do in 1 minute. I started going to networking events a few months ago and at these meetings, we all give a 1 minute commercial on what we do. It's hard to stand out among all the website builders, pay per click guys, and search engine optimizers. The best way to show people what I do is to actually sit down with them and show them.

I met a guy at these meetings, Ronnie, who was a perfect candidate for an experiment. He's a sales guy for a local sports station and has also just started his own poop scooping and dog running business, Big Blue's Poop Scooping Services. I sat down with him on Tuesday to show him exactly what I do. I basically gave him a free hour and a half seminar on Google Local Listings and the Google map. We analyzed his keywords, we incorporated them into his description, chose categories, filled in his business info, and added in additional details. We verified it with Google over the phone and parted ways.

After that, I honestly forgot about it in the haze of getting my own business running. Follow up on emails? Check. Send out appointments? Check. Go over tomorrow's itinerary? Check. Phone calls? Check. Sleep? Not enough!

So I got up the next day and ran my rounds of appointments and meetings and emails and phone calls. I ended up at the Westshore FNI and we're in the "Attitude of Gratitude" portion of the meeting when Ronnie thanks me for sitting down with him then announces, I'm #2 for "Pooper Scooper Tampa FL" and I'm the only one showing up for "Poop Scooping Tampa FL". I'm shocked. I usually ask my clients to give me 6-8 weeks for results. I've never had results like that in 24 hours, and I'd never guarantee it, but it does show the power of correctly filling out your Google Listing. Sometimes, it is faster than others!

Welcome To The Internet Adventure

Welcome to my Internet Adventure. It's been an exciting few months for me, full of twists and turns and ups and downs. I have re-invented myself as an internet marketing entrepreneur and I feel like I've found what I'm supposed to do. In the process, I've had to re-visit skills and experiences that I've built over my lifetime. I feel like I'm in a unique position where I've had an opportunity put in front of me that was tailor-made... for me! But that's an entire blog post in and of itself.

My company, Business Local Listings, has had great success, starting in the Tampa Bay market, in placing our customers on the map, the Google Map. I've learned quite a bit about the changing faces of the internet in general and Google in particular. Through research and hard work and some old-fashioned trial and error, we've figured out what works and what doesn't to get a company on the local map.

It's been an adventure. Come share it with me.