Local Internet Marketing for Small Business

Chances are you are either an Internet Marketer who aspires to learn about Local SEO and Local Internet Marketing or your are a business owner or manager who wants to take your local business on the Internet.

My name is Scott Gallagher.I have been studying, teaching and deploying strategies in marketing, sales and Internet related activity since 1994.  I operate three separate businesses and love the freedom of the lifestyle I continue to create.  I’m the author of Marketing:  Local Business Online and have hundreds of students and clients who I have helped to take their business to the Internet.  I have consistent and predictable results with clients who have landed million dollar contracts from our strategies.

Here you will find an abundance of resources to learn exactly why Internet Marketing for the local business is different than most of the Internet Marketing related material that currently exists.  There is so much ‘noise’ to the teachings of Local SEO, how Social Media Marketing applies to a business and the strategies deployed.  I’m here to simplify this.

Internet Marketing for an offline business is no different than proper, quality marketing in the offline world, just in a digital format.  It is not about ‘SEO Tricks’, the newest strategy or the next best thing.  By understanding marketing principles that have worked for decades, will enable you to dominate business from this electronic medium. This blog, my free MLBO book and my material will teach you why my philosophies are the hands down best approach to Local SEO and Internet Marketing for Local Businesses.

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Local Internet Marketing Guru

I have been saying this for well over a year now that the entire <nofollow> strategy in SEO is bogus.  It just doesn't make sense to me. Some History of Google's NOFOLLOW HTML Attribute Let's go back in time.  Way back in history, in the dark ages of 2005, Matt Cutts from Google introduced new HTML code called the <nofollow> HTML tag.  This HTML tag was introduced to add to the HTML code of a webpage in front of a link.  The goal was to tell complying search engines to NOT index the link and in turn, do not follow that link. It wasn't long before SEOers discovered how this could benefit them in rankings.  It was determined, for example, that if a link had a nofollow attribute attached to it, the page's value (aka link juice) was passed to only links that did not posses the nofollow attribute.  In other words, outbound links with the nofollow tag passed zero page rank. This gave us control of page rank on our own sites! This meant we, SEOers, had control of the internal ranking juice on the sites' we controlled.  We could manipulate page rank from one page to another, in turn increasing our rankings simply by controlling and understanding how to properly use the nofollow attribute. This was widely argued as white hat.  I argued otherwise.  The nofollow HTML attribute was NOT designed for this, and this made zero sense from a user's marketability st[...]

Anyone that knows anything about SEO, your ranking authority is based on a variety of factors, the most important being links.  You've heard me say for years now that it's not only quantity, it's quality of links. Published in 2008, MLBO refers to geographical and theme based links.  I never study PR, I don't care about what the algos want, I simply conduct marketing on the Internet.  Therefore, when referencing geographical and theme based links, I'm saying to get a profile, post or something that references your company on a website that is somewhat related to your business. A citation is like a link in terms of how the search engine values that citation.  The different is the citation does not actually link to the site itself, it merely references the site.  This is an example, and intentional citation, for one of my national clients. Chicago Courier & Rush Delivery - Naparex 27 N. Wacker Dr. Suite 878 Chicago, IL  60606 http://www.naparex.com/chicago-courier.htmlThere are a couple of things to note on this citation that you need to know.  While there is a valid link to the Chicago page for this business, this citation is not about the link.  That link helps SEO purposes, not the LBL's in Google.  The fact that the company name (with a keywords inserted, including inserted in the Google LBL) is present with the physical address, suite number and zip[...]

Google Wave Logo, a tool to change the way small businesses will market themselves on the Internet. Local Business is changed forever!It's pretty amazing to think that email as we know it today is still the predominate form of communication on the Internet today, yet it's 40 years old!  F-o-r-t-y years old!  Email existed before the Internet, before Facebook and before all other means of electronic communication.  Email is Dead! Now take your small business for instance.  Most small business owners have always pushed back on technology.  Most small business owners I speak with think Twitter is just dumb, they don't get it.  Then I share my analogy of Twitter and the real world and it's like a light bulb goes on.  They get it.  Then they start thinking about how they can use Twitter for their small, local business. Google Wave WILL Change the Small Business forever Most businesses have communication among their employees, customers, prospects and partners.  Communication in the form of voice is synchronized two way, meaning back and forth communication happens. Email is slow!  Remember how slow snail mail was?  Google Wave will make email seem just like snail mail.  Google Wave can not, however, be compared to email.  This is an entire different animal.  Google Wave will replace email as we know it, however it will replace many day to day functions as y[...]

Twittering for success with locals The typical first response I get when discussing Twitter is “I don’t get it”. A statistic once spreading the net in April of 2009 claimed that over 60% of Twitter users simply do not get it’s concept and leave within the first month. Many claim Twitter is simply a passing fad and that there is no real business application to this new medium of communication. Naked Pizza in New Orleans would have you believe otherwise. Within the first 30 days of applying that application to it’s business, their sales are soaring a minimum of 15% due to an exclusive Twitter promotion. Another business in Chicago has discovered that “Sweet Tweets” brings in floods of Twitters to it’s yogurt shop operation in Chicago. With over 700 followers, Twitters must prove they’re following the shop in order to receive a free yogurt. The 'experts' said it would never fly The experts said in 1994 that the Internet was not a viable business application. Thomas J. Watson, past president of IBM, estimated in 1942 that the world peak demand for computer was ‘maybe five’. The telephone was discounted in 1882 by President Chester Arthur as a non viable means for human communication. Twitter can, and likely is, a larger means of communication than the telephone. The micro blogging site Twitter is different and like most new technologies, is bei[...]

This is one of those posts that here for education, and prompt Google to index both my site and another site quickly, since this blog has authority. First, let me explain the situation.  I'm involved with a company named Naparex.  I googled that name on May 15 and discovered it listed a website, www.dy-law.com, but included my meta tags, descriptions and title.  Once clicked, my site came up! After some time I realised this wasn't affecting my business, only affecting my rankings and perhaps conversion, but the company is not operation at the moment so it wasn't a big deal.  The whois for that domain listed an attorney's office in Atlanta. So, I called the attorney's office and explained our situation.  I was told I would get a phone call back.  Never did.  I called the hosting company, GoDaddy, and they said there was nothing illegal happening and there was nothing they could do.  I'll never forget it, I was on the phone pacing outsite the Red Rock Resort in Vegas, in 100 degree heat with my long sleeved business attire on, with a slight hang over.  I was upset. On May 25th I called the attorney's office again.  They confirmed it was updated 4 days prior.  Sure enough, it wasn't.  Apparently her secretary never gave her the message.  Apparently her IT guy didn't know what he was doing. A long email and still no call back to me.  WTF?  I'm getting [...]