ahhh, well sometimes customer service doesn't really mean that the service department is there to service the customer.  Perhaps it means who we can frustrate today, because we control you, we have you in a contract and we really don't care about you. Well, after numerous hours dealing with problems that have affected my business in a negative way, I'm breathing with a sigh of relieve today as AT&T and Comcast have taken over my communications again.  I don't know if it's the worst of two evils, but buy am I happy. You see, CBeyond is a regional telecom provider who bundles wireless, T1's, analogue lines and other services under one umbrella for small businesses.  You need 6 lines to join them and they are positioned well to accomodate small businesses up to about 50 lines.  They drop an AT&T T1 into you office and you use voice channels over that connection.  Old, old technology, but they are solid (T1). I know, this has NOTHING to do with Internet Marketing, or so it seems.  I'm reading a book right now called "The Search" by John Battelle.  It's worth the read.  It's about how Google and their rivals have changed the dynamics of business.  It's true.  What has changed is that today, the last couple of years, consumers have the power again.  Single handed people have shifted companies because we are heard on the Internet. We are not heard in Cus[...]

You see, selling SEO, or Internet Marketing related services, requires another skill set you may have, or need to develop. Every business sells something.  Every business buys something.  Almost always, a business buy only to solve a problem, consumers buy on emotion, businesses don't. Selling services like SEO, Internet Marketing, SEM, email marketing or SMM is no different than say selling a consulting service to a business.  We know that one methodology works, and that's called Solution Selling. Solution Selling is a unique process, the selling process used by most successful sales forces.  According to Wikipedia, Solution Selling is "Rather than just promoting an existing product, the salesperson focuses on the customer's pain(s) and addresses the issue with his or her offerings (product and services). The resolution of the pain is what constitutes a true "solution" Selling Internet Marketing Services to Small Business requires a special process. I have pioneered something called the SEO Sales Trail.  This is a step by step approach to selling Internet Marketing services to local businesses. Learn How to Sell SEO on my company blog and I cover several strategies and tips to help you learn how to acquire these local business clients.[...]

SEO is marketing.  You are merely marketing a business using a digital medium, rather than a traditional offline medium. A component of Marketing exposure.  SEO is about creating exposure. A business exposing themselves to the right audience, buyers, where the business product or service solves a buyers problem, yields the best conversion from a lead to a sale. Therefore, exposing a business in the right places is important offline, just like online.  Exposing your website, or rather certain webpages, in the right places on the Internet yields results.  We do this by linking one website to another, or a link from site A to mine.  The better websites that I can have linking to me, such as an attorney spending the time networking at the Chamber of Commerce rather than the mall, the better connection I will make. These links are like endorsements, just like how word of mouth yields results in the offline world.  Websites endorsing citations and reviews for local businesses are very important in SEO for the local business results. In SEO jargon, we build authorative links to our sites to increase our rankings in the search engine results page (SERP). This is creating transparancy and exposure. This is SEO 101.[...]

In August 2009, I was sitting in a large room in Silicon Valley with the local business product managers from Google, Bing and Yahoo no more than 30 feet from my chair.  When it was time for questions, I was the first to stand up and asked the question.. How do you plan on solving the service area problems? Well, I've wanted to create this post for some time, however I'm not sure if it will really add any value to you, unless you're a search engine! They didn't have their answers, or didn't want to share them at this time.  In fact, when asked if they would listen to us marketers who represent 10's of thousands of local business, would they listen?  As much as I love Google, I was appauled by the response, I felt like this Google employee had a chip on his shoulder and basically said "We're Google, we don't need you". On the other hand, a couple of days later my office phone rang with the caller id showing "Microsoft Corp".  It was Kevin Hagwell, Bing's Product Manager...how cool is that?!  I mean, scary too, I don't remember giving him my card! The problem the search engines are facing right now is the service area challenge in their local business listings. Let's take a look at this search.  Notice the keyword [courier service].  Google has kindly let me know of the local companies in my area and given me a map without telling them where I am located.  T[...]

When people start promoting a local business on the internet, there are a lot of mistakes that they can make if they're not careful. One of the worst of these is creating content that is really just a straight up advertisement for their products. People coming from the local business world often have problems with this, because when advertising a local business off line – you need to advertise! However, once you move your business on the internet, you need to take a different approach, or even hire an Internet Marketing Agency. When you first start creating sites and pages to promote your own site, one of the first that you'll probably tackle is a Squidoo lens.  That Squidoo lens is an example of a local courier service company creating value for their industry and yet not promoting their company extensively.  This is, in its most basic form, simply a page on a give topic. The important distinction about a lens that you need to make is that you don't want to make it about your site itself. That’s an advertisement, and won't be successful. Instead, you need to think of the lens supporting your site. This means that when someone pays a visit to your Squidoo lens, they shouldn't be bombarded with things telling them how great your site is, or links pointing to your site. Instead, they should find something that actually provides them with information that the[...]