What if there was a way for you to get more than the average 50+% of visitors from a number one Google ranking?

I don’t know about you, but I really dislike paying a lot of money to advertise my business (or that of my clients) only to have my direct competitor’s ad show up right next to mine. Every directory that you’re business is listed in also has your direct competitors, too. In most advertising venues that get a lot of “eye balls”, you’re going to pay to show up next to your competitor’s ad. This, frankly, stinks.

But there is a new way to market your company that keeps your competitors at bay. But first let me give you some background knowledge first.

LOCAL SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Google and other search engines want to offer searchers relevant results so that the searcher keeps coming back to their search engine. SEO is the process of manipulating content on a website and on other websites to get top search results. I’m not going to go into the mechanics of SEO or I would be cranking out a book and Larry is probably thinking this article is a bit too long already.

As local business owners, we have a window of opportunity in the search engine game. The reason I say we have just a window is that large national companies are just now waking up to the power of local search and only about 50% of small businesses have websites. Of the small businesses who have websites, most have nothing more than an electronic business card that is lost in the wilderness called the Internet.

Right now you can use search engine optimization to out compete big corporations and your local competition on all your local keyword search phrases and your brand phrases. But here is what is so amazing…you can dominate those local phrases to the point where your competition won’t show up on the first page of the search results—you can own the top ten.

There are two exceptions to you owning all of page one of Google and those are Google’s Lucky 10 (or soon to be 7 in all markets) Local Results box at the top of searches that have geographic modifiers and in the sponsored ads at the top and right. To dominate these you have to do some black hat techniques and I don’t recommend you try them because getting delisted by Google won’t help your business any.

At the time this screenshot was taken, this fitness trainer owned the entire page for his city. The only place he didn’t have a listing was in the right hand sponsored links. You can see he even got two double listings.

DOMINATING LOCAL SEARCHES ON GOOGLE

First you need to do basic search engine optimization on every page of your website. Next build optimized pages for your major local keywords and include semantically related phrases on those pages. Talk to me about getting this done for your site.

Next, set up a Google Local Business listing so your business can show up in the Google Maps local results box. Fill it out completely. Add the videos, pictures and get reviews from your customers. You should be putting almost as much effort into this one tool as you do for initially optimizing your website–it’s that important.

Your goal is to get your main website (your money site) into the top 3 organic search results before you start on the next steps. Doing everything at once will dilute your efforts. I’ll say it again. Make sure you are ranking in the top 3 of your ten most important keywords before proceeding.

The next step is to get as many double listings as possible. To get a double listing, optimize two or more pages on your site for the same keyword. With a double listing for a geo-targeted keyword, Google frequently returns 8 organic search results instead of the normal 10. That means you need to work to own at least the remaining 7 results.

You’re going to build a content network using Squidoo, Hubpages, Youtube, WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr and Posterous. There are more, but you’ll start here. You or your SEO will have used some or all of these sites to create some links to your main website to get it to rank.

Now, we want the sites in our content network to start ranking for our major keywords so we have to do all the same steps we take to rank our main site to get each of these pages to rank. See the diagram for a simplified outline of what your content network will look like.

In the Content Network Snowflake you’ll see your main website in the middle surrounded by support sites that in turn are supported by auxiliary sites. Each of these sites are content sites that reinforce the relevancy and authority of each other. What you don’t see in this diagram are the inbound links that support each of these sites. This is nothing new in SEO, but it is new for the purpose of ranking multiple content sites for the same keyword to prevent competitors from ranking.

The reason we are doing all this is to take up as many available organic search results as possible. Don’t allow weak competitors to show up next to you in the search engines. This is the only place I know of where some good ol’ fashioned elbow grease will keep your competitor’s ads (search listing) away from your ads.

In all of your content on your content network, you need to have conversion tools in place. This will include links to free reports, email opt-in boxes where possible, phone numbers, contact forms, your business location and any other way you can think up to get people to leave your content network and connect with your business.

Being better and smarter will pay off in you dominating page one of Google. Once you have control, visitors will have no choice, but to choose you.

I know this was a lot to throw at you and I left out a lot of details on how to do local search engine optimization, but please feel free to ask questions in the comments and I would be happy to answer them.

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Here is Part 1: How To Dominate Page One of Google So Your Competitors Don’t Stand A Chance 1

And here is Part 2: How To Dominate Page One of Google So Your Competitors Don’t Stand A Chance 2

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Sir Richard Branson Interviewed by Eben Pagan at Rock the Casbah Charity Event. My friend and mentor, Joe Polish is personally thanked for his outstanding contributions to Virgin Unite.

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Gary Vaynerchuk

Personal Branding Expert & Wine Guru

“From Success To Domination!”

Identifying Your Passion

and Turning It Into Rampaging Success

Since I’ve got a man crush on Gary, I asked my good friend and mentor Joe Polish if I could give free access to the Gary Vaynerchuk interview he did for his Genius Network members.  Joe wanted to show Gary some love and support for his new book.  The link is below, but you’ll need the username and password to get to the hour long interview.

Go to Joe Polish’s Genius Network Interview Series to get this awesome Gary Vaynerchuk interview. www.geniusnetwork.com/garyv

You’ll need the Username: success and the Password: domination.

I hope you really enjoy this interview. If you wish to share the interview with others please use the tweet this button below.

Also, please thank Joe Polish for letting y’all have access to this killer interview by tweeting him at @jpolish.

PS. My Local SEO biz partner told me the Vook version of Crush It! was awesome and I should give up books for good.   Go check it out. (Not affiliate link) http://vook.com/product_crushit.php?book_id=5

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If you provide your customers and prospects with the ammunition to make informed decisions that improves their lives they will thank you in the form of buying what you have to sell.

Check the vid to get Gary’s take on it.

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Not long ago, I did a presentation on mindset. The way we see the world is the way we market our businesses. It can’t be helped–we’re just wired that way.

Another way to say it is “we can’t act differently from the way we believe.”

Here are the 10 Guidelines and my commentary on them.  I want you to think of them as Buddhist Koans.  Meditate on them and reflect back on your business.

1. Optimists Find Opportunities
The opposite of this is Pessimists See Problems.  I don’t think I have ever met an entrepreneur who wasn’t an optimist in some shape or form.  However, I have seen business owners who have acquired a negative world view.  Sounds contradictory, but hear me out.

Entrepreneurs believe they can change the environment around them so they start a business to cause a change, which can be to solve a consumer’s problem or to bring innovation to a market.  To believe this you have to be optimistic that you can actually change the environment.

Then hard-knocks come along and a negative perspective starts to set in.

The good news is that we have control over our world view and can become optimists again.  This is best done by focusing on the needs of others and not on yourself.

2. Whatever You Are Thinking–Think Bigger
I can’t remember who I heard this from.  It was either Sean Stephenson, author of Get Off Your But or Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com.

I, and probably everyone else, has to remind myself to think bigger.  We try to be rational, logical and realistic, but those important mental tools don’t drive passion.   Sometimes big goals are harder to achieve, but they attract talented, passionate people who will want to help.  Little goals don’t excite anyone–even yourself.

3. Turn Acquaintances Into Allies
To me, this koan means to create partnerships, especially joint ventures.  I have used JVs for my businesses to quickly add customers.  A friend of mine went from $10,000 a month in sales to $70,000 per month from using joint ventures.  I think his business is doing just over a million a year now.

Another meaning could be getting your customers, vendors and employees to be evangelists for your business.

In tough times, we need as many allies as we can get.

4. Always Provide More Value Than The Price You Charge
Zig Ziglar said, “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.”

Too many people mistakenly or purposefully believe that getting ahead requires taking advantage of others.  If you sell a product or service that doesn’t give more value than what you charged, you won’t succeed.  You could probably make a quick buck, but that won’t last.  If you don’t sell a product that is valuable to your market, then make it valuable or find something else to sell.

5. Love The Customers You Have or Get Customers You Can Love
Have you ever or do you have customers you don’t like?  Fire them.  Go find customers you can like.  This goes back to #4.  If you don’t like your customers, you can’t provide more value than you charge.  Also, life is too short to spend time with people you don’t like.

6. You Can’t Bore Your Prospect Into Buying
This is a tough one for most people including myself.  Boring sales literature (Come on, really? It ain’t literature.) is passed out all over the world and people don’t read it.  I’m not saying to be entertaining for the sake of getting attention.  Just speak to the wants and desires of your market.  People find their wants and desires to be very interesting.

7. Forget Being Professional (whatever that means) & Be Human
This is one of the main reasons for #6.  “I want my marketing to be ‘professional’ and not all salesy.”  Every time a prospective client says that to me, I just ask them to define what professional looks like.  Most can’t do it and those that do, show me the most asinine, sleep-inducing corporate brochures and websites.

So, I recommend speaking to your prospects and customers as one human to another.  Turns out people like that sort of thing.

8. Education Is Good For You & Your Customer
I learned education-based marketing from my friend and mentor, Joe Polish, the President of Piranha Marketing, Inc.  I have found over the years that a well-informed customer is a better customer.  I don’t mean just telling them what you do, but providing an education on how you can fulfill their wants and desires.

9. You Make a Sale to Get a Customer; You Don’t Get a Customer to Make a Sale
Many businesses operate with a transactional business model.  They sell something to someone and then go looking for someone else to buy from them.  If a customer buys again–woohoo, bonus!  In consulting, I have found I have to drag someone kicking and screaming to get them to spend money marketing to their current customers, but they will gladly drop thousands a month on the hope that their lame yellow page ad will bring in new customers.

There is a term in internet marketing circles called a continuity business.  This typically refers to a membership website, but it means that your customers buy over and over on a regular basis–hopefully by letting you automatically charge their credit card each month.  Not all businesses can get their customers to buy monthly, but what if you could get every customer to buy twice instead of once?  By making a sale to get a customer, you have less resistance from your customer to purchase more from you.

10. Chase The Vision, Not The Money
This I am sure I heard from Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com.  People, whether customers, employees, vendors, family or friends, will get behind a vision.  They will support you.  They will go out of their way to help you to succeed.  People love dreams and they will help you achieve yours if they believe it is bigger than you. If it’s a selfish dream such as “I want a ton of money so I can buy a Ferarri.”  They won’t be too interested in helping.  But if you are out to make a difference in your community, your industry or the whole world, people can visualize that future and how they would fit in it.

Too often we use money as our scoreboard when we should be counting all the lives that we have improved by chasing our vision.

Just the list:

10 Marketing Mindset Rules for Local Businesses

1. Optimists Find Opportunities

2. Whatever You Are Thinking–Think Bigger

3. Turn Acquaintances Into Allies

4. Always Provide More Value Than The Price You Charge

5. Love The Customers You Have or Get Customers You Can Love

6. You Can’t Bore Your Prospect Into Buying

7. Forget Being Professional (whatever that means) & Be Human

8. Education Is Good For You & Your Customer

9. You Make a Sale to Get a Customer; You Don’t Get a Customer to Make a Sale

10. Chase The Vision, Not The Money

This is not a definitive list.  Please add your Marketing Mindset Guidelines in the comments section.  Also, feel free to share this list.  If you do, please be kind and link back to me.  I can’t wait to hear what you have to share…

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It’s true that it’s important to be online, keep in mind that what you write matters. To get a regular following, you have to give customers and readers a reason to come back to your blog.

Make it relevant

Choose topics that are useful to your customers. For instance, if you own a Web design company, your customers and readers will probably come to your website to learn about Internet-related issues.

An article about a software system that claims to make users’ lives easier, is the perfect article to discuss in your blog if you do Web-related work. As in the case of Local Marketing Mastery, we discuss social media, search engine marketing, WordPress and other Internet marketing topics for local-based businesses.

Because you’re a subject matter expert your readers will be interested in your views about an area of your expertise. A well-written comment about something in your area of expertise serves to boost your authority and would be of interest to your readers.

Link your blog to the article. This is a smart local SEO marketing move, but it also allows readers to gain greater understanding about a topic that is important to them.

Make it interactive

Ask your readers to leave their opinions and make sure the comments are visible to other readers. This will encourage readers to come back to your blog to review the opinions of others.

If appropriate, you can comment on your clients’ opinions. This is a great way to create an online conversation which can lead to deeper relationships.

Polish your writing

After writing your first draft, look it over to correct grammatical errors, misspellings and get rid of any extra words and phrases that don’t contribute to your core message.

It’s amazing how many writers—amateurs and professionals alike—who skip this step. The least you could do is run a spell-check, but remember that it’s not perfect either. Spell-check could miss the distinction between “for” and “of” if one is used in place of the other.

If misspellings are noticed by readers, it can impact their opinion of you. They may think that you’re careless or sloppy and wonder if that attitude spills over to your work. Take an extra five minutes and keep their opinion of you high.

Add keywords

Blogs are perfect to help you increase your local SEO marketing. By adding a few keywords, you may be increasing your Web site’s positioning on search engines.

Write your blog first, and then add the key words where they fit. This helps to keep your writing fluid.

Quality always matters

Approach blogging as if it’s an important part of your local internet marketing—because it is. It can say as much about your approach to customer relationships and communications to your readers than any other element in your marketing tool box.

If you take the time to communicate directly, spell correctly and put every apostrophe and comma in the right place, then you’re telling your readers that your message matters. Believe me—they’ll pick up on it.

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Displaced workers are forced to find a new way to make a living. Some have returned to school to get an education in a field that is growing, like the medical field.

Some have become new business owners, creating a more competitive local market. There seems to be a lot more graphic design firms, marketing firms and consultants in various service fields. And, franchising seems to be another popular option.

What does this mean for a local small business owner?

Refine local internet marketing

Greater competition means you have to work harder to stay in front of your customers. Instead of launching a new advertising campaign with lots of expensive brochures, print and broadcast ads—take a look at your best marketing source—your Web site.

If it’s been several years since you’ve updated the look or copy of your Web site, consider that things have changed in the market. This means that things should change in your internet marketing message.

Refine your message to better fit the times and attract your ideal customer. Then, create copy that speaks to the specific benefit that your business or product brings to your customers’ lives.

Reassess keywords

Review your site’s keywords. Do a little market research and choose the words that are most likely to attract your perfect customer in your local market. Sprinkle in the keywords into your marketing copy.

Choosing the proper keywords may also help you improve your site search engine ranking.

If all of this sounds daunting, consider hiring a local seo expert. You’ll reduce stress in your life and have copy that is more likely to attract business—it’s a win-win.

Be unstoppable

Our new economy is here to stay. Many economists and experts have said that the old days of plenty of jobs and an abundance of discretionary income are over.

Don’t hide out—stand out! It doesn’t have to cost you a lot to attract new customers. Just look at what you already have and make the adjustments that are necessary to keep you at the top of search engines and at the top of your customers’ minds. It’s worth the effort!

If you’d like to read more about how the recession is changing the face of the U.S. economy, click here: Recession and Small Business

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It’s not just about getting a well designed Web site, a good designer brings your message to the visitor so that the benefit is clearly understood and received so that they can make a buying decision.

SEO draws visitors to your site

If your objective is to get new business from the Internet, you must have a web design company that can attract visitors through search engine optimization and then influence them to take a desired action using great copy. If your copywriter is not the same person who’s doing your SEO, put the two of them in touch with each other. You must have targeted keywords in your copy that allow you to be found on search engines.

Your SEO expert will be able to help you select the keywords that many people use to find companies like yours.

The keyword selection process can be involved, with lots of research. Your SEO expert will know where to find the information that will help him or her make the right choice so that your new clients can find you.

Good design enhances SEO

There are tons of cheap and free Web templates available—why pay more for a web design company? Because, a site template cannot take into consideration your business’ unique selling proposition like an expert website design company will.

When your new prospects arrive at your website, it’s your site’s job to point your visitors in the areas that will help them make a buying decision. The site itself will lead the reader through your USP, benefits to doing business with you and address any potential objections.

Finally, it will lead the visitor to the call to action and a decision about whether or not they’ll do business with you. This is very important—to you and your visitor. You want to tell anyone who visits that you want their business, because you’ve presented all of the information for them to decide on whether they want to do business with you.

Even if you have the rare product that everyone needs, you will not get everyone’s business. But, if your website was designed by an Arizona web designer who knows design, SEO and copywriting, you’ll be providing the information that will attract the perfect customers for your product and business.

Don’t cheap out by doing it yourself… it will cost you in the long-run. You’ll have less traffic, fewer sales and lower revenue.

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