Watch this video.  This is a service that allows users to send Google local results to their car and can already be used in Germany.

Business owners who fail to grasp that this is how consumers want to use Internet-enabled products have a lot of catching up to do the longer they wait to create an search engine marketing plan!

I am presenting a seminar on March 22nd entitled “What Every Business Owner Need to Know about Search Engine Rankings: Even if they don’t have a website.”  It is a FREE seminar that is going to include information for business owners on how, when, why, etc. people are using search engines to find their businesses and what they can do to reach these people.  I am going to be giving everyone a free list of DIY resources that should help people find them.  You can learn more about the seminar on our Search Seminar page.

Miller Canfield, a Detroit based law firm, had a brief overview of the legal impact of a recent federal decision regarding the Internet marketing techniques of some businesses in one of their recent newsletters.

You can read their overview, but here is a short summary:  A company put a competitor’s name in its META tags and bid on their name for their PPC campaigns.  The competitor sued the offending company and lost, because the judge said that this practice did not confuse the customer.  But the decision will not create an end to cases like this, and further legislation could follow by other companies in similar situations.  So be careful when using trademarked terms in your Internet marketing efforts.  Even if you aren’t found guilty, you still might have to pay a lawyer to defend you.

I saw a posting on Reasons Why You Should Have a Website on another blog that I read.  I think the author has come up with some pretty general ideas about why you need a website, but the one thing that must be noted to small businesses considering a website is that none of his reasons to have a website will work for your business if people can’t find your website.  All the benefits are great, but without an effective Internet marketing strategy and implementation, your website will not reach its full potential.

Many businesses do not realize the benefit of being found online. They think that just because they don’t sell things online having information show up about their business online is useless. This could not be further from the truth. People are looking for local businesses online even if you only offer services or products in a storefront.

Google has started including local results for searches that they think are supposed to be local in nature in the “normal’ Google results. Here is an example of the results when you search for: restaurants rochester michigan. You can see that not only does it put the local results above all of the rest of the results, there are also reviews by other google users. Using the example above, you can see that if you click on “more local business results” and scroll down a bit further, even restaurants with no websites like Hamlin Pub are listed with their phone number and reviews.

I strongly encourage all business owners to see what happens when they type in their business type and city into Regular Google and Google Local and see 1) If their site comes up and 2) Are their any reviews associated with your business (You want to know what people are saying about you online). If you can’t find your business information online, read this article with tips on how to get listed whether you have a website or not.

Ok, it has been awhile since I last posted. Can’t say I am any busier than when I was posting more frequently, maybe just a little more tired.

So here are the results:

Adwords: Haven’t been that impressive. A few clicks, but my guess is that most people don’t trust an Adwords ad for a house for sale because they are not used to seeing it.
Craigs List: Very good. I get a lot of traffic usually from 10-30 page views a day. Had some email inquires, but no showings.
Google Base: Horrible. My ad hardly ever showed, brought me absolutely no traffAdwords

So why do I think Craig’s List was the best? Because with Craig’s List, people just go and just browse through the listings. If they don’t want to browse, becauseAdwordsre interested in a specific city, they just type that city name in the search box. Google Base was bad because it is International in scope. Even though my ad had the specific title of Rochester Hills Condo, it didn’t show up for that search because every house that was listed on the any FSBO website was showing up before me. Google Base can’t produce the same results as Craig’s List for individuals because they are only focusing on the biggest websites with the most credibility. Craig’s List treats everyone equal and thus it easier to find what you want because you control the search criteria and skim through what you want and don’t want.

We just returned from a trip to Traverse City to celebrate my grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. What struck me while we were there is how even in the midst of stiff cherry selling competition everyone seems to get a piece of the action. Whether you are driving to the city on M72, at the farmer’s market, or walking downtown on a Friday evening. There are always plenty of people selling cherries – red cherries, yellow cherries, sweet cherries, sour cherries, washed cherries, unwashed cherries, you get the idea. It doesnt matter that you drove by a booth 10 minutes ago…now you feel like cherries so you stop and buy cherries at this booth instead of the last. As small businesses, we can sell to more people by meeting them at different places in their search. Why give your competition the opportunity to sell to your customer 10 minutes later, when you can do it yourself. Meet your customers down the road with a different (or the same) marketing message. Maybe they weren’t ready to buy the first time they saw or heard you, but they could easily be ready now.  You can do this with email marketing, direct mail, or a phone call.

Saw this posting this morning on a blog that I read regarding local businesses having websites.

The only thing I disagree with, being a web designer, is that small businesses should hire someone to create the website for them. I believe that design does matter. I am not sure about other companies, but we are able to provide most small businesses with a respectable website that will not destroy their budget.

My husband and I were walking in the downtown area of Rochester, MI yesterday morning. It is a typical little downtown, old buildings from the turn-0f-the-century with little local shops in them.

One of the shops is a locksmith. Outside his store he had a little signboard that said “Ask about our safe sale.” This little sign board made his store stick out from all of the rest of the stores in Rochester. I am sure it didn’t cost him very much to buy the board and stick it out in front of his store.

What it made me think was that sometimes, the simple things make our business stick out from the competition. And for local businesses there is a virtual sign board they can put out on the sidewalk for people “walking” by their store….internet advertising. When someone searches for “restaurants Rochester, mi,” only one of the many good restaurants appears on the first search page for Google. This restaurant has a signboard. All the rest do not. Google has a place for 10 free sign boards on each page (10 organic results show). Why aren’t more companies taking advantage of Google’s free “signboards?” Because they don’t recognize the value of being there. But I believe that just like the locksmith’s signboard, a Google “signboard” will bring in business (and probably a lot more than the one on the sidewalk) – those keywords were searched 100 times last month just on Yahoo!

My husband, and business partner, put this is his monthly newsletter, and I wanted to post it here.

“I strongly believe that to stay on top and win, we all must start meeting our customer’s technology expectations. Here are a few things that I think all customers expect from your business.

* When they type in your name, company name, address, or keywords related to your business they expect to find your website.

* When they visit your website they expect to find a professional looking website that fulfills their need to be informed, place an order, or contact you.

* When you have specials they expect to be informed. ”