The world of business is always changing, particularly for businesses that market themselves directly to consumers. In the coming year we’ll see some old trends gain more steam while new trends pop up to revolutionize the world of online commerce. Below are five trends you can use to take advantage of shifts in consumer culture and technology.

1. Deals

Customers are constantly trying to save money, especially with the economy in its current state. If you want to attract new customers, start offering more deals, whether buy-one-get-one-free offerings, coupons or other promotional offers. There are numerous social coupon companies you can get involved with to reach a wider audience and attract some new regular customers.

2. The Death of Flash

It’s been a long time coming, but Flash will significantly reduce in importance in the coming year, being replaced with HTML5. When Steve Jobs refused to support Flash on the iPhone and Apple’s other mobile devices, he signaled the beginning of the end for the aging technology.

Adobe itself announced that it was ceasing development of Flash for mobile platforms and television and that it would instead focus on HTML5. If you want to stay current and support as many systems as possible, put down the flash and start using the latest and greatest in HTML.

3. SEO vs. Traditional Navigation

There’s evidence that consumers are increasingly using search engines in place of built-in site navigation to find products and services. Though building clear, simple navigation in your site is an important part of search engine optimization (SEO), throughout the next year SEO will actually improve your site navigation. Users will stop searching through your site looking for something and will be more likely to leave if they don’t find what they want quickly. Focus on optimizing your site and individual pages for the services and products you want to highlight.

4. Platform Agnosticism

Building for specific browsers or devices is a dead end. There are far too many combinations of software and hardware to try to please everyone and still maintain your sanity. Users expect that they can visit your site from their Mac at home, Windows PC at work and Android phone on the go without experiencing any loss of quality or usability. Don’t disappoint them by making them jump through hoops to give you their business.

5. Mobile Devices

Speaking of phones, mobile devices are becoming a bigger piece of the ecommerce pie, a trend that’s sure to continue in the coming year. With phones and tablets getting faster and more capable, people are starting to use them for a wider variety of tasks, from reading their favorite blogs to purchasing Christmas gifts.

Make a mobile version of your site to make it easy on your mobile visitors, giving them a clean interface but still allowing them to access every feature possible on your website. If you offer a service, such as online payroll or banking, it’s even more important to allow access to your site to mobile users. When it comes to finances, people want to be able to check their standing quickly and easily. If you come in with a killer interface across all devices, you may see new customers signing up due to your dedication to mobile.

About Joseph

Joseph Baker has worked in the business world for over 15 years, specifically in management. He has led development and management teams, and implemented budget reductions both professionally and as an independent contractor.

In his many years of experience within the business world, Joseph went from acclimating corporate America to social marketing trends to developing marketing/management strategies for small business. In addition, he has led strategic planning and systems of implementation for nine organizations, both public and private, and worked extensively with small businesses.

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This will be the finale post on creating local search websites. If you’re just joining, the previous six posts have covered how to launch and profit from local listing websites. These are small sites that perform well in search engines by targeting niche keywords and list local business information.

As mentioned before sales are the X factor that will determine your overall earnings. The second post discussed the advertising options which I suggested are charging each business per listing, charging one or two businesses for premium advertising space throughout the website, or trying out affiliate marketing and Adsense.

Of course, all are options for one site. Bottom line, sales is the most flexible aspect of this business model and results will correlate with effort. Many things might trigger someone to go ahead and spend on advertising with your site. This post will give you a few ideas to open the relationship with a manager and conduct sales.

For those of you joining now here is a link to all of the posts so far.

• Part 1 – Generating Income Through Local Search Websites
• Part 2 – The Local Search Advertising Business Models
• Part 3 – How to Uncover Local Search Trends With Google
• Part 4 – Building The Most User Friendly Local Direcorty Sites
• Part 5 – Part 5 – Streamline Your Workflow as a Local Search Entreprenuer
• Part 6 – Part 6 – The SEO Equation for Long Term Traffic

How Do Local Business Owners Make Advertising Decisions

Believe it or not most local business owners shop for advertising like you and I walk down the cereal aisle and choose breakfast food. The owners see a myriad of options and each look pretty similar from their stand point. They understand one ad medium alone is not a miracle worker but they feel every new opportunity is a wild card. Owners are pitched daily from newspaper reps, sponsorships requests, SEO companies you name it. They have heard it all.

It’s going to be critical that you demonstrate the value of your website with visuals and statistics in under a minute. Keep the pitch and options simple. The upside is that you are a niche site and can demonstrate a top ranking for the area they serve. Doing this and delivering one, two at most options for advertising will go a long ways in helping achieve sales.

Materials Needed for Sales

I recommend these essential items to convey the value of your website.

1. A Screen Shot of Google Results Showing Your Site’s Top Rankings
• Within the Screen Shot Text Citing the Cost Per Click for Paid Results.
2. The Traffic Your Site Receives & Pageviews for the Past 6 Months (and all time visitors).
• Print Out the Top, or All Keywords Used to Arrive at Your Website
3. Show Where Ads are Placed at Your Site
4. Demonstrate Cost Saving Over Some Alternatives like Adwords, Yelp, Valpack.com, Entertainment Book, the Newspaper, etc.

Getting The Relationship

Starting a relationship with a business manager / owner is the first step to making a sale. You want to be talking with the person at the business calling the shots for ad purchases and as best as possible start the relationship in a non-treating (non sales) manner.

I believe you should follow the advice of Yvonne Herbst in her post on developing sales through hyperlocal directories. Yvonne talks about approaching business owners by giving away a free listing. This is something you already have done with your targeted directory. I believe the next step is to approach business owners and ask them if they would like to write an article for their page on your site. Think about it from an SEO perspective. In order to rank well your website needs content and links. This tactic would satisfy content, and possibly links if the business has a website.

Your Pitch Essentials

Once traffic is steadily arriving at your niche directory and the value of advertising is clear, it’s time to start selling ads to those business owners which you have worked on developing a relationship with.

• Remind owners that you personally run the site, and are a small business owner too.
• Show them your top rankings through screen shots of Google results.
• Show them steady growth in traffic.
• Discuss other positive attributes like a low bounce rate or high pageviews.
• Tell them that you receive traffic from people looking for competitors; this is a great chance to get back in front of qualified leads.
• Remind them this really is the most qualified audience available on the web related to their business.
• Demonstrate your ad rates relative to other choices.

Streamlining Sales

Keeping an excel sheet with notes on all the business listing is a helpful tool to organize which ones have been solicited. There are two effective options to get in touch with business owners or whoever is the advertising decision maker, either by phone or in person. Don’t try direct mail; I found it doesn’t work. Business owners will never contact you by themselves. From my experience when visiting a business there is a 50/50 chance of getting in touch with an owner in person, so calling first helps. No matter what ask whoever greets you at the business who makes decisions regarding advertising before handing off materials.

Another handy idea is to organize businesses into three types of categories; A, B and C. A being what you believe are the most likely businesses to sign-up for advertising, B being second, and C having no chance. Organizing materials will help reduce your costs in time and materials.

Get After It

I love this business model for anyone who is looking for a part-time project that can earn extra income. Over a period of time you might even own the town in terms of good online real estate. Building multiple sites is a great way to broaden your potential and hosting costs are flat because one hosting account can accommodate multiple sites. Best of Luck.

Using the SmallBiz Theme for Local Websites

This series shares advice related to all aspects of building local listing websites including sales, choosing a niche and web design. I build my sites on WordPress and recently switched to the using the SmallBiz Theme for these types of sites because of the speed at which I’m able to launch a quality of site that is supported with help forums, and a platform that is search engine friendly.

Go here to visit my site example for Ballston Restaurants and Ballston Hotels

About Jeff

Jeff Howard has delivered SEO results for major consumer oriented websites all the way down to local businesses and writes a column for Search Engine Guide.

Want to Write for Expand2Web.com?

We are on the lookout for Guest Authors to share their expertise with our readership. For consideration, please visit our Author Guidelines page and submit your ideas to our Content Manager. We look forward to hearing from you!

Howdy, and thanks for following along with this post series on becoming a local search entrepreneur. This series provides the business model and tool set to create websites that attract niche local traffic. The end result is a valuable site that drives visitors from organic search rankings and in return can be used to generate income through advertising sales.

This series began a few weeks ago and below are links to the previous posts. The objective of this post is to discuss a few proven SEO tactics that can be used to help a local oriented website establish a #1 organic position.

For those of you joining now here is a link to all of the posts so far.

• Part 1 – Generating Income Through Local Search Websites
• Part 2 – The Local Search Advertising Business Models
• Part 3 – How to Uncover Local Search Trends With Google
• Part 4 – Building The Most User Friendly Local Direcorty Sites
• Part 5 – Part 5 – Streamline Your Workflow as a Local Search Entreprenuer

Keep in mind that if you have used the Small Biz Theme by Expand2Web.com and have chosen an exact match domain name this is 50% of your SEO equation and should be close enough for most niche sites to begin receiving some traffic. For those websites that may operate in a more competitive field, subtle SEO additions can help improve traffic. Here are a few ideas.

Obtain Links from Local Directories & Local Websites

The best method to improve rankings is by submitting to local web directories, or local business directories. These can be found by searching Google. For instance, search “Pittsburgh Web Directory” and you will find www.pittsburgh.net. Bottom-line, getting a link from a website discussing the area, city or state that your site targets will go a long way. Links from any website that are related to your area and niche will be the strongest and most beneficial for an SEO campaign.

Make Sure to Include Your Targeted Keyword Phrase on All Pages

In the instance of BallstonRestaurants.com I have included my website’s targeted keyword on each page’s title tag, and other high value variations of the keyword like “restaurants in ballston” in the page description tag. Reiterating each of your websites’ high priority phrases in each page’s title tag, description tag and content will play an important role in moving up in Search Engine Rankings.

Make Sure URLs Are Optimized & Unique

In the instance of BallstonRestaurants.com and BallstonHotels.com I also have customized the URLs of each page (business listing). This process is enabled with SmallBiz Theme from Expand2Web.com. Notice that I am optimizing each restaurant name with “menu” at the end. This is much better than a URL with just numbers, or without the restaurant name. Unique URLs that are keyword rich make an impact in search engine rankings.

Add Landing Pages Targeting Alternative Phrases

For most sites there will be a few high value keywords to target. For example, with restaurant style websites usually the city name followed by “restaurants” is the top performing phrase. Beyond this different combos of phrases are often searched. Such as “restaurants in” followed by the area name.

Creating new pages that target the alternative phrases with an optimized URL, title tag, description tag, and at least 2-3 mentions of that keyword in the content can help push up rankings for these alternative words. Some article topic ideas are summarizing the businesses listed or a FAQ style post about the area and niche.

Long Tail Keywords Will Drive Traffic

From my experience with Southside, about 50% of the traffic to your listing site will usually come from long tail keywords, such someone seeking a specific menu from a restaurant or looking for more information on a business that doesn’t have a website.

The upcoming post will provide sales tips and discuss how local business owners view advertising offers. I’ll provide some insight on the type of materials I recommend for presenting advertising options and how to formulate a solid pitch to a business owner.

Using the SmallBiz Theme for Local Websites

This series shares advice related to all aspects of building local listing websites including sales, choosing a niche and web design. I build my sites on WordPress, and recently switched to the using the SmallBiz Theme for these types of sites because of the speed at which I’m able to launch a quality of site that is supported with help forums, and a platform that is search engine friendly.

Go here to visit my site example for Ballston Restaurants and Ballston Hotels

About Jeff

Jeff Howard has delivered SEO results for major consumer oriented websites all the way down to local businesses and writes a column for Search Engine Guide.

Want to Write for Expand2Web.com?

We are on the lookout for Guest Authors to share their expertise with our readership. For consideration, please visit our Author Guidelines page and submit your ideas to our Content Manager. We look forward to hearing from you!

Getting on the first page of Google is a daunting challenge for bloggers and webmasters. Google is a search engine behemoth that controls nearly 70 percent of all internet searches and ranking on its first page translates to better traffic and can make all your financial targets come true.

With everybody competing for the same prize, achieving first page results in Google is hard but not entirely impossible. You won’t need tons of cash, you just need a well-structured game plan and the patience to follow it even when things aren’t going your way.

Learn and apply the basics of SEO, On-Page and Off-Page Techniques

Search Engine Optimization or simply SEO can spell the difference between success and failure. SEO involves the process of constructing web pages and optimizing them to become more relevant to what Internet users search. Just like any undertaking, you must equip yourself with basic tools and knowledge in any given field.

The more relevant your blog or website is to a particular search term or phrase, the better rankings it will achieve. Similarly, keyword and key phrase density is also essential if you really want to get in the first page of Google results.

Create backlinks in your social media accounts, article directories and bookmarking sites

Creating backlinks in various sources is another effective way of inching closer to the first page of Google. Backlinks play a heavy role in the algorithm not just of Google but as well as other major search engines like Yahoo! and Bing.

You can create backlinks in your social media accounts particularly in Facebook, Twitter and LinekdIn and also in article directories such as Build My Rank, Article Alley and Article Dashboard. In addition, bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon are also great places to create backlinks.

Timely and Quality Content is the Cornerstone

Search engines rank blogs and websites according to relevance and quality. Hence, no SEO or backlinking technique can outmaneuver the practice of regularly uploading relevant and quality posts.

While you can reach the first page of Google through SEO and backlinks, you cannot maintain such high rankings if you don’t upload relevant and quality content. Blogs and websites that reached the first page of Google through black hat SEO and backlinking techniques will eventually fall from their rankings and into Google’s back burner.

Don’t ever fall prey to ads promising first page rankings

Getting to the top of Google’s first pages could be frustrating. It takes a lot of time and effort that some would simply place their faith in SEO companies who provide such services. Even the most technically savvy SEO Company would not place a definite timeline on how fast they could get your website listed on the first page. If it’s too good to be true then you should definitely drop it.

Before you shell out some of your hard earned money, try to do simple research by checking out company reviews from “reputable” websites. You could also check their client lists. Companies who offer you “realistic” results are more likely to deliver on their promises.

Be Ready for Sleepless Nights

Enlisting the service of an SEO company is a good way of powering your website to the top but don’t leave your website on automatic pilot. If you want to be the best in your craft then taking a hands on approach gives you the best chance of getting to the top and saving a few bucks in the process.

Remember you’re competing with websites that have been around for years and outgunning them financially is not the best way to go about. Patience, a lot of it is needed. Nobody gets to the top after a few days and tapping away on the keyboard is something you should expect. If there one thing that could get you on the first page of Google – it’s called constant effort.

About Suzzane

Suzzane Edwards is a financial advisor and currently works as a consultant for small businesses. When she’s not writing for Cash for Gold, she could be found blogging about simple tips on how people could take advantage of the internet’s numerous business opportunities.

Want to Write for Expand2Web.com?

We are on the lookout for Guest Authors to share their expertise with our readership. For consideration, please visit our Author Guidelines page and submit your ideas to our Content Manager. We look forward to hearing from you!

The intent of the fifth post in this series on becoming a local search entrepreneur is to help organize a workflow in order to finish the website. This process can be tedious but once its completed, updates will be less involved year after year.

The faster content is live on the site the quicker SEO will begin working to your advantage. So far we have touched on how to select a niche and domain name that will respond to SEO. Below I have broken down the key milestones with creating these sites. If you missed the last post we talked about building the site using the SmallBiz Theme.

For those of you joining now here is a link to all of the posts so far.

• Part 1 – Generating Income Through Local Search Websites
• Part 2 – The Local Search Advertising Business Models
• Part 3 – How to Uncover Local Search Trends With Google
• Part 4 – Building The Most User Friendly Local Direcorty Sites

Basic Layout

Designing the basic layout of the site is the first step. The SmallBiz theme and example websites I have built should provide a sound idea of a good layout. The Expand2Web.com SmallBiz Theme will offer a number of tutorials for creating the site and getting started. There are five additional steps to follow that will usually take about one work day to complete. Here are two examples of local listing websites built on the SmallBiz theme: BallstonRestuarants.com and BallstonHotels.com.

Step One – Gather Listing Information

The first step is to gather all the business information you need to list on the website. Each business will have its own page, the page will be optimized and, if you choose, each business will have a PDF download (for menus or a promotional item), or content on the site page.

To find local business information I have found Google Maps is the best, backed up by your own understanding of the area. The positives about Google Maps are that you can see where the business is located and make a decision if it is within the area your website targets. I like to collect the following info and log all the data in excel.

• Business Name
• Address
• Phone Number
• Link to Google Place Page
• Website
• PDF Menu / Coupon / Additional Materials

Step Two – Creating Listing Pages

The next step is to create a post on your website for each business and classify the business into the proper categories. Make sure to build your web pages as posts, this way they can be categorized correctly in WordPress.

My recommendation is to try and find some type of material to be viewed in addition to the basic information, ideally a special promotion / coupon, or in the cases of restaurants, a menu. This way you can track downloads and take this info to the business when soliciting for sales. I recommend using Nitro PDF Software to manage, create, and edit PDF documents.

Step Three – Pickup Materials / Add Content

Chances are you will need to physically go to many businesses in order to pick up a menu or promotional material for their listing. In this case I like to use the opportunity to drop off a document introducing the site and remind businesses that they should check their listing for correctness.

If you are at the business it’s never a bad idea to ask for the manager or individual in charge of advertising and make a good first impression, jot down the name for future reference as well. For some types of listing sites you can pretty much do this type of work over the phone or internet.

Step Four – Fill In Advertising Spots

By this point you will have a very presentable website with complete business listings and promotional or additional content per listing. While optional, until an ad sale is made I think it’s a good idea to fill the advertising spots with spoof ads. This gives the impression while you’re soliciting for sales other businesses are already taking advantage of the opportunity you offer.

In addition, spoof ads open the door to track how often visitors click on the homepage ads and view the PDF coupons. If a restaurant offers online ordering you should link to that page so that it can be captured how much revenue your site is generating (This requires an extra step with Google Analytics).

Step Five – Monitoring Traffic & Google Analytics

Google Analytics should be installed once your website design is complete. The Expand2Web.com SmallBiz Theme will make it very easy to complete this step. Get to know Google Analytics and monitor the progress of the website’s traffic after all the listings are entered. It’s helpful to start creating a traffic monitoring document that presents data in an easy to understand manner so that you can use this data as a sales material. Once an upward trend is noticed and rankings have been established, it’s a green light to begin soliciting for sales. The next post will discuss basic SEO tasks that have been proven to impact local website rankings. The finale post in this series will discuss tips for soliciting sales.

Using the SmallBiz Theme for Local Websites

This series shares advice related to all aspects of building local listing websites including sales, choosing a niche and web design. I build my sites on WordPress and recently switched to the using the SmallBiz Theme for these types of sites because of the speed at which I’m able to launch a quality site that is supported with help forums and a platform that is search engine friendly.

Go here to visit my site example for Ballston Restaurants and Ballston Hotels

About Jeff

Jeff Howard has delivered SEO results for major consumer oriented websites all the way down to local businesses and writes a column for Search Engine Guide.

Want to Write for Expand2Web.com?

We are on the lookout for Guest Authors to share their expertise with our readership. For consideration, please visit our Author Guidelines page and submit your ideas to our Content Manager. We look forward to hearing from you!

Maybe we all have been too hard on the Yellow Pages. I think it might be time to nab one of those bulky books that have been collecting dust in my building’s mail room.

I need SNL’s Seth Meyer to deliver the content of this post under the weekend update segment REALLY!

Let’s start with the search query on Google, “Boston Personal Injury Attorney.” Highly competitive, top sites have good relevance, lots of links. Hmmm, I bet it’s hard to get on the first page for this term. Not Anymore.

Also it’s important to mention I’m searching from an Arlington VA IP, logged out of Google and using a downtown Boston zip 02114 for my location. Here is a screen shot of my results as of Sunday the 18th. Scroll down and take a look at result F.

SPAM LISTING

REALLY! – Domain is Open

REALLY! – No Citations

Citation query – intext:”185 Devonshire Street, Boston, MA 02110-1407″ intext:”288-8214″

Google Place Pages Still Working Out the Stink

I’ve been working on behalf of a client who is having a terrible time with Google Places. They had 13 + listing for their business automatically created. Their address is confusing and for several of these listings the place marker is off by 10+ miles. Reporting a problem through Google Maps was a waste of time.

I even made it clear to Google which listings we needed removed and which listing we are using as the master. We did this twice and waited a month. We are constantly trying to claim listings, get PINS, but new dups keep coming like a clone army. Trying to keep track of 12+ duplicate listings, or edits has me running in circles. Its ridiculous.

A Profitable Solution for Google

My belief is that Google needs to setup a process / call center to help with these issues. A simple solution is to setup a troubleshooting call center and charge $100 or whatever to have a real person sit on phone with someone like me to resolve the problems on behalf of a client.

My client would pay this 6x over. Perhaps, David Mihm’s advice to call into the Adwords Express team for help is better, at least that is my next step. Google Place page team you can reach me at jeff_at_jeffmhoward.com.

About Jeff

Jeff Howard has delivered SEO results for major consumer oriented websites all the way down to local businesses and writes a column for Search Engine Guide.

Want to Write for Expand2Web.com?

We are on the lookout for Guest Authors to share their expertise with our readership. For consideration, please visit our Author Guidelines page and submit your ideas to our Content Manager. We look forward to hearing from you!

This is the third post of a seven part series covering how to become a local search entrepreneur. In the past two posts I have taken a closer look at the business model surrounding specialized directory style websites that can generate income by listing local businesses. In this post I’m going to discuss how to use Google’s Keyword Research Tool and Search Results to identify a niche that has the most potential for success.

For those of you joining now here is a link to all of the posts.

• Part 1 – Generating Income Through Local Search Websites
• Part 2 – The Local Search Advertising Business Models

Identifying Top Search Phrases by Area

Finding local website ideas and identifying top searches within an area has become really easy with the help of Google’s suggested search feature. Open up Google and type in the name of the area where you are considering launching a site.

For instance, “ballston va,” or “cape coral.” After the area name hit spacebar then type in a letter, “a,” or maybe “r.” You’ll notice five suggested searches. Cycling through the entire alphabet will help shed some light on the top searches within the area. Jot down your ideas, and also check out www.yellowpages.com for additional category ideas. The next step is to uncover the searches per month these keywords receive.

Identifying The Number of Keyword Searches

Google’s Keyword Research Tool makes it very handy to find out which of the phrases you identified for a site have the most searches. Open the tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) and type in one of your keyword phrases.

Before searching under the columns tab on the right hand side select “Local.” This will tell us the average searches per month. Next select “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms.” This will eliminate unwanted results. The results will display the number of times that phrase is searched per month in the U.S.

Keep in mind, these estimates are the number of times a phrase was broadly related to each keyword term. To find out the exact number of times a keyword is searched select “exact” from the left hand side. To generate more ideas for keywords unselect “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms.”

Getting An Idea of Paid Search Costs

Once you have identified a keyword with traffic it’s important to take a look at the Adwords costs. I found that the keyword “Arlington VA Spa” has 2,400 searches per month. The domain is open and the Google results show organic rankings at the top, and there are advertisements on the results. Using Google’s traffic estimator I want to try and get an idea how much I would spend per year as a Spa owner advertising on Google. Open the traffic estimator and enter $2.00 for CPC, with a $20/day budget.

The tool tells us that I would spend about $1,800 per year targeting this keyword and the average position in the results would be 1.99, with each day about 3.61 clicks to my site. This is important to know because down the line it will be an excellent cost comparison tool when conducting sales. The main takeaway here is that it’s evident there is a wiliness in the space to spend on Adwords advertising. The other takeaway is that even in the absence of a paid local business advertiser the site may be able to generate ad revenue.

Selecting Domain Names Based on Keywords

Google and Bing place a lot of emphasis on exact match domain names when ranking sites for keyword phrases. For instance, I have a much better chance to rank #1 for “Arlington VA Spa” if that is my domain name. This is the leverage point for the entire business model. Owning an exact match domain name for a keyword and building out a SEO friendly site is essential.

Selecting a Niche Based on Google Results

The final factor to consider when selecting a domain name and niche is the structure of results for that particular phrase. The phrase “Southside Pittsburgh Restaurants” usually doesn’t return map style listings at the top of the results, they are organic. This gives my site the best chance to collect referrals from that keyword.

Many local phrases are now incorporating map listings. Take a look at the results for “Arlington VA Spa.” This keyword returns a blend of map results and organic results. Because local listing websites do not have a physical location you will not be able to show up in map results. Map listings inhibit the full potential for clicks to an organic listing. It’s helpful to choose a niche with organic listings at the top of the page.

Key Takeaways

1. Use Google’s Suggested Phrases to Brainstorm Website Ideas by Geography
2. Use Google’s Keyword Tool to Identify Search Trends & Advertising Opportunity
3. Strive To Purchase Exact Match Domains
4. Investigate Google Results Before Deciding On A Niche

In the next post I will provide a briefing on how to build a user friendly local listings website that is SEO friendly, easy to update and tracks visitors with Google Analytics.

Using the SmallBiz Theme for Local Websites

This series shares advice related to all aspects of building local listing websites including sales, choosing a niche and web design. I build my sites on WordPress and recently switched to the using the SmallBiz Theme for these types of sites because of the speed at which I’m able to launch a quality of site that is supported with help forums, and a platform that is search engine friendly.

Go here to to learn more and tour the SmallBiz Theme. Go here to visit my site example for Ballston Restaurants and Ballston Hotels

About Jeff

Jeff Howard has delivered SEO results for major consumer oriented websites all the way down to local businesses and writes a column for Search Engine Guide.

Want to Write for Expand2Web.com?

We are on the lookout for Guest Authors to share their expertise with our readership. For consideration, please visit our Author Guidelines page and submit your ideas to our Content Manager. We look forward to hearing from you!

What are SEO essentials when it comes to publishing a new WordPress Page or Post? There are some basic things you can do to make sure your new page or post is set up for the Google crawler to understand what the page is about, and boost your chances for ranking highly for your search term.

Video

Watch the video below to learn these essentials:

Here are a few highlights from the video:

• Decide on the keyword phrase that you will optimize the page for
• Choose a compelling title with the keyword phrase in it
• Use headers containing the keyword phrase
• Include an image, and associate ALT and TITLE tags
• Body text, use bold for phrase
• Specific Title Tag and Meta Description
• Internal linking to other pages

I’ll show you how to do all of these in the video.

More resources

Here are a few more articles I like in case you want to go into more depth on this:

• SEO features in the SmallBiz Theme (Video)
• Writing the Perfect Blog Post
• How to do Local SEO in 5 Minutes by Andrew Shotland
• WordPress SEO by Yoast (advanced)

Welcome to the second post in this series. In the last post I touched on the results I’ve had creating a specialized directory-style website that captures niche local traffic. The example I supported was a restaurant website that hosts downloadable PDF menus for over 70 restaurants in the Southside of Pittsburgh. In this post I’d like to explore the possibilities of this business model and demonstrate creative ideas to expand the concept beyond restaurant type websites.

For those of you joining now here is a link to all of the posts so far.

• Part 1 – Generating Income Through Local Search Websites

Using YellowPages.com to Brainstorm Ideas

To help open the door for more site ideas, go to www.yellowpages.com. Rather than typing in a query, browse by category and take a look at some of the most popular categories. These are types of business categories Yellowpages receives the most searches for. Consider how many options there are to create niche sites and rank highly in search engines.

Using Google to Identify a Niche

In order to succeed you must select a niche and area that has established traffic. In the example of Southside Pittsburgh Restaurants I knew the term “Southside Pittsburgh Restaurants” was searched at least 1,500 + times per month on Google, with other variations of that keyword phrase searched often as well. I will go over how to use Google tools to find a high traffic niche in the next post.

Defining a Good Niche by the Area & Number of Competitors

When brainstorming a niche to choose, consider the size of the area you want to target in relation to the number of businesses to list. In terms of the Southside there are about 70 restaurants in the area. This is enough so that visitors to the website value the convenience of having the menus listed in one place. At the same time 70 restaurants is plenty to keep up with on my part.

While Southside is a neighborhood tailored to restaurants, there are other possibilities for a city-wide niche. One example may be a website listing Pittsburgh DJs. This is a niche were competitors often travel and there are fewer businesses within a large area. This model thrives when the number of competitors in a given area is high enough that there is strong competition and consumers are faced with several choices.

Consider how these sites could work with fewer competitors. For instance, 3-4 yoga studios competing in an area like Georgetown. But, inevitably this reduces the potential pool of advertisers. Each niche has different variables. It’s reasonable to think that if a site ranked number one for a highly targeted keyword and listed 3-4 businesses without visibility on the first page of Google the value of the site would be high. In the next post I’ll breakdown how to evaluate a niche based on Google results.

Revenue Models

This part of the business model is subject to some debate and I believe is dependent on the amount of sales effort you’re willing to put forth. I’ve had a lot of people ask me why not just charge each business a small fee to be included. I like the idea in theory but scaling the sales effort is difficult.

A major problem is that I would need to develop a revenue-generating relationship with usually 20 to 30 business owners. That is going to put a lot of stress on making this model profitable (unless you love sales or don’t care how much time you’re investing), and may require several months of diligent sales work. The upside is that you could create a paypal payment portal which would automatically charge a business owner’s credit card a small fee every month. Another upside is that you could charge as little as $10-20/month to be listed and hopefully find enough businesses to agree to a long term sign up.

Personally speaking, I’ve opted for the 1 advertiser model. I strive to develop a relationship with a few owners and pitch the value of getting premium listings on the site. I also believe experimenting with affiliate relationships, banner ads, or Adsense is a good idea for those of us less inclined to do the ground work on sales. Again the revenue and sales is undoubtedly the X factor of this business model. Building a user-friendly site and SEO is very predictable. I will have a full post dedicated to sales concluding the series.

Conclusion

This post was meant to provoke a deeper understanding of the possibilities and expectations of this business model. As mentioned above, sales are the X factor in regards to potential earnings. Every niche is different and every niche has potential for successes or failure. A huge positive is that outside of time, the fixed cost to create a site is quite small. Over a 5 year period your hosting and startup costs will not exceed $250, plus multiple sites can be hosted on one account, further helping to scale costs. Here are some guidelines when pondering these sites.

• Choose an Area & Niche With at Least 10 Competitors, Maximum 50 to 75.
• Study the Google Results & Look for Organic Ranking Opportunity Above Map Listings.
• An Area Can Be As Small as a 20 Block Stretch or an Entire State.
• Launch Sites Close to Where You Live; This Enables Face to Face Sales.
• Include PDF Downloads/Listing; PDF Downloads Can Be Tracked Using Google Analytics.
• Follow Search Trends; Select a Site Based on Keyword Search Data Provided by Google.

Using the SmallBiz Theme for Local Websites

This series shares advice related to all aspects of building local listing websites including sales, choosing a niche and web design. I build my sites on WordPress and recently switched to the using the SmallBiz Theme for these types of sites because of the speed at which I’m able to launch a quality site that is supported with help forums and a platform that is search engine friendly.

Go here to learn more and tour the SmallBiz Theme.
Go here to visit my site example for Ballston Restaurants and Ballston Hotels

About Jeff

Jeff Howard has delivered SEO results for major consumer oriented websites all the way down to local businesses and writes a column for Search Engine Guide.

Want to Write for Expand2Web.com?

We are on the lookout for Guest Authors to share their expertise with our readership. For consideration, please visit our Author Guidelines page and submit your ideas to our Content Manager. We look forward to hearing from you!

You’ve heard it time and time again – make money working from home. Shiny ads showing regular folks just like you and me living easy by the pool just watching the checks roll in. This blog series isn’t about selling a lifestyle, or creating the notion that quitting your day job in a few months is a good idea. Instead the next several posts in this series will introduce a practical step by step guide to building websites that delivers real value. Yes can earn income and, yes, it is a very part-time gig.

My Story

About 3 years ago I was living in the Southside of Pittsburgh. It’s a vibrant urban neighborhood where the steel workers of Pittsburgh once maintained their homes.

The Southside is built around a main drag and along 20 blocks of Carson Street there are 70+ restaurants. Online I noticed that very few sites had a real grasp of the number of dining options and that zero websites allowed visitors to download PDF menus for each restaurant. Urbanspoon, Yelp, Menuism… all these sites generally fail at providing the actual menus or completeness of listings that someone searching locally really wants.

The next step was to determine if there were local searches for restaurant listings in Southside. The answer…YES. After that, it was time to decide on a domain name and choose one that would help connect with local search traffic. Thus, www.southsidepittsburghrestaurants.com was born. A small side project which enables visitors to easily browse restaurants by cuisine and download PDF menus.

My Earnings

Since launching the site, every year I have received over 10,000 visitors and 99% of that traffic is from search engines with a near zero percent bounce rate. That means all visitors arrive at the site and browse multiple pages, usually 10.

By trade I am a search marketing consultant (www.jeffmhoward.com) and typically most websites have a 25-35% bounce rate. In total my little restaurant site receives over 6,000 PDF Menu downloads per year. I do not pay for ads, market the site locally, or do anything except SEO. All this has enabled me to earn a couple thousand dollars in advertising revenue and typically I spend about one month out of the year doing part-time work on this project. This includes updating listings and conducting sales.

What I’ll Share With You

Now I am evolving this concept and launching local listing websites where I currently live in Ballston, VA. I’ve launched www.ballstonrestaurants.com and another small site www.ballstonhotels.com. In this blog series I will share with you the concepts and process for launching, ranking and generating income through these sites.

The Business Model of Local Search

The growth of local search has opened the door for a site like Southside Pittsburgh Restaurants to flourish. YellowPages are beginning to vanish from our kitchen pantries and desktop drawers. Google is the default search engine and since anyone can rank within Google for any keyword, we all have opportunity.

In a nutshell, these sites are highly targeted online billboards. The billboard rests on a street where only certain traffic passes. For instance, I own a billboard on Southside Restaurants BLVD, and the only traffic moving is from cars out cruising in search of a Southside Restaurants.

Using the SmallBiz Theme for Local Websites

This series shares advice related to all aspects of building local listing websites including sales, choosing a niche and web design. I build my sites on WordPress, and recently switched to the using the SmallBiz Theme for these types of sites because of the speed at which I’m able to launch a quality of site that is supported with help forums, and a platform that is search engine friendly.

Go here to to learn more and tour the SmallBiz Theme. Go here to visit my site example for Ballston Restaurants and Ballston Hotels

About Jeff

Jeff Howard has delivered SEO results for major consumer oriented websites all the way down to local businesses and writes a column for Search Engine Guide.

Want to Write for Expand2Web.com?

We are on the lookout for Guest Authors to share their expertise with our readership. For consideration, please visit our Author Guidelines page and submit your ideas to our Content Manager. We look forward to hearing from you!