local-internet-marketing-pdf by cheryl lynn

LOCAL ONLINE MARKETING

Author: Cheryl Lynn Follow us onTwitter Follow us on Facebook Edition 1.V111.10

________________________________________________________________ ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

Unauthorized distribution of this document is forbidden. Please contact Cheryl Lynn International Inc. about promotion and JV opportunities. info@cheryllynninternational.com Copyright 2009, Cheryl Lynn International Inc. All rights reserved

Disclaimer and Terms of Use Agreement (All that legal stuff) While the author and publisher of this book have made reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the information contained herein, the author and publisher assume no liability with respect to loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused by reliance on any information contained herein and disclaim any and all warranties, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy or reliability of said information. The contents of this manual reflect the authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s views acquired through her experience and studies on the topic under discussion. The author or publisher disclaims any personal loss or liability caused by the utilization of any information presented herein. The author is not engaged in rendering any legal or professional advice. The services of a professional person are recommended if legal advice or assistance is needed. While the sources mentioned herein are assumed to be reliable at the time of writing, the author and publisher, or their affiliates, are not responsible for their activities. As internet information and sources change frequently in this particular marketing arena, from time to time, sources may terminate or move and prices many change without notice. Sources can only be confirmed reliable at the time of original publication of this manual. THIS MANUAL IS A GUIDE ONLY and, as such, should be considered solely for basic information. Earnings and profits derived from participating in the following program are entirely generated by the ambitions, motivation, desires, and abilities of the reader. COPYRIGHT ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this manual many be altered, copied, or distributed, without prior written permission of the author or publisher. All product names, logos, and trademarks are property of their respective owners who have not necessarily endorsed, sponsored, or approved this publication. Text and images are available over the internet and used in this manual may be subject to intellectual rights and may not be copied from this manual. ________________________________________________________________ ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

Copyright and Trademark Information This report is protected by Canada, U.S. and International copyright laws. The reproduction, modification, distribution, transmission, republication, or display of the content in this report is strictly prohibited without prior written permission from Cheryl Lynn International Inc. This report is for your use only. You may not give this report away or share it with others. Any trademarked names mentioned in this report are the sole property of their respective companies. None of these companies are affiliated with Cheryl Lynn International Inc. in any way.

Earnings Disclaimer The information you'll find in this report is to educate you. We make no promise or guarantee of income or earnings. You have to do some work, use your best judgment, and perform due diligence before using the information in this report. Your success is still up to you. Nothing in this report is intended to be professional legally, financial and/or accounting advice. Always seek competent advice from professionals in these matters. Also it is always a good idea, especially when it comes to online marketing, to check all local, state, federal and provincial laws to make sure you are in compliance. If you break federal, provincial, state, city, or other local laws, we will not be held liable for any damages you incur.

Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Compliance It is important to inform you that I have a marketing connection to a brand, topic or product herein. Through the use of affiliate links contained herein, I may collect fees from purchases made.

About the Author, Cheryl Lynn Cheryl Lynn is an International Speaker, Author and founder of Cheryl Lynn International. She has mastered the art of Local Online Marketing and she is now known as a Local Online Marketing expert, paying it forward and teaching others how to do the same. Cheryl spent the past 23 twenty years owing her own businesses in the service industry of corporate Canada. Cheryl is a constant student and enjoys learning to improve her abilities and skills for her clients. Over the past 5 years she has been studying the Local Online Marketing in an effort to help local business owners grow in their community worldwide and reach a wider client and revenue base. She loved the concept because her passion is supporting small and inspiring entrepreneurs worldwide. She always gives her heart and sole to her clients. There is always a need for leaders in this arena. The world is a big place and small business owners always need to know some of the easier ways of marketing their business. The Internet offers businesses an extraordinary way of increasing their client base and revenues. Cheryl started building up her part-time Affiliate Marketing venture. Today, with just a few hours a day, she gets paid automatically from many of the companies she markets for. But today there is a much bigger player in the field of gaining new clients and revenue for businesses and that is Mobile complimented with Local Online Marketing! There are 5 billion phones out there, more than there is cars, computers and TV’s on this planet. You can now advertise to your clients immediately on-the-go. We will be a planet of Mobi’s and desktops will be considered old. ________________________________________________________________ © 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

TABLE OF CONTENT •

What is local online marketing?...........................................................................11

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Local online marketing tips:…………………………………………………….12        

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Local online marketing benefits:………………………………………………16

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Local online marketing pitfalls:………………………………………………..18        

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Phone number & address inclusion: Location page utilization: Site tags: Creativity: Swapping: Free directories inclusion: Budget development: Online exposure:

Translating keywords: Content management: Existing analytics: Excuses: Local links: Launching new countries: Cultural difference: Research lacking:

The online local marketing secrets:…………………………………………….21

Why the online local marketing is preferable?....................................................24

________________________________________________________________ © 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

•

Trends:………………………………………………………………………..27          

Search Engine Optimization: Paid research: E-mail marketing: Social media networking: Blogging: Web presence: Mobile marketing: Pod casting: Online video: Discount coupons:

OUTLINE & DESCRIPTION: •

What is local online marketing? It contains the definition and a brief introduction of the local online marketing.

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Local online marketing tips: This section includes the major local online marketing tips:        

Phone number & address inclusion: Location page utilization: Site tags: Creativity: Swapping: Free directories inclusion: Budget development: Online exposure:

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Local online marketing benefits: This section contains the benefits for the online local marketing.

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Local online marketing pitfalls: As far as the local online marketing is concerned, there are some major pitfalls to avoid for the marketing success.        

Translating keywords: Content management: Existing analytics: Excuses: Local links: Launching new countries: Cultural difference: Research lacking:

•

Trends: This section will include the ongoing online local marketing trends.          

Search Engine Optimization: Paid research: E-mail marketing: Social media networking: Blogging: Web presence: Mobile marketing: Pod casting: Online video: Discount coupons:

What is Local Online Marketing? Now more than ever, people are turning to the Internet for the things they want to buy locally. In fact, about 31% of the consumers turn to a search engine first when they are on the hunt for the local products and the services. And to a figure of 43% of the online searches today include a local identifier, indicating that the people would rather type a few keywords into a search engine rather than go shuffling through the phone book. Recent studies have shown that about 86% of the consumers who use the online search engines to find a local product or even a service follow up with a phone call or in store visit. And about 61% of those end up making their purchase offline. As being a business owner, that means you can no longer afford to take your chances with the mailers or phone book ads that may or may not be working. With it, the local online marketing is a breeze; the local search experts will help you in creating an effective online marketing campaign to target the local customers. And the local internet marketing gives you the return on investment and tracking the information that the mailers and the phone book ads can only dream of. Take the first step in building your own customized local online marketing campaign today.

Local Online Marketing Tips There is an increasing trend for the consumers to use the Internet to find the relevant information about the suppliers and the research services. This is no longer just confined to the under 50 group either, as more and more of the people in all the demographics are using the home computers. Another interesting bit of the information is that over about 80% of the users who are searching for the local products or even the services will complete the offline-based transaction on their online findings. If you do not have a website that can compete then you may be missing out. The Internet is replacing the yellow pages as more and more people are searching for the terms such as repair services Sydney or in Calgary etc. Often a local business does not need a complex or even an expensive website to be the most effective. But you should be presenting yourself well and paying the proper attention to some of the important details in order to use the internet as an effective marketing tool. There are currently 29.6 million small businesses in the U.S. (SCORE). 63% of consumers and small business owners use the Internet to find information about local companies and 82% use search engines (Webvisible & Nielsen). That means thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a lot of opportunity for local SEO.

Why Local Search Is So Important Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines have revolutionized how we learn, how we collaborate, how we shop, and in general have helped billions of people around the world harness the full power of the Internet. Today there are well over 10 billion unique searches done each month, and that’s just in the United States! Of those searches, • • • •

40% of queries have Local intent (1) 5% use the city and/or state name 2% use informal terms, like neighborhoods 0.5% use zip codes

On Yahoo alone, 100 Million unique visitors per month search with “local intent” (2). We can extrapolate that there are HALF A BILLION unique Local searches per month on Google, based on Yahoo’s ~15% market share (though we’ve not seen any “hard numbers” released by Google about its average Local Search volume). We’ve seen both Google and Yahoo make dramatic shifts in how they return results in 2008, and all the trends point to Local. On top of that data, respected technology experts around the world think the world of mobile search is ready to take off in 2009 and 2010. In some places around the world, like Japan, many of these technologies are already in place. They’re in use even in the United States, with more sophisticated devices like the iPhone. Mobile searches are primarily going to pull their results from Local Search Engines. All of this is to say: The potential to attract new customers via Local Search is enormous. And if you find yourself overwhelmed by the world of Local Search, help is literally right at your fingertips. ________________________________________________________________ © 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

There are numerous tips regarding the local online marketing, but some of the most important are as follows: 

Phone number & address inclusion: It is a must to include address and phone number on every page. If this is so logical then why do many of the businesses neglect to include this important information? Probably the best place to add this contact information is on the page header or the page footer. Include your physical address or even the postal address and always include a phone number.

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Location page utilization: Use your contact or location page to give more of the details about the location. Provide the directions if this will help people and include a map. Make sure that the map is accurate, as the Google maps will serve most of the businesses very well. The Google Maps is free and will allow you to add a business name, address, and even an image.

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Site tags: Be sure to include your location in the page titles and other web site tags. In other words, you have to optimize the keywords for a specific area. It is important that the search engines can see what is happening and that you are targeting a specific area. The web site may never get good ranking for let say cakes for sale but you may well be the first page for the cakes for sale in the Springfield.

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Creativity:

You will need to be creative if you cover an area that includes several sub districts or a cluster of the cities. Like Phoenix, Scottsdale to get an attention in all these local areas will require some of the knowledgeable search engine optimization.

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Swapping: It is a good idea to swap the links with the other local businesses or even the non-local businesses in the same niche market. The key is to cross cultivate similar keywords and this will help raise your perceived importance for the search engines.

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Free directories inclusion: You may already submit to the local business directories. It is worthwhile to submit to all the free directories and the higher traffic pay directories. If you have an opportunity to add a link to your own website then always take the advantage of this chance.

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Budget development: You may also want to consider for developing a budget for the pay-per-click advertising. The PPC will allow you to target the specific geographical area and to add location specific keywords. The PPC is advertising so there is really no end to what you can spend, it is the best to work with a professional that can help you find a good balance of the cost and the exposure.

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Online exposure: A final important point is to take the advantage of your online exposure by providing some of the compelling reasons for a customer to select your business. This is where you need to use your website to sell all of your strengths and tell the people of the advantages of buying their next root canal from your business.

Try promotions, experiment with the email marketing, send newsletters as there are many things that a business can do by using the power of a website. Be creative, have fun, make sure your web site looks professional, and, most importantly, create a positive experience for your visitors.

Local Online Marketing Benefits Most of the people do not realize that what the local online marketing is, so they do not know of the local online marketing benefits. According to the Search Engine Optimization definition is: "The online marketing geo-targeted through the directories, like Google maps, and the social networking web sites etc." In other words LI marketing is marketing a local business to your local community by using the Internet. With that being said you can glimpse the local online marketing benefits, but let us go over them just in case. The first of the local online marketing benefits is in fact the purpose of the LI marketing, by getting targeted traffic that converts. Let us use an example, if you own a shop in the Minnesota and a website about your business in Minnesota, what will you benefit if you target the Washington? To get your business off the ground and the visitors to your web site, you will need to target the visitors from the Minnesota, and the greatest part is that it is much easier to optimize a web site and to get the targeted traffic for the local websites than for the global ones, that makes sense. The three top local online marketing benefits are:

- Low cost: - Easier to market: - Targeted market that easily converts: The reason for a lower cost is the fact that it is easier to market and as such it involves less work for the Search Engine Optimization companies, fewer work hours and an overall easier Search Engine Optimization and the Search Engine Management campaigns. The part about being easier to the market should be obvious as there are fewer searches and less competition for a keyword that says "Los Angeles Website Design" than for "Website Design". The difference would be by three numbers at least, instead of the millions of the searches there will be thousands, which is much easier to optimize and rank for, thus by making this the greatest of the local online marketing benefits. Since it will cost you less, you will get the targeted traffic that converts and you will get it faster, the easy part, you can consider these local online marketing benefits to be of the great value to any of the business. To make sure that you get all of these local online marketing benefits you must make sure that the SEO Company running your campaign does the following: I. Get the website listed in the local search engines. It is good for the local searches performed, they equal highly targeted organic traffic and with the higher conversion rates and plus the major search engines depend on the local search engines to feed their index. II. Make sure that your website and your business are connected with the others on local level through the social media web sites like the Twitter, Face book and Stumble Upon etc. III. You must have to perform an email marketing campaign on a local level. These are some of the local online marketing benefits, but just these are so great that they should not be overlooked if you have a local business that you want to promote. This is one of the greatest ways to quickly increase your online organic traffic, and not just any traffic, but the targeted online traffic. ________________________________________________________________ ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

Local Online Marketing Pitfalls After more than a decade of working in the Search Engine Optimization, it would be true to say that many of the same issues present themselves time and again. Some of the most highlighted pitfalls that must be avoided in order to get higher results are as follows:  Translating keywords: Translating the keywords is by far the most dangerous trap of all in the SEO rather than the technical hosting issues or the cultural risks not appreciating that the keywords cannot be translated is rule number one. If you are not a linguist, then this can be a difficult concept to appreciate but the fact is that the keywords are convenience words not really the normal words created by the people to help them search and then responded to by the search marketers. The solution to this is in fact, very simple. You simply recreate the keywords for the target visitors. What that means is using a native-speaker of the target language who is also trained in search marketing researches them from scratch.  Content management: Not just by giving consideration as to how you will manage the content. Worse, many of the organizations will invest considerable sums of the money in producing a truly fabulous content and then hand it over to the localization team with little budget and no thought for its Search Engine Optimization value. A better strategy is to build the content with the localization in mind. In other words, the copywriter’s brief should be to create the content without in-jokes or cultural references that a translator will simply not be able for. And bear in mind that the fresh copywriting will be significantly more expensive than using the translation although a good option is also to mix fresh copywriting on the particular local subjects which warrant it by using ________________________________________________________________ © 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

the localization for the rest. The ideal would be to work with an international search marketing company, which can localize and optimize at one and the same time. 

Existing analytics: Choosing new target based on existing analytics is a good idea to support your initiative, but is not the best way to decide in which form to roll out the new web site additions.



Excuses: Finding excuses to run with a dot com and not using the local domains is very common. A number of the proponents of the dot com have changed their minds after looking more seriously at the problem. The local domains are even the better for the Search Engine Optimization because of the reason that they give the best geographic information to the search engines and the users prefer them and the people you want to link to your web site also want to link to the local web sites.

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Local links: Not getting the local links or the hosting is a major handicap for many of the World Wide Web sites; these do make a difference though are not quite so critical if you have the local domains.

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Launching in new countries: Launching new countries e.g. Ireland, without thinking of the impact on the old web site that has seriously hampered some of the organizational success. The duplication on the international web sites remains a major issue. It is very common to find that a web site which has recently fallen in terms of the performance in the United Kingdom, that just had a duplicate copy of the web site that provided to the Ireland and because it was not on anyone’s radar no one realized what the consequences would be. There are many different ways to solve this issue by including sacrificing the smaller web sites to protect the larger ones. 

Cultural difference:

Responding to the cultural differences is a key but this is only really good marketing. In fact, there are a great many famous Brazilians with that name as a surname, as one said â&#x20AC;&#x153;They have a very hard time at school! These make great stories but the truth about the culture is that the countries reveal it in what they search for. So a good keyword research can be used not just to improve the performance of your web site generally but to understand how the potential customers are thinking and which of the products might be the best ones to the target selling to them via that web site. ď&#x192;ź

Research lacking: Lack of a research is the nub of the problem. Few people have a time to undertake a really thorough research to most effectively power up their global local online marketing programs. The best trick is to find an effective online local search-marketing expert as he will have all the tools you need.

The Online Local Marketing Secrets Many of the marketers have been shifting their local online marketing budgets to the web over the past few years. The online local marketing allows you to target the specific audiences and easily track of the return on the investment, commonly referred to as ROI. Unlike the traditional marketing methods, results of online local marketing campaigns are almost immediate. This allows you to better evaluate what the elements of your campaign are producing results and which are not. When buying an online media, you must be willing to shift the marketing dollars to the online methods that produce a positive return. To be successful at online local marketing, you must understand the essential secrets of the online local marketing. These secrets can allow you to achieve the success by finding the right audience, by communicating your message properly, and even by leading the consumers down to the path to purchase. These important secrets include: ________________________________________________________________ ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

1. Website directory listings: Before you begin any marketing campaign, make sure that the website you are promoting has been listed in the common directories such as DMOZ, Yahoo, and Google. Even if you are using a marketing page off of the root directory of your website, then be sure that the primary web site is listed. This ensures that the prospects can continue to find your marketing pages long after you have launched the campaign. 2. Generate traffic: In order to realize a return on your investment, you will need to generate the traffic to your marketing pages. There are a number of ways to do so online. Some of the most popular include the Google Adsense, Overture, and Look smart etc. Other methods include the affiliate programs and targeted website advertising. Research other websites that have the audience you are looking for and negotiate the favorable ad rates for the online marketing campaign. 3. Marketing pages: Do not lead the prospective purchasers to a generic website. If you do, then the potential buyers would not know what to do next. The easier you make if for the prospects to take an advantage of your offer, the better. Whenever creating a marketing campaign online, provide a specific page for the leading purchasers to your product or service or a billboard that showcases the offer. Take the guesswork out of making a purchase and eventually more consumers will buy. 4. Testimonials: The customerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s testimonials are the most powerful way to sell your product or service. When the consumers hear from those who have purchased and used your product or service, they gain a certain level of the trust and comfort in what you have to offer. The solicit testimonials after each purchase and use those that are the most convincing to the prospective purchasers. 5. Compelling offer creation: ________________________________________________________________ ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

Be sure to offer something that no one else is currently offering. If your offer is similar to your competitors or is not very interesting, then the consumers have no reason to learn more. Of course by providing something for free is often a great way to entice the potential customers. Maybe it is a free trial or a free evaluation of some kind. Be creative, try something new, and measure the response. 6. Trust development: Before anyone will buy from you, your website or company needs to be seen as reputable. This means that the consumers can purchase from you and not worry about the safety of their credit card information, personal information, or anything else being exchanged. A good method for developing a trust is to purchase and display safety and reliability icons such as Trust-e etc. 7. Guarantee: Nothing makes a consumer more comfortable with a purchase than offering a guarantee. Perhaps you can offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee or a money back guarantee. A guarantee is a great way to ease the risk of making a purchase. If the competitors are offering a guarantee, you want yours to be equal or better. The online local marketing is an incredibly powerful medium for segmenting your prospects and delivering the targeted advertising. Online, you can easily measure your return on investment and also to refine your marketing campaign over time to improve the results. If you are a local business then you can benefit from the online local marketing as well. Look for the local directories to list your business or service. Or, you can supplement the local advertising with a product marketing pages on your website. The online local marketing is more than just placing ads online, it is using the web to communicate the value of your products and services.

Why it is preferable? Let us say you happened to be a dog expert but not marketing pro and you want to go into the 'dog training' niche by writing an e-book to sell online. You are going to be competing with all the unauthentic dog experts who know nothing about the dogs but own a bunch of private label rights (PLR) material. Well, there is nothing wrong with using PLR or the resale rights but my only concern is you as you are just going to be the victim and wonder why being an authentic dog expert ca not help you to sell a single e-book the about 'dog training'. You see, it is not your fault. It is simply because of that the others know better about the online local marketing than you, have better resources and you do not know the online market information. But on the other hand, if you are looking for something tat is more straightforward, inexpensive, fun and profitable, local marketing is the way to go. It is cheaper. The local web sites, especially in the beginning stages, do not require heavy duty hosting, fancy graphics or even staff to handle them. They can often be started with nothing but an inexpensive shared hosting account, a cheap website template and software. If you are wondering why, the logic behind this is that since you are local yourself, you are not seen as a big company, unless that is the image you want to portray. You are not an outsider who has to prove him/herself.

In most cases, you will be the only person in your market running the type of web site you choose to set up locally. Because of this, even a basic grasp of the online marketing will put you way ahead of everyone else in your market. And if you happen to know slightly more marketing methods, you are going to hit home run and will be laughing all the way to the bank. It is easier to promote. One of the ways to promote a local niche website is by "getting links" to your web site and this can be done easily with a local network. Secondly, by optimizing for natural search engine traffic and building a membership are all much easier when you are dealing with a local market. Besides, you can to take advantage of "word of mouth" publicity when you are giving people something that is close to home. Most of the people are more comfortable with the familiar, and that is a core part of the appeal of local web sites if it is good, they will tell the others. It has also a great response. The prospective customers will definitely take an advantage of a special offer from a website which they know exists, rather than one whose location is unknown. Credibility is a major part of making any sale on the Internet. A large part of the credibility issues are taken care when most of the people know they are going to be dealing with someone they can pick up the phone and call, or whom they may already have had previous business dealings with. Since you are all part of the same community, your visitors will be more comfortable by interacting with you and with each other. That develops a sense of belonging more quickly and leads to a deeper connection with the group or the web site. It is the old sales adage: People do business with people they know, like and trust. Being nearby hence makes it easier to develop all these important qualities.

There are a lot of deals you can set up with the local businesspeople that will pay a much better than most of the affiliate programs or online deals. As you build up traffic and visibility, you will find people coming to you, looking to get access to your audience. Knowing how to set those deals up to achieve a win-win situation for both sides is going to give you a big advantage over the folks who do not know about the tricks. Unlike a sales letter selling an e-book, a local niche web site can have all kinds of the income streams. It also makes certain income possibilities available that you might not have with those less-focused markets like attracting the clients to the existing offline businesses. If you have a successful local website, it is easy to sell it for a lot of money to real offline businesses you could even be an overnight millionaire with this idea. For an instance, if you have a real estate website that everyone goes to for properties listing. It is easy to control the growth of a local web site. You can slow it down if you like and you can also speed things up much more easily. And local audiences are more forgiving of the glitches caused by the rapid growth as they see it as something to be proud of. Running a local web site puts you in the direct contact with the people in your community, including influential people. Those people will either share the same interests, or be in businesses, which run along the side those interests in some way. This can result in your making all the sorts of the useful connections with people in your community, to your own advantages. Some types of the web sites, especially the discussion web sites and the business portals, will give you personal access to people in every business and every walk of life in your area. This can give you an insider's edge in just about anything you choose.

Trends Allocating your Online Local Business Marketing budget to maximize the return on investment and minimize the risks of a low or negative return can become a lot more unpredictable when your investments involve trends and emerging technologies. The investment in the trends requires a smart timing and consumer analysis. You would think that the marketing trends would be closely aligned with the consumer trends, since the effective online local marketing depends on getting the messages to appear where the highest concentration of qualified eyeballs is focused. That is not always the case, however, because the trendfocused marketers tend to place an inflated value on revolutionary technology and early adoption. The majority of the consumers permanently relocate their attention with much less frequency than the marketing bandwagon drivers. Still, missing a trend or sticking with has been spells opportunity lost at best and negative returns or loss of the market share at the worst. Since the trend-marketing returns are only as good as the ability to make educated guesses, here is some advice to help you avoid turning educated guesses into the marketing messes. The following list features the top 10 online local marketing trends, in no particular order, and tells you whether to invest, test or even let it rest. ď&#x192;ź

Search Engine Optimization: The web sites that are relevant with the content and have credible links will continue to rule the search rankings but has the potential to reveal a few new standards. As the volume of the web content continues to grow, the consumers will demand even for more ________________________________________________________________ ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

relevant and even personalized search results. That means that the search engines will be looking for more relevant and personalized content from the publishers and brands. In fact, the search engine algorithms are already beginning to pay more attention to date of the publication, the geo-location, mobile device browsers, past behavior as well as the social media content. Do not abandon the current Search Engine Optimization strategy in search of personalization, but make sure that you allocate a portion of the budget to testing the content, keywords and the links that are targeted toward the niche audiences. Test keyword and a link placement in the social media, local content and the mobile websites, and make an effort to more frequently refresh some of the content you devote to the search engine rankings. Once the search engines have tested, then these new searches targets and revealed some concrete standards, you should be prepared to invest accordingly. ď&#x192;ź

Paid research: A paid search has not seen a revolutionary trend since the idea of the long tail was applied to the keyword bidding. That is alright, because the consumers will still use search engines as a primary means of finding the products and the services to fulfill their needs, and they will still be clicking on the relevant ads. Search advertising prices will remain reasonable, and average returns will remain comparably high as the larger companies with the decreased search marketing budgets continue to allocate the resources to lower the cost of Search Engine Optimization tactics in hopes of attracting the visitors at the lower prices. It has the potential for even more downward pressure on price-per-click if Bing can gain enough loyal searchers to attract the business away from the Google. You would not exactly feel like you are in the driver's seat when your search marketing placement choices are limited to the Google, Microsoft or both, but that does not mean you should even shy away from investing in the highly qualified leads that paid search is capable of producing for your business.

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E-mail marketing: ________________________________________________________________ ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

It is not hard to justify an investment in the e-mail marketing when the cost of sending the e-mails is so low. The low cost is not the only reason to send the e-mail, however. Most of the consumers still consider e-mail to be their primary form of the communication, even though there are several alternative ways for the consumers to subscribe to the periodic content from the businesses. The e-mail marketing will remain highly predictable and may even become more powerful as e-mail service providers improve the social media integration, the search engine access to the archived e-mails, the auto-responders and the new integrated applications. If you do not already use an e-mail service provider, invest in one. If you already use an e-mail service, then invest in your e-mail list and in producing the valuable content to nurture the leads and attract the repeat customers. The cost of building a permission based list is likely to stay the same as it was in previous years, but more than one third of the consumers changed at least one of their email addresses due to job changes or other economic factors. So spend more time and money by getting focused on keeping your e-mail list current when those consumers return to the work and change e-mail addresses again. 

Social media networking: The social media has one redeeming quality for the marketers’ lots and lots of the eyeballs. That is attractive if you are a major brand, but profitable interaction will continue to be the exception for the businesses rather than the rule. A good test of the social network marketing potential is to survey the current customers to see how many of them consider the social networking to be a primary form of the communication. You should probably experiment with a Face book fan page and a Twitter page if you find that a meaningful percentage of the current customers indicate an interest in following your business. Make to test content that attracts the repeat and referral business. Your current customers are more likely than total strangers to respond to the offers posted on the social networks because they already know you and trust you based on their prior purchases.

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Blogging: ________________________________________________________________ © 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

If you are writing a blog to help with the search engine rankings or to inform the existing customers, you should continue to test or invest. If you are blogging in an attempt to attract new prospects and convert them to the customers, however, it will be exposed the blog sphereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s vulnerability to the law of the averages. Converting the prospects into the customers depends on driving the visitors to the content that maximizes the conversions, and that means the conversion rate is only as good as the content on your landing page. If that landing page is your blog and your blog changes frequently, then your conversion rate is only as good as your latest blog post. Instead of blogging to convert your website the visitors into customers, work hard to test and develop great landing page content. When you find something that works, do not change it. ď&#x192;ź

Web presence: If you want people to see the content on your website, it might make sense to advertise the location of the website content by placing ads on the other high-traffic websites. Driving visitor traffic to your website is not the way, however. Instead, you need to drive your website content to the visitor traffic. The difference stems from the fact that the content aggregation websites like the You Tube are boosting the consumer demand for the instant gratification. Content nesting allows the consumers to browse through the content fed to them through a single web page, or nest, so that they do not have to click on the links to the individual websites all over the World Wide Web, which takes more time not to mention that the results can be anywhere from the unpredictable to be shockingly irrelevant. To take advantage of content nesting, your website content needs to be nested in as many content aggregation web sites as possible. For example, a lot of people search for the videos on the You Tube. If you have a video on your website and it is not also on the You Tube, then the people on the You Tube would not bother searching for your website. To them, You Tube represents the total number of the videos that are available to them on their topic of their interest.

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Mobile marketing: In case you have not heard, a mobile marketing is all about the marketing to the people through their mobile phones and smart phone devices. The businesses have not had much of an opportunity to engage consumers on the mobile devices, but have the potential to change that. Demand is increasing dramatically for the mobile applications and the mobile webbrowsing due to the wider adoption of the devices like the iPhone and the Google Android phone. As more people adopt these phones and features, look for the online local business marketing services to start providing at lower-cost mobile marketing solutions like text messaging, mobile e-mail marketing, mobile websites, mobile application development and location-based marketing. Make it to collect the mobile preferences from your prospects and the customers, and use the tools like Google Analytics to see how many people are visiting your website on mobile web browsers. If you find the interest in the mobile interaction among your customers, then begin testing simple mobile marketing campaigns such as sending a few mobile coupons via the text or building a mobile micro-web site for one of your products.

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Pod casting: Online radio is actually on a bit of a growth trend, but that is just because so called terrestrial radio is suffering so much that the radio advertisers are switching their investments to digital formats. It will be for the online broadcasters as they struggle to find and attract the loyal audiences. ITunes has long been the leader in the pod casting, but there are still no clear leaders in the internet radio. Even if leaders emerge, even then the online broadcasters will need to make their media more sharable, more engaging, more trackable and more mobile to attract money from the advertisers. If you are looking to attract an audience by broadcasting or advertising on broadcast media, go with online video and wait for the radio to finish reinventing itself. ________________________________________________________________ ÂŠ 2010 Cheryl Lynn International Inc., All Rights Reserved. Cheryl Lynn International Inc., 664 Fennell Ave E., Hamilton, On L8V 1V1 email: mailto:info@cheryllynnInternational.com website: http://www.cheryllynninternational.com

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Online video: Countless buying emotions and the memorable brand moments are possible with the online video. Until recently, spreading your message with video was limited to the television screen. Watch for the video to become more accessible to the businesses through the online outlets. The online video is interactive, memorable, widely accessible, cheap to create and highly shareable. There is also a lot of investment happening around the video, which is sure to create even more low-cost opportunities for the businesses to participate in video promotions. Video presents a great opportunity for business marketing, but do not think of video as a replacement for the text. As powerful as video can be, it can be more cumbersome than the text because you ca not scan a video as quickly as you can scan a page of the headlines, links and text to quickly find the exact information you need. Use the investments to find the right balance for your customers.

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Discount coupons: Alright, this one is not entirely an online local marketing trend, but it is important enough to mention because of the economy. If you are engaged in a heavy discounting to attract the sales and to survive in the economic downturn, then you will need to spend slowly by weaning your customers off your lower prices, assuming that the economy recovers. Resetting expectations would not be easy, so try swapping the discounts for the special privileges like the loyalty discounts, free upgrades and other offers that would not lock you in to the price comparisons. The online local marketing trends develop quickly, so expect many new and exciting trends to emerge. Do not be too quick to jump on new bandwagons because the consumers move more slowly than the marketers and even the technology. So stay focused on attracting the repeat business, by deepening your customer relationships and solving problems for the people. . Those are the trends that never fail the businesses.