Normally I stay “at” the casino because I don’t really gamble all that much and love the ease of going up to the room and catching a nap. But the only rooms available were $350/night.. I’m not exactly cheap, but $350/night for a casino room? I can go to Vegas for that much money. So the quest was on to find a nice place to stay, for a fair price, close to New Buffalo. Who knew that it would be such a challenge?

If you are running just about anything in New Buffalo local search is wide open for you. It took far too long to find a nice bed and breakfast reasonably close to the casino, well, not really, but if it weren’t for the new maps in Google we would have never found the place we wound up staying. Sans Souci Euro Inn and Cottages (yeah, it’s their title and it’s on every page). Angie and Sue run an amazing little operation on 50 acres with a small private lake just full of fish. It’s quiet, it’s well furnished, it’s 3 miles from the casino, and it’s incredibly reasonably priced. We already have reservations for a full week later in the summer.

So what’s the point of this long post? Am I just trying to rub in the fact that I found a great place to stay? Well, yeah, sorta. But more importantly it’s about how few people are taking advantage of promoting their local business on the internet. And more specifically, on Google. A simple search for new buffalo michigan bed and breakfast on Google returns just 85,000 results, and barring the map, and just “one” real bed and breakfast, ranked #7. There is a B&B that is closed, it even says so on their website, that ranks #5. If it weren’t for the fact that Angie is looking to retire I’d offer to rebuild her site for her. I may still make an offer, but it might be to just buy the place and change careers!

While looking for something to do other than the casino I did a search for charter fishing new buffalo michigan. Not a single charter boat based in New Buffalo has a tag on the Google local map. Not one. Any SEO in New Buffalo Michigan may want to take a drive around the docks and look for a few new clients. Or maybe not, I may be up there in August fishing and could use the work.

To recap,

• Casino getaway = great!
• Quiet B&B to relax at = fabulous!
• Have a website for a business and not taking advantage of local search = epic fail

Or maybe not.

Without a doubt the web has become a very crowded place. With almost every commercial business having at least some presence online, some businesses having multiple websites, and then the top of the heap, the megalithic websites like Amazon, Blue Nile, and eBay. We won’t even get in to the topic of affiliate programs that create hundreds, even thousands, of websites all selling the same product. With that level of competition why would anyone want to get involved with adding a second business to their already full plate?

Why do I need a website?

For me, the number one reason for a company, especially a small company, to have a website today is that fewer and fewer people are using the phone book to find what they are looking for. When someone picks up a phone book they are looking for a phone number. They already know what they want, pizza, movie times, how late are you open, and other similar questions. As people become more and more internet savvy they want more than a phone book can give them, they want to shop.

But what if you offer a product or service that has seen its market eaten up by outsourcing overseas like software development, or turned in to a commodity sold from lists in a database rather than as an actual product like diamonds? You can still compete. It’s been said by the people at Wal-Mart that you can’t out Amazon Amazon, but you can find an angle where you can compete on a local level, and as you grow in to your web presence you can begin to expand in to larger markets, or new products that will help differentiate you from the Amazon’s and Blue Nile’s of the world. And if you can pick up a piece of the global market on your way up, that’s just a little more icing on the cake.

Local Search to the rescue!

The easiest and usually best way to start elbowing your way in to internet millions is to stake out your local market. There may be thousands of people online selling Peeps but how many people are selling Peeps in Flathead County, Montana? I don’t know about you, but when I get a craving for pink bunny peeps I need them now, not 3 days from now via FedEx.

It doesn’t have to be Peeps. Maybe you run a small printing company, or you have a baseball card shop, or even a tanning salon. Whatever it is, the internet makes for the best phone book ad ever. It has everything a normal phone book ad has, phone number, address, etc., but it can also have your store hours, a list of products or services, maybe even an interactive way for your local clients to get what they need without even getting in their car.

So what do we do now?

The first step is to build a website that not only focuses on your product or service, but one that focuses on your local community. A site that is just as likely to rank well for your city’s name is it is to rank for your product.

Fortunately for both of us I have just signed up a new old client. I originally built their first website more than 7 years ago, and since it was built it has seen almost no effort put in to it. A common problem for small businesses with a lot of work to do and not enough time to think about that “web thing”. As long as the email works, they are happy. I’ll let you in on who this client is in a few weeks once we get things back on track for them.

I can tell you that they are in a very competitive industry that has seen it’s profit margins eaten away by advancing technology and cheaper labor costs in Asia. But it is still an industry that can, and should, have strong ties with the local community and should leverage that involvement in to a profitable website that serves as more than just a place to get their email from. We’ll find out together if it can be turned around and made in to a profit center rather than an expense.

The client side:

No one wants to see their competitors gain an equal footing with them. So having your Internet Marketing company help your nearest competitor may not be very high on your list of things you would like to hear about. After all, your marketing company’s goal is to help you rank just as high as your website can, and how can they do that if they are helping someone else to the same thing?

The marketing side:

As marketers we spend a lot of time and resources developing contacts, relationships, and knowledge about very specific markets. To the point where it is not uncommon to see companies specialize in very specific niches. This goes for web developers, advertising companies, architects and auto mechanics. Specializing breeds excellence in a very narrow category. Having more than one client in a specific industry can be seen as a very good thing.

The non-compete:

Non-competes are generally thought of when dealing with an employer / employee relationship. But can also apply in a contractor situation. Basically it is a clause in a contract, you do work with contracts don’t you?, that defines who the contractor can work with and in what areas they can work when their actions may compete with the primary client.

What to do?

You can either take additional work in the same field or not. But how do you decide which is the right option for you? When we were doing software development we actually had a tiered pricing structure that I think may be appropriate in this situation.

Our clients had three options:

1. Open development. The clients paid a set fee and the work belonged to us and they simply licensed the end product.
2. Non-compete. The client paid a higher fee and we developed the software for them and did not sell it to other potential clients.
3. Total ownership. The client owned the software, the source code, and were allowed to do anything at all that they wanted to do with the finished product. And, of course, this was the most expensive option and rarely used.

There is no reason that an SEO company can’t build on this same model. Especially one focusing on local search. Offer your potential client the option, up front, to lock you in as their SEO and internet marketing company to the exclusion of all others, for a fair price. This protects them from having to contend with a new company coming in and climbing the rankings right behind them and it allows the marketing company the opportunity to receive a higher billable rate in compensation for reducing it’s potential client base.

Be pro-active on this subject. Approach your clients and let them know that they have the opportunity to lock you in and guarantee that your specialized services will be dedicated solely to them. And for the businesses out there, if you are concerned about your marketing company helping someone else in your market, call them, see what you can do to tie them to your company exclusively.

Non-competes aren’t for everyone, but you need to decide what your response will be before you are placed in the position of having to decide whether or not to turn down offers of new work.

But what if your goals are more than that? What if you actually want to be a part of the local scene? What if you are after something a little more fulfilling than a quick link and move on?

There is an answer, or I wouldn’t be posting this.

Take a look at Lafayette Online, a local website that has been running for years with the simple goal of giving people in Lafayette, In., local news, a local dining guide, lodging information, even a calendar of events. And it’s primary viewer? People that actually live and shop in Lafayette! What a concept! (BTW, go Boilermakers!)

Lafayette Online isn’t alone, take a look at Nashville Scene. A different approach to the local scene, but the same effect. Local information is being provided to local people, and if you are targeting locally, these sites are where you need to be.

Find these sites. Contact the site owners. See if you can get a news story written about you. At the very least add them to your press release list, many of the site owners are small operations just trying to provide something to the local community and any news that they can get is good news. And if it isn’t, it’s easy enough to delete.

Don’t have a news worthy item? Advertise! Everyone is wrapped up in Google AdWords as the ad supplier of choice. But these local sites run by local people, putting local money back in to the local economy can be a far better investment over time than the random Google Ad. Besides, how often is someone from Google going to come in to your shop and spend $20?