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Controversial Local Business Marketing PR

I sent out a pretty inoffensive press release a little while ago. Got a big surprise when an unsigned, anonymous email landed steaming in my email in box, the other day. I can only guess it comes from a competitor – someone who really cares about me.

You can read the Local Business Marketing Press Releases here:

New Search Engine Service Launches in Melbourne
New Service Launched to Help Local Businesses Market Themselves

Hey Pete…. perhaps you should send out press releases in which the examples provided are keyword phrases that people actually SEARCH for?

Local Business Marketing Melbourne = zero searches
Online Local Business Marketing Plan = zero searches
Local business marketing consultant Melbourne = zero searches

But thanks, your press release gave us all a laugh. I appreciate it.

You may want to, however, look into how to actually write a press release, as well as how to optimise a website for relevant SEARCHED for phrases – but in the mean time, we’ll just enjoy the laughs.

Well, Is This The Best Way to Market a Local Business or Not?

I’m going to call my anonymous mate, “Bob”, because he used that name in his Hotmail address, “Bob ONeil” <boboneil69@hotmail.com> “bobo”?. There are a few clues that Bob is probably a local competitor to me. Perhaps he is interested in my business because he’s losing clients to me, who knows?

It occurred to me that others might think the same way Bob does. How should you market your small business in its local area?

That lead me to think, if Bob can waste his time setting up a fake hotmail account to hide his identity and then spend time checking my keyword phrases so he can write to me and criticise, then it encourages me to waste a little bit of my time in response.

Frankly, if Bob is in Local Business Marketing, I hope he doesn’t come back looking at this site. He might learn something I don’t want him to know. Not for Bob, I decided this exercise could be helpful for small and medium size businesses who may be struggling with the same issue that Bob doesn’t understand.

So let me show you where I think this guy is missing the point when it comes to Local Business Marketing. Low search volumes is what it is all about; how do you choose?

Here’s how you can add some different thinking to your Local Business Marketing keyword choices.

Frankly, it requires a lot more intelligence than these SEO horse and buggy guys are bringing to the table. Why is Bob so concerned? Reading between the lines, I think you can sense that he is worrying, perhaps over reacting, perhaps for a good reason.

What people actually search for… Locally.

The fact is Bob seems stuck in a bit of an old SEO rut that doesn’t help my kind of clients. I help Local Businesses – those small and medium size businesses who get their clients and customers mostly from around their own geographic location. From the hood.

Bob’s right to want me to target keyword phrases that people actually put into Google when they search for my kind of services. I agree with that and I also use Google’s Keyword Tool, just like Bob does.

Unlike Bob, I know the tool is just a guide.

You have to use it, and the 15 or so other tools I use, to guide your thinking and inform your decisions. Tools don’t make up my mind for me otherwise anyone who uses the Google Keyword Tool (hey, Bob?) could do what I do.

It’s true that Local Search has low volumes, just as Google reports. But I can tell you it’s not “zero”. Bob picked 3 search terms out of 130 that I have on page one of Google. I wonder if he picked those three because he thought they were particularly ridiculous compared to the other 127. The funny thing is that only one of Bob’s choices has NOT brought clicks to my website — yet. And two of Bob’s choices have the local modifier, Melbourne, which Bob should know, takes the Google search volume into his “zero” slot.

My area is not international business marketing, it is not SEO-with-no-business on the end of it. It is Local – Business – Marketing. Thousands of enquiries for an engineering works in Spotswood?

How many enquiries does a Local Business need or want, anyway? Frankly, I hope Bob doesn’t ever see this because I am very happy that he thinks the way he does. I doubt he has experience in Local Business Marketing — but if he does, I’m glad he doesn’t go for these keywords.

I read my server logs and see that I get business from “zero” search terms. Bob would be shocked to see the convoluted phrases people type into Google only to find my site at number one. And 40% of the search terms people find me with, use the local modifier, Melbourne. That’s where I live, and local clients like dealing with a Local Business Marketing Consultant, even if Bob and his crack-up group of experts are so sure that they do not.

First place on Google gets almost 60% of the search business. Ask yourself, which of the following approaches is better for the client?

• Bob’s method: struggling (charging) to get his clients to page one for high volume search terms that more than likely aren’t even buyer terms. Meanwhile Bob’s paying clients are stuck on page Not-One where there is practically no business… and still paying Bob.
• My method: front page for 130 low search but “buyer” keyword phrases that are to do with my business offerings. Many of them are in first place on page one of Google. And most of those phrases return many listings, not just one appearance. There are directory listings, videos, (A) and (B) Google Places and videos. For many keyword, every one of those elements are there on page one. Oh, I forgot, Bob’s irritating Press Releases are there too.

I understand Bob’s old argument but my method is to get to number one on Google as quickly as possible. Get your marketing into gear, not just SEO. Then spend your money cleaning up and cementing your position with backlinking and other time consuming, ongoing maintenance.

It’s easier to pay WHEN you’ve got money coming in than it is to pay TO get money coming in.

As someone who is a far more advanced SEO person than I am, I am surprised that Bob would think I optimized my pages at all. They aren’t optimized and they have no backlinks. The site has only a handful of pages. It’s only a few months old, has no PR and is competing with PR2 sites with several years of Domain Age and tens of thousands of backlinks. (Here are 3 articles on How to DIY SEO , if you want some tips.) All that gravitas cost them a pretty penny paid to some very clever “Bobs”. No wonder they worry.

Hey Bob, how did I get 130 Google front page listings with that crap in that short a time? I’m not really sure you and the gang are having that many laughs.

If you’d like to see some more detail on how I make my Keyword choices for local business, try

How DO you choose good Local Business Marketing Keywords at low volume? Does my Press Release do its job?