While it takes a lot to succeed in business, three things a dear friend shared with me you must have to be successful in business:

• Offer real value to your customers/clients.
• Know your business (have a good working knowledge of what you’re doing).
• Be receptive to unlimited abundance.

OK, some of you were with me till that last one.  But that’s just too woo-woo for you, huh?  Well, you can’t convince me otherwise.  It is essential to your success.  And it’s the one thing a lot of us entrepreneurs are missing.  Yes, it’s a form of that Law Of Attraction thing.  But as someone said, money is just another form of energy.  After all, is it real?  The paper is.  But the value of that piece of paper – currency or checks  or even plastic – is nil.  It only has value because we all agree to assign it value.  It represents something else that has real value but we can’t see that value; we have to go on trust.

Well, that is simply a form of energy because it’s intangible.  So there:

money=energy

It is a form of energy so you can attract that energy by having the same frequency as money does (remember, like attracts like).

That’s my two cents’ worth.

A lot has changed in the last several years in Internet marketing.  One of those changes has serious implications for local business owners.

While there are a LOT of search engines out there, this pertains to the major search engines – Google, Yahoo, and Bing (previously known as MSN).   The Big 3 have quietly started to put a lot of emphasis on local search.  Evidently, they have come to recognize the market potential for themselves and their locally-based customers in this previously untapped part of the market.  To this end, they have developed quite a few tools and applications which address (pun intended) local search.  (We will address some of these tools in a later post.)

For now, have a look at Google, Yahoo and Bing’s maps that are now part of their searches – but only for certain terms.  For instance, here are the results of a search for ‘long beach chiropractor’ on each of the sites:  Google Yahoo Bing You’ll notice the results are quite a bit different for each engine.  That may be news to you but it’s been known for some time that they all have unique search algorithms.  We will also go into those peculiarities in future posts but the point for now is to become familiar with the maps (if you’re not already) and how they’re used, and poke around to learn some of the other features.

It was already a huge benefit to a business to land on the first page of results for the search terms that business wants to be known for.  Now it has become an even bigger benefit because of the graphic nature of the displayed results.  This gives an even greater advantage to the fortunate firms that land in those spots.  That’s why search optimization services are working harder than ever to ‘reverse engineer’ how the search engines decide who gets in those slots.   If you didn’t know, you can’t pay the search engines for placement.  Nor do they reveal their exact method of deciding who gets there.  That means it is up to the ingenuity of search engine optimization (SEO) specialists to figure that out, so they can offer that service to clients.  Because, as you should know, the higher you are on the page, the more likely you are to get clicks, which lead to prospects, which lead to more business.

A few years ago, link swapping could help your ranking. (If you don’t know, swapping links is simply agreeing to link from your website to someone else’s in return for them linking back to your site.)  Unfortunately, Google now sees that for what it (often) is – self-serving. So they give you very little, if any credit, for it. One-way links have a much higher value because it appears to them that it is pure altruism, that other sites choose to link to your site, let’s say, because they simply value your content.

That equates to relevance to Google, and relevance is the Holy Grail for Google. They always want to give searchers the most relevant results possible because that’s what keeps people using Google and not their competitors. And Google never forgets that searchers pay nothing to use their search engine and can switch to another one by simply typing ‘yahoo.com’ or ‘bing.com’ and pressing . FYI, here’s another search engine interface that some like better – yet it uses the results from the search engines we all know and love

Our methods use one-way links and many other carefully-engineered and tested powerful techniques that get more traffic to your website.  And the nice thing is, you don’t even have to know all this nerdy tech stuff – just contact us and it’s ‘done for you’.

Have you ever heard of DMOZ.org?  It happens to be one of the largest directories of websites.  Directories aren’t searched maybe as much as they used to be as they were more useful before Google and other search engines like Alta Vista came along.  Can you imagine using the ‘net without Google?  Us old-timers did it.  Used to work away at my keyboard by candlelight

But: Directories still carry a LOT of clout with the search engines so you’d want to have your site listed with them.  There are hundreds – maybe thousands – of these directories.  Many are free.  Some require a small annual fee, and many of those are industry-specific, which is why they can often command a fee – they carry even a little more clout in their respective industry.  So, even though you may never have need to use a directory yourself – although you probably do, like SuperPages.com – you’d want to submit your site listing for the link value it carries with the search engines.

Google, Yahoo and Bing all have directories, too, believe it or not.  In fact, our systematic methods of creating traffic for local business include an option to have your site submitted to about 100 of these directories.  While most of the sites are free, we charge for the service because there is no way to just click a button and have it done.  It’s a labor-intensive process.  Fortunately, it only has to be done once for a website.

If you’re in the Long Beach, CA area, we are fortunate to have THINK Communications

800-610-6717

The prices are excellent and so is the service.  I got 2-sided color glossy finish heavy card stock (sorry, don’t know the weight) – 1000 for $20!  And for just $7.44 more I got them delivered to my door by THINK!  Heck, at those prices you can afford to buy them even if you don’t live nearby and have them shipped to you.  And unlike Vista and the other companies offering ‘free’ biz cards, these are on high-quality glossy stock and DON’T have the company’s logo on them.

I have NO financial interest in this company.  Just passing along a tip about a great service offering.

One more thing:  The special is only good through March according to their website so don’t delay.  And check out their deals on postcards and other products.

Yes, we all know Google is the 800-pound gorilla of search engines.  But there are some things their interface leaves to be desired.  Like, isn’t it annoying that you always have to scroll to the bottom of the screen to go to the next page?

Also, do you notice how the top results on Google don’t match the results on the other biggies, Yahoo and Bing?  (If you’re not in the habit of checking this, you should be monitoring the ranking of your website across the other SE’s.)  If you want to do this, it takes time to open those other browser windows, etc.

If you want to look up related images, you have to open another browser window.   And sometimes you can’t see the details very well in those tiny thumbnails so you have to go to the page to get a large enough image.

And if you find something you want to share – after all, we are all social media mavens, right? – it’s a hassle to connect to Facebook or Twitter from the search results (because you’re so busy you really don’t have time to go to the search results, copy the web address, yada yada yada.

Well, friends, Leapfish might be what you’ve been waiting for.  It’s a genuinely better mousetrap!  It’s not really a search engine; it’s a better interface.  Why do you care?  Because it will make you SO much more productive, and don’t we all want to save time?  I’ve seen other SE’s come along courting me but they always had the disadvantage of just not working as well as Google.  After all, it may have other features but it’s still got to do the core job of searching really well – give accurate, relevant results quickly.

Leapfish sidesteps that.  They don’t even try to compete.  In fact, they give you 3 buttons – Google, Yahoo and Bing – conveniently located to the right of the search results where you click and instantly get the same search for that SE, but inside Leapfish’s easier-to-use interface.  And it’s fast so you don’t get penalized for using the feature (they must cache those other search results).

There is one downside I’ve found:  You can’t get that number in the upper right corner, the one that tells you how many competitive searches there are for the term you’re searching.

You get images from both Google and Flickr.  You can instantly connect to Facebook and Twitter from within Leapfish.  And if you want to see those images larger, just hover over them and they pop up a magnified image.  Is that cool or what?  And I haven’t even touched on a bunch of other features like the way they have top news categorized for you by ‘news’, ‘celebrities’, ’sports’, ’shopping’, etc.  They also show the top Digg and blog results relevant to your search as well.

Am I starting to sound like an ad?  Well, I wish I owned stock in this company!  They achieved an Alexa ranking in one year that took Google 5 years to accomplish (Alexa is a measure of popularity).  And while they won’t knock off Google – after all, they literally depend on Google to feed them search results – Leapfish may become the SE platform most people prefer.  I know I do.

If you’re one of those still sitting on the fence about making use of Twitter to promote your business, here are some good guidelines to keep you realistic.  This information is taken from a recent article at SearchEngineGuide.com where I recommend you go to read more.  But, if you don’t have time – and who does? – this will give you a good summary.

First, decide on why you want to Tweet.  It needs to be more specific than ‘promote my business’.  You can break it down into these tasks, listed from the least- to the most-time-consuming:   Follow – Listen – Offer – Share – Engage

So these figures are a good baseline for budgeting your (or your staff’s) time, depending on your objectives.   As with anything, you don’t want to do it halfway.  That is a sure way to waste valuable resources.

Now that you know this, don’t despair if you feel like you just can’t afford the time.  You can always outsource your social media marketing efforts.  That’s what we do at Prosenergy.  Not only that, but we can offer you a whole toolbox of social media and other traffic-building services.   And you benefit from that synergy:  Rather than trying to do some Twittering here, some Facebook there, you get a lot more out of the combined, coordinated efforts of our team working for you.

While the rise of social media has resulted from the involvement of males and females alike, it’s possibly holds more potential to boost the power of women.   An excellent article on Mashable spells out opportunities for women in social media.   Because of several phenomena that favor women, they will be the ones to watch in social media marketing.   Women are naturally more prone to congregate and commiserate, to share and compare, and to work through consensus than are their male counterparts.   They have been in control of the household purse strings for some time now, as well.   And now companies – always in search of the most effective ways to communicate with consumers – are looking to women as trendsetters in this evolving field.  So, ladies, seize the opportunity and lead on!

Prosenergy is a marketing venture created to help small local businesses when they need it most.  We use the most powerful marketing medium the world has ever seen:  The Internet.

Who We Are

• high-level
• software-based
• social media marketing company.

Another way of saying it: Through the use of proprietary methods and state-of-the-art tools, we leverage the explosion of social media traffic to boost the marketing of your business. We can now accelerate Web traffic for small business owners just like big companies have been accustomed to receiving in the past. Small business owners, take heed: Social media is a game changer.

If you are a small business owner and you would like:

• more Internet traffic
• to appear on page 1 of organic search results for Google, Yahoo and Bing
• to be on the Google or Yahoo map listing for your business type
• to increase profits
• all of the above little more effort on your part than signing on the dotted line

contact us today.

We offer ‘done for you’ traffic generation services that boosts your business’ Web presence and increases profits. You’re good at what you do. That’s what keeps you in business. So keep doing it. We’re good at what we do. So let us handle your internet marketing to boost your profits.

Our approach works especially well for businesses that have a local-only market – like attorneys, chiropractors, CPAs, carpet cleaners – who have largely been ignored by the revolution in marketing that has come along with the ever-increasing popularity of the Internet and reliance upon local search to find and contact merchants for goods and services.

Not only do we offer all of this through ‘done for you’ service, but we’re so confident of the results we produce that we offer an unprecedented performance guarantee. Ask us for details.

If you’re like many locally-based business owners with whom we’ve talked, our depressed economy has presented you with an unbelievable number of challenges…

• Decreasing numbers of new customers and clients
• Discovering that the old “tried and true” Yellow Pages (and other print and traditional media) don’t work as well anymore
• Trying to figure out how to use the every-changing Internet as an effective marketing tool
• And so on…

Some sobering facts

• “The Yellow Pages industry will lose 39% of its annual revenue over the next 5 years, amounting to a loss of $5 billion in annual revenue by 2013″  (source: Borrell Associates)
• “70% of online searchers use “local search” to find offline businesses” (source: comScore Networks)
• “60% of all local business searches now happen online  (33% happen in print Yellow Pages and 82% of the people using Local Search websites follow up their research with offline action”  (source: TMP Directional Marketing – comScore)
• “54% of Internet users have substituted Internet/Local Search to replace the phone book”  (source: comScore Networks)

Now, consider these questions

• If you’re spending thousands of dollars every year on Yellow Pages ads, what kind of results have you been getting?
• How have you been measuring the results?
• Are you even measuring the results?
• Are your other traditional marketing methods getting you all the prospects and customers, clients, or patients you want and need?
• How effectively are you using the Internet to attract new prospects and customers or clients to your business or practice?
• Do you have a top Google ranking in the Local Results for the words that your prospects are typing in to find you (or your competitor)?
• Did you know you can directly measure your Internet results?
• Did you know there’s a huge difference between “just having a web site” on the Internet and “New Media?”

What does all of this mean to you?

If you’re in an area where people are going online to search for your local business solution, and you’re not listed in the Google Local Results and have top Google ranking, you’re missing out on potential business. Bluntly, you’re toast!

How do you find out? Get a complimentary Opportunity Analysis AND get a website critique (if you have a site) by completing the form on the right side of this page. You’ll then be positioned to know what and how much potential business is available for you. And how much you’re missing.