Now many of you I suppose… why on earth would you want to dominate the “New” yellow pages, online, with exponentially more visitors than the original could hope to scrape together? 

Well, I’m in the process of setting something up JUST for you, if you might be interested.  In a week or so, I’m going to publish a page where you can share this information with a few people, and for doing so, the first few folks will win a completely complimentary “Local Search Blast” from me.  A $697 value.  Keep your eyes peeled and, better yet, sign up for the e-mail list to be one of the first to find out about my latest freebie.  This will be delivered immediately.  If you are one of the fortunate winners, you will be sent a spreadsheet to fill out and return to me.  Upon it’s return, you’ll be entered into and appear on dozens and dozens of local search sites – Yelp, City Search, Online Yellow Pages, InfoUSA, etc. 

If you are the winner of my “Local Search Blast,”  make sure to have your phone staffed and answered.  The process of it going out to all of the sites can take from 4 to 8 weeks, but typically, close to immediate results are more apparant.

OptiLink is a tool that makes backlink and link text analysis much easier.  Take advantage of this before Leslie screws his head back and and again decides to charge $150 for this…   It’s a killer deal at that price, and OptiLinik for free, well…  Just click here to find out:  https://leftsidesystems.infusionsoft.com/link/47e6ad60/7a120 

This is better than an OptiLink coupon code or discount.  How to buy OptiLink, the free way:  https://leftsidesystems.infusionsoft.com/link/47e6ad60/7a120

Happy Birthday Kevin Wilke !!!

What exactly is the Advertising Tax?  Well, a very short, basic explanation of it is that some people, governments, state legislatures, etc are trying to use the existance of an affiliate program as basis for the establishment of “Nexus” of a company in that state.  Once Nexus is established and has been determined, states can then use that to force those companies to collect sales tax for that state, at a minimum.  It opens up quite a can of worms, and sales tax could just be the beginning, as they could impose other legislation and control on those companies, and make business prohibitively expensive and an accounting nightmare at minimum.   Instead of dealing with this, retailers will just drop affiliates who reside in the offending states, further eliminating jobs and income when it’s difficult enough as it is.

One thing you can do is to visit this page at the Performance Marketing Alliance and let them know about yourself and how it would affect you.  They can then pass this information on to legislators in your state, and let them know that you don’t approve of it,  and the harm it would cause your business and your families.   http://performancemarketingassociation.com/advocateform.html

Better to take a proactive stance to this instead of just waiting for that e-mail that lets you know you’ve been dropped from the affiliate programs that are putting food on your table.  I’ve been through this once before, in 2006 with the online casino industry, with all of my eggs in one basket with that, and within a months time being dropped from every revenue source I had.  Not a fun spot to be in… 

Contact your legislators, representatives, congressmen, whoever, and let them know your stance on this…

I’d very much appreciate your help with this, and I’m sure Denai would also…

Mike

The below is copied and pasted from an e-mail from her:

!!!PLEASE FORWARD!!!
====================
You read correctly, I am pursing a dream of being on TV… as a Talk Show host!
With Oprah’s contest for Your OWN Show, this will become a reality in 2010!!!
WOO HOO!!!
 
I need YOUR VOTES to climb the charts.
 
I am COMMITTED to working my way from page 70 to page ONE by July 3rd!
The Top FIVE with the most online votes will be on a REALITY TV SHOW.
Those persons will compete and my intention is to WIN my OWN show!!!
 
I NEED YOUR HELP TO GET THERE!!!
There are already people with over 1 million votes, but I BELIEVE in my friend, my colleagues, their networks, my family, and in my dream!!!
That is why my audition will RESONATE with the producers, Oprah, and all involved and you will see me on TV!!!
 
You can VOTE as often as you want whenever you want from now until midnight on July 3rd!
 
You can SHARE on Facebook, Twitter, and in your email asking your contacts to VOTE.
 
Please FORWARD this message to EVERYONE you know.
 
Here is the link: http://TheDenaiShow.com
 
THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!!!
Denai
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
VOTE TODAY & EVERYDAY FOR THE DENAI SHOW on OWN!!!
 

http://TheDenaiShow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This video is pretty awesome, and has some information.  Check out You Want 30 to 100 New Referral Sources right now here http://www.livescribe.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/LDApp.woa/wa/MLSOverviewPage?sid=mx2cRHqSRj5M

 The meeting last night was on Local Search, and the panel of nationally known experts on the subject included David Nihm (nationally recognized expert), Chris Silver Smith – Keyrelevance – Dallas, and Brian Combs, CEO ionadas local LLC out of Austin.

The meeting bascially covered the differences between Local Search and “normal” SEO and the different approaches to take when undertaiking campaigns of each.  It answered on a basic level the questions of  “How Do I Rank in Google Maps” and “How Do I Rank in Local Search?”

 The comparability somewhat of citations in local search as compared to “links” in “normal” seo.  About keeping your information consistant with all sources of citation and your own site, advertisements, etc.  If you have your business name and address formatted in a certain way on your site, i.e  123 Main Street, don’t list it somewhere else as 123 Main St.  – be consistant with the formatting of all of your local search information. 

The topic of tracking numbers was also covered – if you are going to use tracking numbers – either include them as images or have them called externally via javascript, no inline javascript, etc.  Reason being, the most consistant your company information, including address, phone number, name formatting, etc. the higher the “trust” element with Google, and thus, in theory, the higher the ranking.

For local search links are important, but so are “citations.”  Citations are mentions of your site, URL, phone number, etc. on other websites.  Your URL may or may not be a hyperlink, as well any geo information that can be incorporated in your site as well as sites on which citations exist.  Maps, hcards, etc.

Reviews are also extremely important for local search.  Reviews by a wide variet of people on a wide variety of sites, such as Yelp, City Search, IYP, etc.

Data providers are also important. Localeze, infoUSA and Acxiom.  Get your information into these resources, which supply information and feed data to many other sites, and, again, make sure it’s formatted identically, as identical information formatting helps out with the trust factor, which is again a large part of local search. 

They went over a ton of other things, but the above being some of the basic, recurring themes.  If you are into local search, I’ll have a book coming out soon, so check back on the site for a comprehensive book on decimating your competition in local search and Google Maps.

This provides some much needed improvements, but also presents some new, additional challenges as well.  I do think it is a positive step in addressing one of the fundamental problems with the Google Business Center for many home based and service based businesses though, and provides some welcomed relief.

Log into your Google Business Center listing today and see if this new functionality can lend some relief or new exposure for your business, and also contact me for help in dominating the search results, local or otherwise…