While Google still is the dominating search engine, local search is growing by leaps and bounds. 40% of all searches have a local intent – that is a number all businesse should sit up an notice!

Americans conducted 15.4 billion searches in March, with Google Sites accounting for 65.1% search market share, followed by Yahoo Sites at 16.9%, and Microsoft Sites at 11.7%. The Ask Network captured 3.8% of the search market, followed by AOL with 2.5%.

So where does this leave Local Search? As a searcher’s location becomes a standard bit of metadata to be factored into the PPC bid process, geotargeting is likely to become the norm. On the other end of the geotargeting search equation, we see that landing pages are somewhat neglected. Survey results showed that few marketers were taking advantage of geolocation-specific messaging once the searcher clicked through. For retailers, in particular, this is a huge missed opportunity.

Social sites can also help marketers find consumers that purchase wine, clothing and cars. “People who have expressed intent are accessible here,” he says.

Video also presents another opportunity. More than 174 million U.S. Internet users watched online video in February, according to comScore Video Metrix. Video viewers on Hulu watched content on average 2.4 hours per viewer.

LocalProud is a discount card program to help vitalize local economies. Businesses offer discounts that are honored when consumers show their LocalProud card. They get to determine the offers and are able to change them via a convenient website…

Have you ever wished you could carry around a card that would be honored at any business who offered coupons? Well, we have which is why we’ve created Local Proud – a Coupon program that eliminates the hassles of finding, printing and organizing coupons.

This is the way of future discount programs and we are now bringing it to life. Consumers want great deals. Businesses want to offer great value. Now, Local Proud is bringing the two together buy offering an easy to use discount card called the Local Proud Perks card.

We are pleased to annouce that we have partnered with our first television station as well – an innovative thinker located in Buffalo, NY. WKBW is where you’ll find great deals in western upstate New York. Currently we are offering many deals in the Buffalo and surrounding areas.

The great thing is you can use the card or, if you’re old school (sorry:-) you can also print coupons from the website. Sometimes it take a little while to inform the community as to what a new value proposition is so in the meantime, you can still print coupons via Local Proud. We are adding new offers daily so keep coming back – we’re about to overtake the Buffalo, NY area!

As you all know, we are fans of local search – we’ve written about it, we have even partnered with a local search directory called MyLocalLookup. Well, we now have something new to tell you about. It’s called Local Proud!

LocalProud is a brand new discount card program designed to help vitalize the local economy. Area merchants offer discounts that are honored when consumers show their free LocalProud card. The business get to determine their offers and they’re able to change them anytime via a convenient web interface. No special equipment is required for the business or your customers.

By becoming a part of the LocalProud program, the business will receive Local Proud cards to distribute to their customers as well as a window decal to display in your storefront. The program will be promoted through various local media, including television.

Pre-Launch Phase
During our pre-launch phase, they are offering free enrollment to the first 100 businesses. That means there is absolutely no-risk involved to get started. It’s time that local businesses come together and make a difference in our community. This Program allows that aspect to take hold.

Benefits To Consumers

• No Points to Collect
• No Coupons to Print
• No Waiting for Rewards
• Instant Offers
• Supports Local Businesses
• Keeps Money in Local Economy

Here is where to get started. Log onto Local Proud and hit the Advertise with us tab. It’s free and its a very cool concept! Or you can go to their pre-launch page to get sdtarted. If I were you, I wouldn’t wait another minute – I believe this will be a big hit with both consumers and businesses!

Besides the hard work, commitment, sacrifice and long long days of first starting your company, it takes planning, strategy and a whole of mistakes and failure to build a profitable business.

That’s right… I said it, mistakes and failure! However, one can always learn from anothers misfortune. In other words, you will make mistakes along the way however you can learn from other people and not make the “same” mistakes others have made. Which brings me to the point – Profits. I have had the idea of writing about this for weeks but never had gotten around to it. Today, one of my fellow Twitter friends by the name of Steve Pohlit.

The following was written by Steve and can be found on his blog: Thanks Steve for writing this!

It is important to understand that in order to build profits, a profit must first be earned. If your business is a start-up or has been losing money, the main focus of all your activity is to make a profit.. not just any profit, but a cash profit. Cash profit is where your cash balance is growing after you cover all your expenses whether they be paid daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.

If your business is not in a cash profit situation, you will not be able to stay in business indefinitely. There will be a point when you run out of cash and you have to close your door. In the Proof of Concept article I mentioned Twitter as an example of a company whose business model is exciting but whose excitement will eventually die if it does not turn profitable.

One of the best ways to begin making a cash profit and then make even higher cash profits, is to develop a financial performance picture twelve months in advance. This financial picture is how you want you business to look financially a year from now. I always advise clients when doing this work to look at what the business has been able to earn in the past and then increase it significantly.

Individuals use a technique know as vision boards to focus on things they want including lifestyle improvements. The financial model of what you want your business to look like is your business vision board. “If you can see it you can achieve it.”

There is more to it than creating a picture twelve months out but that is a key starting point. For purposes of building profits I do not advocate going beyond a twelve month horizon as there are two many variables. However, when doing strategic planning a more forward outlook is appropriate. For now we are focused on building profits near term.

I recently asked the question to a few small businesses and clients that I’m close with around the country… How effective has Local Search been for your business.  The answers that I’ve been given have been all across the board, some good, some bad but more over what most people say to me is “we don’t use it at all” 

For the businesses that use local search as part of their Internet strategies, you get it… but for the latter, I find this to be fascinating. Let’s look at a few facts about local search and how consumers are online today.

92% of all people are online today and let’s face it, the Internet has become our lifes, both personally and professionally.

97% of people with online access will research products and services online before they buy – we still like to buy from the bricks and motars. 
Interesting enough, 35% of all searches are done with an intent to buy.
and 55% of all local searches are done with an intent to buy.
Of all local searches, 8 out of 10 call or visit a store and 60% of those result in a purchase of some kind.
Times are rapidly changing and traditional advertising mediums are losing their effectiveness.

The internet has changed the way the world communicates, gathers, stores and sends information. However, this global connection has created a problem for the local business in their local markets. Why? Traditional print advertising has become less effective.  Most people have thrown their Yellow Pages away and search online instead and Newspaper’s readership is down over 50% and many papers are declaring bankruptcy.

On the other side of local business and local search is big business. It’s true that search results in general are dominated by large companies. That is proven to be true with Local search as well. The big guys understand that us consumers are smart and we’re looking everywhere for the best deals, including using local search engines.

Business owners reading this post, I hope by now you are reading all there is to read about search, search engine marketing, blogging and anything else related to getting you better exposure with your online presence. We’re doping everyday and we’re a small business just like you!

Texas Mexican Restaurants… I love it when a real blogger takes notice of a nice website and takes the time to write about it. We’ve talked about Growmap.com before

Here is a little from our friends at Growmap…

“Texans who love Mexican restaurants have a new resource for experiencing the best Mexican cuisine in the DFW (Dallas Ft. Worth), Austin, Houston and San Antonio Metros. JoseGoes.com is a great example of how niche sites can offer great value to consumers through geo-targeted marketing while simultaneously creating exceptional opportunities for businesses”.

To read more Click here: http://www.growmap.com/texas-mexican-restaurants/

Now this is the kind of story I like to read… A newspaper company finally getting it! I found this story and of course, had to give my opinion. I wrote earlier about the merging of big companies and how, in my little brain, feel that those types of mergers are worthless to you and me.

But this little merger makes me scream with joy! In the big picture I’m not sure it really means a whole lot as far as competition but I like hearing about a small company with a great idea who though may not get hugely rich from it, they do get the reward of selling their idea. WikiCity has some great potential. There are many cities not yet populated within the site but it is farily new, less than a year old.

The Omaha World-Herald Co.’s flagship publication is the Omaha World-Herald, with a 200,000 Sunday and a 160,00 daily circulation. This opens the door for great growth opportunity and shows me that Omaha World-Herald is a great company. They are looking to the future, they know that they can’t grow just being a newspaper. I like that kind of thinking. You can read more here at Nieman Lab.

1. Mine Your List. You’ve heard this a hundred times, but you would be surprised at how many companies really don’t analyze their database accurately. A couple of thoughts before you take this on: If they haven’t responded or had some interaction with your business in 12 months, spend your time elsewhere; size doesn’t matter in this instance. And seek wisdom from interaction, not non-channel traits. Segmentation is so valuable, yet you need another dimension of data for decisions, and behavioral data will tell you so much more about timing and cadence. Put this at the top of your decision pyramid, we are creatures of habit.
2. Own The Point Of Intermediation. Simply put, you should maximize and build messaging around all events important to you. If it’s that important and you don’t have the resources to set up an API or some event trigger, do it manually. This will pay off more than any other effort you take this year.
3. Have Fun. Creative should be an exercise in interrupting the inbox experience, and you should have fun developing it. It can become so mundane over time with templates and production — yet you really should test the limits of what you can/can’t do and have fun with subject lines, have fun with creative messaging and know that testing is an exercise in making you better. Have a contest with your team or departments for the funniest subject line or funniest metaphor to sell your widgets or services.
4. Don’t Be Lazy. We often get so artful in production we forget about the value or doing creative briefs. These are so important in forcing us to lay out what we know and intend to do — and the only form of archiving. They make you think about whom you’re talking to, the justification you have to communicate, making you write campaign and program goals and think about the experience you are intending to drive. All great exercises for young teams.
5. What You See Is What You Get. With all the monitoring tools today, we can see the rendering of email in all the various ISPs –but I’ve found that this has become a so-what exercise. Are you doing anything about it? With images blocked in AOL, Yahoo and MSN, what impact does that have on your retails goals? We can’t optimize to all the environments, but you should consider picking a few ISP worlds and understanding really well what experience you are driving, potentially testing newer, simpler designs that get the consumer to “click and pay.”
6. Report As If Your Job Depended On It. I talk a lot about measurement, which is really important, but if your job depended on performance improvement, what variables show the value your efforts bring to the business? Site traffic? Revenue? Reach? Or do you need to craft this story into a couple of customer segments, to show the value you drive to identifiable customer sets that your management team can easily grasp? Sometimes these measurement stories are more easily communicated in vignettes rather than a general view of a large database.

While I’m a big believer in checklists for many things, strategically they are really hard to take on. If you really think about this list and what you do day in and day out, putting on a few filters, you might pull out a few nuggets you didn’t think about last year – and didn’t think you had time for this year.

JoseGoes.com is a nice looking niche website focusing on mexican and latin restaurants in the state of Texas. The idea is to completely define who your customers are, who the target is for potential revenue and the next thing you know, you have a business model. We really like this site!

What we liked about Jose Goes other than the business model is the fact of how easy it is to use and the potential opportunities it brings for restaurants. You can upload videos, incorporate your menu as a pdf, include pictures, google mapping and much more. Though the site is very niche, it certainly has a lot to offer both the restaurant and the visitor.

Though it looks as if they’re just getting the site up and running, It appears they have plans on incorporating television advertising as well. Just click on the video player to watch it.

We are going to keep an eye on this site… in the mean time, have a look for yourself – we’re including a link to the site itself and to one of the featured members. Good searching!

Well it’s really not rocket science, maybe one needs to understand the propulsion portion of rocket science in order to understand local search. Local search is about being in the right place at the right time when someone is looking for what you are selling. Here is an interesting fact about how consumers are searching today…

Research shows that 85% of all consumers go online to research whatever it is they want to buy before they decide on where or who they are going to buy it from. The recent Cash for Clunkers is a testiment of this. 85% of consumers who participated in the government funded Cash for Clunkers had already made their decision on what car they wanted, the color, and from whom they were going to buy it from before they walked into that dealership. In other words, they searched online and made their decision based on what they found via search.

Who benefited from this process? I’ll tell you who benefited… it was the local car dealers who made the investment to use local search as part of their strategy. And I don’t just mean Google or Yahoo, these smart marketers also use local search as part of their complete online marketing strategies. Here is a great example of local car dealers using local search in San Antonio, TX.

The thing I like about this site is the listing page for the premium advertisers – this is there exact listing, one that demands respect within the search business.

My point is, you must be using local search as part of your strategies, if not you are missing out on some great opportunity for your business.

Which brings me to why I’m writing about MyLocalLookup.com. WhattheYahoogle has formed a partnership with mylocallookup in order to provide our readers a great tool to find local businesses. In addition, we want to add that you can now get your bsuiness featured with a Jet Package for 75% off the annual subscriptions rate. Simple type in the code “Yahoogle” to receive your 75% off at check out.

This is a great opportunity for small businesses who want to get involved more search engine marketing but don’t have the budget to afford the big guys. With this discount, the cost is $25.00 a month and can be cancelled anytime.

As our friends at Growmap wrote a few weeks ago, MyLocalLookup is the only local search engine promoted in 44 TV markets across the country. They have built a unique startegy partnering with TV stations and offering great solutions on a local level. If you haven’t already checked out MyLocalLookup and their TV commercials, you can view their TV commercials here.

SEM (Seaarch Engine Marketing) is a term all of us need to get use to and an action we all need to take. Give your business every opportunity to be found when a customer is looking for you and you accomplish this through SEM.

Business owners… It’s time take control of your business. Get involved with local search, hire someone to help you with SEM, be a part of the Social Networking opportunities. If you don’t have the time, let us know, we can direct you to the right company.