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.

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.

The rest of this article comes to us from Mark Dolliver…

Here’s a bit of Internet Age heresy from small-business owners: 46 percent regard it as a “myth” that every company needs a Web site.

That’s one tidbit from a release this month of supplemental data from the ongoing Discover Small Business Watch polling. When small-business owners were asked in an August round of polling whether their company has a Web site, fewer than half (45 percent) said it does.

Among respondents whose business doesn’t have a Web site, the foremost reason (cited by 41 percent) was that “my business doesn’t need one.” Other reasons included “cost” (cited by 19 percent), “not enough time to monitor and manage” (16 percent) and “complexity” (9 percent).

Do consumers penalize small businesses that choose not to have an online presence? Not as much as you might expect. Polling in September among consumers asked, “Are you more likely or less likely to use a small business that has a Web site?” While a plurality (47 percent) said they’d be more likely to do so, half said either that they’d be less likely (17 percent) or that “it would have no impact” (34 percent).

Nor is there a consensus among consumers that it’s odd if a company doesn’t have a Web site. Asked whether they “expect every business, large or small, to eventually have a Web site,” those saying “yes” (46 percent) were outnumbered by the sum of those saying “no” (37 percent) or “not sure” (17 percent).

The same poll also asked consumers whether they would “consider using a service or small business that you heard about on a social or business networking site.” Forty-three percent said they would consider it, but 32 percent said they wouldn’t and 26 percent weren’t sure.

Some say we are on the road to Recovery. Some say otherwise so it depends on which side you believe. I will say this…

Productivity grew by an annual rate of 8.1% in third quarter of 2009, the biggest increase since 2003, according to the Commerce Department. This followed a 6.9% rise in productivity in the second quarter of 2009. As productivity increased, labor costs fell at a 2.5% annual rate, indicating that inflation remains under control. But, this also signals that workers’ wages are decreasing, experts say, raising a cause for concern on the durability of the nation’s economic recovery.

What does this all mean? It means that we still have some tough time ahead of us. But I like to pose the question… is your glass half full or half empty? Me personally, mine is always half full, no matter what. I will say that the month of December has been my best billing month in 10 months… I feel it getting better!

As people of the Greatest Nation on earth, we need to always be “Half Full”!

I want to give a shout out to Ivana Taylor (DIY Marketers) for writing this article. She has some great insight into effective marketing and I want to share her article. You can find the original article here.

Marketing your small business doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, it’s really easy to build your image or your customer base on little or no money. The most you’ll have to invest on this list is about 30 minutes but it will be the best 30 minutes you could spend….

1. Focus on customers critical to your success. We’re often so busy serving the customers we have and selling to new ones, that we often don’t take the time to put our customer list into perspective. As you go down the list write down those customers that could be critical to the growth of your business in the next year. If you haven’t seen them in more than 90 days, if they haven’t heard about any new changes, products or services, if you don’t know what the most important projects for them are – put them on the list and start making appointments to see them.

Creating the list will excite you about the new opportunities, calling these customers to set an appointment will be an additional personal touch in your sales and marketing program. Having the meeting is touch two, following up after the visit with a thank you is touch three, actually doing something with what they’ve said is touch four and more. Simply focusing on those customers that can make all the difference is an easy, natural and inexpensive way to grow your business.

2. Set a marketing theme and follow-it with every customer interaction. A really fun way to build your brand is to create a fun and versatile theme and then apply it to all your customer communication. For example, if your product is easy to use, then focus on that attribute. You might decide to create an article entitled “101 Reasons [Your Product] is Easy to Use” you could have serious reasons such as ”24/7 live online support”, or funny reasons like “You can use one hand to use the product and the other to eat an ice cream cone.” Either way, take a simple competitive advantage and keep repeating it in as many communications as you can. You will save money and your customers will remember you and what sets you apart.

3. Celebrate unusual holidays. There are a variety of fun, creative holidays that you can celebrate and adapt to feature a product or a service. No one takes the time to do this – and your customer will get a kick out of it. Send a Thanksgiving card or gift with a special offer if they display it at their office. Some creative days of the year include Elvis’ Birthday on Jan 8, National Hat Day on January 15, April 22 on Earth Day, and of course there are the standard Independence Day, and St. Patrick’s Day. The point is to actually MARK these holidays and use them to promote your small business.

4. Build a customer community. After you’ve developed your list of targeted customers, keep the communication lines open by giving them a space to connect with you. If you haven’t already, start a blog. Wordpress.com is free and you can set up a blog in as little as 5 minutes. Give the blog address to your customers and spend the first 30 minutes of your day writing something to them. In the beginning, you’ll have to remind them to visit and see what’s there. But if your content is good enough, you’ll soon have a loyal following AND get inexpensive and valuable feedback to your ideas. Think of a blog as a publication. It’s like creating your free advertising that goes direct to your customer’s mail box! Move your online community into the real world and schedule customer events. If your customers are scattered across the country, make a point to visit each region and schedule a customer event focused on helping them do their jobs better.

Marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. In fact, the best and most effective marketing programs come straight from the heart. A couple words of advice; have fun! People make decisions, not buildings, industries or titles. So try these low-cost, high impact marketing strategies for your small business and you will find yourself having fun getting and keeping customers.

You can learn more about Ivana Taylor and DIY Marketers by clicking here.