360DigitalInfluence

I will be attending Search Engine Strategies Conference in Chicago from December 7-11 (at the Hilton Chicago - 720 S. Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60605).

On Tuesday I posted a Q&A with Bill Leake , President and CEO, Apogee Search.  Today I’m pleased to interview Matt Van Wagner of Findmefaster.com.

Matt is speaking on the Search on a Dime panel - a look at what small businesses can do in search to pick up the valuable traffic being left behind by their competitors.

Comments and additional questions welcomed.

Talk a bit about local search the upsides are clear, but how does it work and are there any pitfalls to this approach?

On this panel, we will be talking about small businesses who don’t have a lot of time, energy or savvy to devote to online marketing. These people traditionally have operated by word of mouth, references, and their physical location.  In most cases, budgets for advertising are very small, and typically they rely on the trusted old standard marketing vehicles like yellow pages, coupon books, newspapers, and perhaps some direct mailings.

The best way to approach paid search for a small, local business is to be very conservative.  The very first thing to do is to get your free business listings in Google, Yahoo and Microsoft local search.  This will allow you to create local ads that show up with map points  at the top of local listing.   Next, start a small Google campaign with a very few well-chosen keywords, write ads that make it known you are and show the ads in a very limited geography  - no more than 15 miles from your locations. Don’t try to advertise everything you do - pick one or two of your best products/services.

The biggest pitfall for small businesses getting into paid search advertising is that if they don’t understand how it works, they can quickly blow through whatever investment they decide to make, and never know if it worked or not.  That’s because it is very hard to directly measure the impact of any local paid search advertising especially when your goal is to drive phone or in-store traffic.  This sounds heretical for a paid search aficionado like myself to say, but that’s the reality of it. No matter what method of tracking you try to use - coupons, dedicated phone numbers, asking customers where they heard about you, and so on, it is very difficult to really know whether your online marketing is working.

Is there a generally accepted spend level (relative to other forms or paid and earned media) that a small business should benchmark  against?  If so, what’s the reasoning?  If not, how should business prioritize search within their media mix?

That’s a tough one. Every business is different and has different need for advertising and advertising online.  A local auto dealer may make different spend level decisions than a local hardware store or specialty bakery.  We often suggest that a business owner consider re-allocating budget money from some other non-performing type of advertising, and use that to jump start the paid search effort.

As a benchmark, I’d say that if a small local business is allocating nothing to online marketing, that they ought to look at shifting at least 10% of whatever marketing they are doing to get started online.

Do small businesses need to hire an outside vendor to get into the search game, or are there things they can do in-house?  Please explain.

We absolutely recommend that the best way to get up the learning curve is to work with some you trust to help you set up a campaign, rather than trying to figure it out on your own. One of the real conundrums for local businesses is that hiring a real PPC or SEO agency just to help you get set up can cost you more than your whole ad budget. Find a trusted advisor, a neighbor, brother-in-law, or a local PPC agency willing to take on some level of pro-bono work to help you get setup properly.

We strongly recommend against listening to the sales pitches from your phone book and other directory representatives that tell you they will buy you so many clicks for a certain amount of money each month.  It is absolutely a shame that these companies are trying to pawn themselves off as online advertising experts in 2009 using the techniques and sales pitches they used in the 1800’s.  Honestly, it is often a complete waste of your money to start there.  Get your feet wet with other sources first.

Any predictions for 2010 relative to search and small business?

All the search engines are trying their best and bending over backwards to make it easier for small local businesses to advertise effectively, and so it’s good to keep an eye out on new developments from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft.   I suspect that in the coming months, you will start to see more online and offline resources dedicated to helping small business owners understand local paid search advertising.  There is great opportunity for local Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, or other local pro-bono type organizations to help folks understand local advertising online.

What are your three favorite blogs/online resources (besides your own) for small businesses to learn about search?

My favorites are:

1. Get Listed.  This site will help you assess how well the search engines can ’see’ your business now.
2. Search Engine Guide.  Very practical, sensible ideas for small businesses.
3. Search Engine Land.  This is a broader and more expansive collection of search marketing. I read the news digests just about every day. Always something new to learn.