Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi everyone. We’ve got an idea for a business and we wanted to get some other business owners thoughts on it. If you own a B/M business and we offered you the service of getting your business listed in the local business centers of the major search engines, local search engines, 411 services, Internet yellow pages, yelp (etc), GPS services and “X” amount of social networks, tied the social networks together so you can make one status update, and it updates all of your social network status updates (think Twitter, Facebook, Myspace) so you or your employee isn’t spending days doing the work, would a small business owner be interested? The social side is good for branding and building your footprint online. I can go on for days about it but I just was trying to get my point across. We would also advise you on the best practices for marketing your business online without the nonsense that most online marketers give you.

We know there is a TON of information out on the net and most if it is complete marketing B.S. . We’re thinking about offering a free 15 minute consultation over the phone. We guarantee that we can tell you more about how your business looks online than anyone else. We are offering no fluff and no “marketer speak” or internet hyperbole. We are talking about no nonsense approach, straight facts and how it will benefit you, as a business owner.

With Google releasing street GPS navigation on your phone and the ability to find businesses as you are using the service in REAL TIME, it has become vitally important to have your correct information in these systems.  Think of Iphone users and their ability to retrieve information on the fly from the search engines. We have the data that supports the importance of it. We CAN verify this.  Let me be very clear we are NOT offering SEO services. That is not what we are talking about.  Most online marketers are completely unaware that there are two separate algorithms that show the organic search results and the “one box” results in Google.  This is why you will see a business in the one box and not in the search results.

If you are running an online business, you can just use the social networking aspect and still reap the benefits.  I know that this may come off as “spammy” since I haven’t posted in here before so, to show you that I’m a real person, here is my real email address fsoriano2005 {at} gmail [dot} com

If you had the option to pay a onetime fee or hourly rate, which would you, as a business owner prefer? All this can be done with 2 simple online forms so you aren’t spending days filling out information. You just go to our website and input the data and we handle the rest.  Of course if you needed help, we would offer support.

If there other options that you as a business owner would like to see, please let me know. We are open to any and all ideas.

Thank you all for any input you can provide and good luck in all your endeavors.

This could be a boon, especially for local businesses that aren't focused on their web presence as their primary marketing venue.

In general, I prefer to pay for services as a fixed fee for a fixed scope of work rather than an hourly rate.

Best regards,

Molly Donaldson

Hi Molly,

So you would rather pay a one time flat fee vs an hourly fee...that's what we were thinking also. We've come to the conclusion that most small businesses don't understand SEO and what it entails. As you may or may not know, there is A LOT of garbage out on the net about it. That's the reason we don't touch it. Too much fluff and not a lot of real facts.

We are planning on offering this service to small businesses that need to get listed in these "closed systems" that have nothing to do with SEO and have no baring on what you do on the backend of your site to show in the results. Most SEO's have no clue about the different algorithms and how they work.

We have the infrastructure setup already, we just need to tie it together.

Do you own a small business yourself? Do you think a service like this would be useful to you? Do you know of anyone that would?

Thank

I think this sounds like a really good idea. I have been spending around $150 month on Adwords and the response has been limited. I would certainly be interested in finding out what you could do for me.

What are you thinking for a price point? I think one thing to keep in mind is that small business owners (like me) often don't have a great deal of money to spend but really need the type of service you are offering. Maybe various service levels (silver, gold, platinum)...

If you need a test case, contact me and we can chat.

Thanks!

We do own a small business, but it isn't local. I think I may have a few prospects for you...could you send me a private message?

Best regards,

Molly Donaldson

So in the 15 minute consultation would you tell the business owner how to get listed with Google, Yahoo, etc. for local search results?

Paula Lowry

www.topofthelistmarketing.com

@Paula7928 No, that's not at all what we are offering, not that there is anything wrong with taking that approach. It's just not the angle we have found that works. The consult is more or less about where they are listed, where they are not and where they could be. No pitch, just straight honest facts.