Mike Ramsey's nifty thoughts on local
Posted in: Adwords, Local Search by Nifty Mike on August 26, 2009 | 1 Comment
Back in my romantic days when I got married, I remember the advice that every one gave me. From old to young, and ugly to beautiful, most people summed up their “fireproof” plan like this…”If you want this marriage to work, you have to work together”
Now, I haven’t be married for a very long time (2 great years) but, I completely agree and now pass on the same advice. So, what does this have to do with Adwords and Local Search…Everything. Continue reading
Posted in: Customer Reviews, Directories, Local Search by Nifty Mike on August 24, 2009 | 2 Comments
In the National Search Engine Optimization arena, getting people to link to your site with great anchor text is what the game is all about. There are thousands of articles about it, there are companies that dedicate themselves to the practice, there is even (purely rumor) a religion based on the subject.
So, what about the local search scene? Is there a similar practice? Yes….What is that Practice? Continue reading
Posted in: Spam by Nifty Mike on August 21, 2009 | 2 Comments
So I have been doing a bit of work in the pest control scene lately, and I have come a cross a rather good listing. Their company name happened to be “city of choice” Pest Control. And when I clicked through to their site it was a dynamic one page site that will gather 3 or 4 bids from local pest control companies and call you back with the best deal.
While this seems to be a great service…It doesn’t belong in local search at all! I can’t seem to find any relevancy to any of the addresses they have listed. My attempts to call their “local” numbers instead of the 800 numbers have been in vain, but they are owning the 10 pack in a lot of big markets.
Posted in: Directories, Local Search by Nifty Mike on August 19, 2009 | 1 Comment
I have just finished watching the local business listings webinar on search marketing now and I have a few thought…and a few questions.
First off and most important is localeze N.A.P. Gib referred to this quite often and explained NAP as
Posted in: Local Search, Phone Call Tracking by Nifty Mike on August 18, 2009 | 10 Comments
So, I had a professor in college, Kent Lundin, who was an internet marketing enthusiast. He created 2 classes for the university based on the subject. One was a crash course on Google adwords and analytics. The other one which I took my last semester was “Created an online business” where we had to build a website and do some form of transaction before the semester was over.
I remember during one of the classes, we started talking about local businesses and internet marketing. My professor stopped the conversation and said…”If a person could find a way to track phone calls from keywords searched on the web, they will make a lot of money, and local internet marketing would become a serious power house for local buisnesses.”
Posted in: Local Search, Phone Call Tracking, Tools by Nifty Mike on August 17, 2009 | 1 Comment
One of the hardest things for “brick and mortar” companies that advertise online is tracking “offline” sales that are made through phone calls. Through google analytics, or other analytics services, you can see how many people are looking at your contact page, you can figure how many people are sending you emails through forms. But, unless you want to pay a monthly fee for a tracking phone number, there has been no way to monitor calls that came from your website.
For many small businesses, this a been a big problem. When times get tough, the advertising budget is usually the first thing to go in the small business world, and a lot of companies have cut funding to update, and advertise, their website simply because they don’t know if it is an effective advertising tool.
Posted in: Local Search by Nifty Mike on August 14, 2009 | 2 Comments
Well, chances of this post getting read by anyone other than myself are slim, but I am a huge believer in the saying “By small and simple things, great things are brought to pass.”
My name is Mike Ramsey. I was born and raised in Burley, Idaho. Now that might not mean anything to you other than potatoes, but I love my small town. Burley, pop. 10,000 is the small town in the movies that never changes. We still have barber shops on our main street. I just went to our county fair, and watched people ride a mechanical bull.
Now that sounds funny for a person to write about where they came from as part of a “who am I” section. But, this town is a big reason I do what I do. I learned to work hard here because that is the only type of work there was. I learned that reputation is everything and a good name is built on good deeds and a smile. And, most importantly I learned that success in life is based on the circle of people you can influence for the better. Continue reading
Posted in: Local SEO, National SEO, Pay Per Click (PPC), Portfolio by admin on August 13, 2009 | 0 Comments
Pest Control is a very competitive market for local search. Though Rove is a new client, we have already seen great results and have a majority of their offices showing up in the 10-pack. We are also optimizing their site for organic keywords in their various markets. We have even gone as far as creating landing pages for their pay-per-click campaign to obtain more qualified leads and have seen a dramatic increase in online traffic and sales. Now that is nifty!