Search Marketing and your BestIn(City).com

BestIn(City).com is built to market your Website and Business to the (City) market. To make the most out of your investment you need to be proactive and complete these simple tasks. You probably do not have the time to do all of these tasks yourself, so think about hiring a student, intern or someone part time, either for a week or two for a focused campaign or someone for a few hours a week to work on the project all year.

Order 10,000 Business cards. They cost me $190.00 but you need to buy them locally and get your printer involved right away. Maybe do a trade or partial trade. Add the category called Printing and ask the printer to sponsor the category and give them a banner ad for 1 year, if he does these four things. Keep in mind that your Website values a one year listing at $208.00 and a banner ad is worth about $25.00 to $50.00 per month.

Ask your Printer to do the following:

1.       Discounts  or Trade for the 10,000 Cards

2.       Add a Link from their Website to your BestIn(City).com (any link, anywhere, a text link at the bottom of the front page is good. It does not matter if people see it, we want the search engine spiders to see it.

3.       Put a BestIn(City).com Sticker in the Window or on the counter.

4.       Keep a supply of Business Cards on their counter or better yet give one to each customer.

Order BestIn(City).com Stickers (Sample Enclosed). I can get them for you at about .75 cents each, plus shipping with a minimum order of 200 stickers.

Print a postcard that can be used as a mailer and listing form (See Sample Art). Have this form re-designed locally and offer the designer a Sponsored Listing and Banner Ad in exchange for a reduced price for their services. Keep in mind that you show on your Website that the value of a one year listings is $208.00 and a banner ad is worth about $25.00 to $50.00 per month.

Look into designing a flyer advertising your City Guide. The flyer should be aimed at the public and businesses that are getting Free Listings, should be more than willing to also offer the flyer in their businesses.

Order plastic Business Card Holders and maybe digest size counter displays for the flyers advertising your City Guide and Free Classifieds.

Now that you have ordered your marketing materials spend a little time marketing your Website through a FREE listing at www.Local.com, under Business Directories.  I will provide a list a complete list at a later date.

The next step is to make sure you have setup your Google AdSense, Google Analytics and Google Checkout Accounts. To do this you will need a Google Gmail account and you will need to send me your Gmail username and password. If you have the budget you may also want to consider a Google AdWords account and look into promoting your BestIn(City).com on other search Engines like Yahoo.com, Ask.com and MSN.com

Now with marketing material in hand you or your representative are ready to hit the streets and to start promoting your www.BestIn(City).com City Guide. Your City Guide not only offer listings but also free classified postings, a free calendar of events, news, blogs, maps and more.

Most of what you will be doing now is giving away listings for the promise of helping you to promote the city guide to the public. You can also offer Banner Ads, Advitorials, highlighted listings and sponsored listings in each category for businesses that are looking for more exposure. Create a price sheet for Listings and other offers to show value.

Remember as the Site Sponsor your listing comes up at the top of every search. Your information is on the Contact Us Page and the Ask the expert page. Your information is on every email the site sends out, on all auto responses and on all mail blasts. If you have not provided me with this information please do so soon. To see what they see add a listing yourself, to see what email you get, add a classified, submit a contact us, add an event and ask the expert to see what you get in the mail and send me your modifications.

Contact all the art galleries, theaters, music venues, special events, festivals and the Chamber of Commerce, you should join the Chamber and get involved or have your assistant get involved. Do not forget that as the owner of the www.BestInHunstville.com City Guide you are also responsible for giving the Chamber their free listing on ChamberLine.com. Check the listing to make sure it is current. If not send me the correct information. Write a local Blog on the site or use the news feature of the site to write articles or get someone else to do it for you.

You have an opportunity button on your site. This is where you should be requesting assistance, free assistance, ask interested people to contact you to with their ideas, let them submit articles or write a column or become a local BestIn(City).com Blogger.

You need one thing to succeed with BestIn(City).com, TRAFFIC! You will get traffic through local promotion and search engine ranking. To get search engine ranking you need Traffic so how do you do it? First of all, place a link on your Website or Websites to www.BestIn(City).com then solicit business to do the same, in exchange for a listing. Also require them to promote the site with Business Cards, Flyers and a window Sticker. You may not get all three but I can tell you that with the exception of some national changes no one will refuse you and once your done all the national chains will pay you to be listed and buy banner ads. All you need to do is show them the traffic. Look at the Google Ads running on your site now. Every one of those companies is a great prospect. In January our latest version of the site will be done and you can sell banner ads and listings on a pay per click basis.

Now to get you started I went ahead and made one deal for you already. My Client Litho Publishing, Inc. is launching a new local Apartment Guide, The (City) Apartment Guide. The Web Address is www.(City)apartmentGuide.com.  In exchange for a Sponsored Listing under the Category Apartments and  a Banner Ad on (City)ApartmentGuide.com he will give you a Banner Ad on www.(City)ApartmentGuide.com and the sister site www.BestApartmentsIn(City).com.  He will also run a quarter page BestIn(City).com AD in the printed addition of the Apartment Guide.

Set these steps in motion, work this program for a year and www.BestIn(City).com will be the dominate City Guide in the market. Your contact list will continue to grow, bringing you business every month. If you want to do more you can. Once your City Guide is known, as the place to go for local information, you can begin to charge for many of the services you provide.

Over 80% of all household income is spent within 50 miles of the home. www.BestIn(City).com can become the dominate player in the market because it is local. Every major internet player is trying to crack the local advertising market. If you can position BestIn(City).com and 100’s of other BestIn.com member position their BestIn.com City Guide as the dominate city guide, we will be the network to attract the national advertisers. It is my goal to be bringing you national advertising allowing you to keep the major share in the second year you your business.

The practicality of advertising on local sites is gaining momentum, but challenges still exist in reaching local advertisers, says Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence.

I hope this information is helpful. Please feel free to call me anytime. We are planning on having a 3 to 4 day conference with all BestIn.com City Members sometime in March. This will be a chance to get together and share ideas.

Sincerely,

Bob Roberts