The term "Small Business," is being tossed around with disdain these days, especially with the on-line marketing crowd. Truth is, there is not a better business designation to take advantage of the Internet to build a mass of customers quickly ... in oh so many ways. Let me explain.

I understand there are three kinds of Internet marketers in the world, those who understand numbers and those who don't:-) This article is for those who don't.

Let's start by dividing small businesses into two categories. Local Small Businesses and On-line Small Businesses.

Local Small Business -

Caters to: Local Customers/Clients

A local small business often times has a brick and mortar presence and promotes its products and services to a local or regional market.

The Internet can easily complement this business. Without it, local small business owners are stuck using the more expensive and less effective "old school" marketing techniques to acquire new customers.

On-line Small Business -

Caters to: National and International Customers/Clients

An on-line small business is often times completely virtual and exists solely on the Internet. On-line small business owners promote their products and services to a much broader geographic market.

The Internet is their business. Without it, the business does not exist.

Why SEO Companies Don't Deal With Local Small Businesses

You do not have to be an on-line small business owner to profit from the Internet, nor do you have to have a world-wide market to generate profitable new customers.

Even today, most local small businesses aren't using the Internet to their advantage. Seeing your website jump to the top of the search engines for your local keyword or keyword phrase is still a cake walk, in almost every industry in almost every local market. I'm talking about local businesses like pool cleaning services, massage therapy, window replacement, house painting, pizza delivery, dentistry, home repair, etc...

Don't be fooled into thinking that there has to be hundreds of people searching for your service on the Internet every week for Internet marketing to be worth your while. And please, don't think that the company that holds the first spot in the search engine results page has actively done anything to take that position. They probably don't know why they're in the first position or how they got there. Believe me, you can overtake your competition in less than a month with very little effort.

Case Study
Maui Pool Cleaning - American Blue Water

A friend of mine recently opened a pool cleaning business on the beautiful island of Maui Hawaii. His business started like most small businesses with a lot of blood, sweat and tears. It also included door to door prospecting, the distribution of flyers and some word of mouth marketing. He, like so many others, put no thought into creating an online web presence.

Over the course of time he built a base of loyal customers and acquired intimate knowledge about swimming pool maintenance. Knowing that people on Maui were looking for qualified pool cleaners, he decided to look at the Internet as a way to gain new clients for his business.

Here's what happened...
At my suggestion, he started a Wordpress blog and focused on building content around the local terms, "Maui Pool Cleaning" and "Maui Pool Service." The thing that makes this so interesting, and repugnant to "Professional Search Engine Optimizers," is that very few people search for either of these terms, certainly not 100 people a day. These are very low competition keywords.

What the "Professional Search Engine Optimizers" don't take into account however, is the fact that the people who do search for these terms are serious buyers. They want someone to maintain their pool today ... and they are contacting the pool cleaning company at the top of the search engines to clean their pools.

After only having his blog on the Internet for a few months, Robert found that he was acquiring an average of one new client every week from his website! (yes, we have a lot of pools here on Maui!)

For the sake of argument, let's assume that the term, "Maui Pool Cleaning" gets 30 hits per month. Let's also assume that his Maui Pool Cleaning blog converts one person a week into a new customer ... which it does.

If each new customer is worth $200/month, he will have acquired an additional ...

• $800/month at the end of the first month.
• $9,600/month at the end of one year.

Imagine earning an additional $9,600/month at the end of one year because you took the time to create a blog and focused your attention on your local keyword phrase for your business!

Because the web has allowed Robert to build his pool cleaning business effortlessly, he is now focusing his efforts on expanding his business into the realm of pool repair. The sky's the limit!

Today, he invests almost no time in the upkeep of his blog. All he has to do to keep his number one position on the Internet for "Maui Pool Cleaning" and to take the term "Maui Pool Repair," is to post to his blog on a regular basis using those terms. He could even write and distribute a few articles to help solidify his number one position for his top terms.

This is one of the great things about low competition local keywords. They are easy to place high in the search engines for, and you can do it yourself with a little effort. Plus, as I mentioned above, your competitors don't have a clue how to compete with you for this lucrative Internet based business ... at least not yet.

Another cool thing about ranking in the first position for a given term on Google is that when people see you in the #1 spot, they assume you are the authority. What this means is that when people initiate a call to Robert, they perceive him to be the Maui Pool Cleaning expert. Now that's an easy sale!

Conclusion -

Just because a term is not searched for frequently does not mean it cannot be monetized very quickly and easily.

Attached Images

pool.jpg (19.7 KB, 1944 views)

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Wow, eye-opening info.
Appreciate it greatly.

It helps...I think.

I'm struggling with marketing issues, have been for years. Been online with various sites and approaches and have never made a sale.

To this day, I always think first of the old school of marketing, the local print newspaper. It's way expensive and produces little or no response.

At least I don't have to spend a fortune with on-line efforts, but I've put in significant time. Published over 20 articles with Article Marketer, audio podcasts, etc.

With new and old marketing getting me no where, it's time to reconsider my products and services.

Thanks again!

Another excellent, informative article Josh! I have a number of questions and I'll start with this one. You say ""focused on building content around the local terms, "Maui Pool Cleaning" and "Maui Pool Service." Would you please expand on this? How exactly did he do this? What were the topics of articles? What headlines? Did he just imbed the terms "Maui Pool Cleaning" & "Maui Pool Services" within the blog posts?

Here's a second question Josh. I have a 17 acre property that we have equiped to be a horse-boarding facility. We just have 2 horses on this property so far - our own. We want to attract others who may be looking for a place to board their horse or horses. How would I go about doing what your friend at "Maui Pool Cleaning" did?

In a nutshell all he had to do was create content relevant to these topics. For example, he used the phrases in page titles, within the text and made sure other sites that linked to his used this text as the anchor text.

The phrase had such low competition that he didn't need to do much else to dominate the terms. The online competition he did have broke most of the biggest SEO rules to date (iframes, frames, flash/image only content, horrific page titles, etc.)

First things first, get listed in Horse Boarding Stables, Services, and Supplies if you can.

Next start creating content centered around the keywords and terms your customers are using to find businesses like yours. (I'll PM a possible list to you shortly.) Every post/page is "hook in the water" for searchers. If the content doesn't exist, there is no way people can find you.

That is the extremely short list of things to do ... What is your websites URL? I'll try and help you find the appropriate "next step" for your online marketing campaign.

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I was skeptical about your "expertness" before I read this article.

Very well written and knowledgeable

Hi Tyler:
What made you skeptical about the "expertness" of Josh before reading this article?

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One of main advantage in starting home based business is time freedom. For instance, you want a business of course to earn more and make your life easier and better. With home based businesses, your working time is in your hands. You possess control over the number of hours you work and when you work. The sun never sets in the online world and you can work literally at any time.

Another advantage of home business is financial freedom and independence. Achieving this means having carefree but still getting a better life.

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In these times the online business is an ideal business environment, because anybody, regardless of race, religion, education level or experiences can prove himself, succeed and achieve his dreams. And the World Wide Web is open for everybody. Another important thing is that the web is bombarded with online marketers who aggressively push many business opportunities that are supposed to bring you massive amounts.

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