Internet Events, Facebook Advertising, Internet Marketing and SEO

GUEST POST BY DENNIS YU
Dennis runs Blitz Local, a company dedicated to helping local businesses get real customers in through their doors. Yeh, Dennis is competing directly against some of my projects. Why would I let him guest post? He’s a good friend, a helpful guy, and that’s how we roll.

The cynics would add a 4th C for “charlatan”, given how poorly companies selling local Internet advertising are performing. However, that overlooks how hard it is to deliver new business to local service firms and how new this market is– more on that in a bit.

I recently met the CEO as well as the founder of yodle.com, a fellow company in the local space– stand up guys, I must say. They have 6,000 clients– way more than BlitzLocal.com, but not as many as ReachLocal.com or WebVisible. There are 6 million small businesses in the US that are at least a quarter million dollars in revenue, so 6,000 is only 1/10th of a percent of the market. Nobody has even a percent of market share.

Recently, Yodle has been hit with some criticism for aggressive sales techniques. They have 110 full-time sales folks who call lawyers and doctors repeatedly. Though perhaps irritating to some prospects, the model is quite effective in generating sales. And Court Cunningham, their CEO, tells me that they are 2 weeks away from hitting profitability.

They want to be the #1 brand and you can’t hit that growth curve by word of mouth. In 2-5 years, small business owners will go with the recognized brand– and Yodle wants to be that brand.

Some challenges:

• Internet searches are low, but growing– You face a chicken and egg problem. People aren’t going to search online for services unless they know such services exist online. Rural areas or geos with low broadband penetration will often have no businesses online for a given category (”cosmetic surgeons in Enid Oklahoma”, perhaps). The concept of search requires that people know it exist to ask for it. Thus, advertising dollars and consumer sophistication go hand in hand. The market is early.
• Clients want new business generated, not clicks– Don’t tell me how many hits my site got. I want to know how many referrals my site generates. Calls generated is a better measure than clicks, but not as good as confirmed clients. Advertising companies such as ours cannot control whether a prospect will no show for an appointment, but we can try to target what search terms are more indicative of a good lead.
• The market is not educated– “Sales” alone won’t work, since you have to educate the client about how to operate their site, to answer the phone quickly and effectively, to use email marketing to drive retention, and to set realistic expectations on what Internet marketing is capable of. How much do I need to spend and what I can truly expect to generate in new business– not clicks or calls?
• nascent technology platforms– The beauty of search is that based on the search term, you already know what the searcher wants and where they are in the process. If they are looking for “denver liposuction“, then you better show them exactly that– content on Denver Liposuction. If they want to know the side effects of liposuction or the pricing for such procedures, you better show them a different set of information. Most of the local internet advertising companies send users to the same page, no matter what they search on. At up to $10 a click, that’s a lot of waste.

BlitzLocal doesn’t believe in first mover advantage, which is the “winner take all” philosophy. This type of thinking is that whoever reaches critical mass first in a market will win. Yet Yahoo! pre-dated Google in search, Friendster pre-dated Facebook in social networking, and the list goes on…

We don’t see the other players as “competitors”, since nobody has a dominant position or has even developed a bulletproof platform. Rather, we are together trailblazing in this developing market– working to educate clients about what is realistic about Internet marketing and that it’s not turnkey. Clients have to put forth effort to reflect their unique selling proposition on the web– and that must come from them, not us. And together, our group of companies must develop best practices on generating quality referrals for our clients. Judging by the churn rates in our industry– up to 90% in 6 months, according to the recent Borrell Research report, nobody has it figured out yet.

It’s easy to decry the “end of the yellow pages“, but the reality is this is years away and a slow death. It may be a few years before consumers are getting smarter about seaching online for local services and doing so in sufficient volume. The question for companies such as ours is when to really step on the gas for marketing and to what extent we can rely on aggressive outbound sales versus working towards an awesome product.

Back to clicks, calls, and clients– it’s easy to do the first part, medium difficulty to generate calls, and very hard to generate clients. If local Internet marketing companies are having trouble doing it for themselves, then caveat emptor on whether they can do it for you.

There’s no denying the potential of the opportunity in local.

If you want to get in touch with Dennis, you can reach him at: dennis@blitzlocal.com.

This is going to be amazing.

You guys rock. I am honored and humbled that you will be coming from all over the world to join us to spend 3 days sharing ideas, learning how to be better fighters, having fun, eating extremely well, surfing, and having the times of our lives.

I salute you with the thinktank fist of approval!

I am just beginning the process of  creating the non disclosure agreement for thinktank. Last year we had a nice offer from a sponsor to videotape the thinktank, and this year from someone who wanted to “report” on what he found. They said they would love to come, but would not be willing to sign the non-disclosure agreement so they could “report” on what was overheard at the thinktank.

With the kind of things I have planned in terms of group discussions, planning, and exchange, it would be poison if someone were to come and then disclose what happened. Any extra money offered to cut open this precious trust is laughable.

In the internet world where inequality of information creates the voltage differential that drives profit, it would remove all the luscious decadent substance of conversation that flows at the thinktank if we were not all protected by the cone of silence.

So know you speak under non disclosure agreements signed by all attendees, speak freely, and stay thirsty my friends!

I do whitehat SEO through and through. I am a huge Matt Cutts fan (cuttlet) and have made a ton of money off of the graciousness of Google for sending me lots of very high quality traffic.

From the beginning Matt has said, develop good content, don’t even worry about the SEO too much, and google will reward you.

Lately I have had my eye on the term facebook advertising in google, and my site has been doing O.K. at it.

I totally cracked up today when I looked and saw that Shoemoney had taken the spot right after facebook themselves for a ton of matches.

If you read my blog I am sure you are aware of shoe and the fact that he really truly writes for the readers and not for the search engines.

I think the next two pics below tell the story.

Hope you laugh as hard as I did

the greatest seo of all

By the way, Google says there were 282 million matches on this one

Just scored the tickets. Unbelievably good tickets in fact. We will be 10 rows up over the floor, within a rocks throw of the octagon. Shawn Tompkins who a lot of my readers know personally will be there in the corner for Mark “the hammer” Coleman. Robert Drysdale, who is the 6x Brazillian Jiu Jitsu world champion will likely show up in someones corner, watch for him!

Shawn allready invited me and the wife to come by the Couture gym to watch the pros train and hang out. It will give me a chance to renew my connections, make new ones, and plan fun stuff for the future for you guys!

We will be staying at the Wynn, and get to have a little quality pool time.

Of course we will hit the wife’s favorite restaraunt, Red 8 for Dim Sum.

I will also be talking to some different casinos as to where we should have our charity poker tournament this year. Feel free to offer any early input on the subject.

The whole trip sounds like heaven.

I’ll try to get some fun pics and post them next week.

This should be quite a fight!

Think tank invites about to go out. This amazing traveling circus, traveling, band of brothers will be getting together in Del Mar California on September 17, 18 and 19th.

This aint a conference, please don’t even ask about sessions, speakers, or anything like that.

Some probably things on the planning table right now include,
The guys.
Surfing
MMA training, maybe Ju Jitsu this time?
Pretty girls. (That’s you Junise!)
Late night card games.
Beach chairs on the grass watching the waves roll in.
A schedule. HA!
Crepes.
BBQ’s
A country band you wouldn’t believe.
As much of everything as you could possibly want!
Only high end, positive, fun, energetic, and creative people.

I don’t know about you, but I am ALL IN!

Invites will be going out real soon.

There are way, way too many people who want to come, than we can accommodate.

I will send out invites and probably give a one week window that the invite is good, and then I will open up the spot to the next guy.

Just imagine the best moments you ever had on the road, hitting the conference circuit, cut out the sessions, cut out the booths, cut out the sales pitches, and what you have left is THE ThinkTank!

I love you guys, and look forward to seeing you here!

Much Love,
dk

Wow! My wife and I just got back from snowmobiling all day in yellowstone. Buffalo blocking the road, an eagles nest, elk, geysers, steaming hot pots, snow, just flying down the road! A private guide! One of the greatest days of my life.

Love you all! Happy New Years!

Now for dinner and fun in a one horse town!

My wife and I are sitting in the middle of Eastern Utah in a snow storm snuggled up in a Fairfield Inn. Pretty comfy. I am not a master of driving in snow, and it was pretty intense driving up from Vegas.

When we got here the snow was blowing horizontally. I crouched behind the car and watched it fly over me in the light. It was a truly beutiful moment.

I wanted to take a minute away from my precious time with my wife to comment on this past year.

The internet business world, all you guys, have been so kind to me over the past year.

I even had people wait in line to talk to me and get a photo at Pubcon. Pretty flattering.

I know I will forget a lot of names, so I will only throw out a couple.

In order, I have been massively helped by The Webmaster World Gang, Danny Sulivan, Matt Cutts, Pamela Lund, Neil Patel, Jeremy Schoemaker, the BOTW crew, the Azoogle crew, the Ninjas, Epiar, and then all the rest of you too numerous to mention in my blurry semi concious state. I can not thank you guys as a group enough.

Purpose Inc. has become well known, and for the most part well thought of this year.

Target one completed.

I think we also helped our friends and sponsors a ton too which was very satisfying.

I honestly love you guys a lot.

In the future I would love to see us use our power as a group, this power we have to show the world information, and use it more and more to promote what is good and wonderful on this planet!

Merry Christmas!

dk and the purpose inc. crew!

Joe Laratro get’s interviewed by Vanessa Zamora at Search Engine World.

Joe really taught me a lesson my first year speaking at Pubcon, when I totally bombed, and he showed me how to really get the audience’s attention.

In this video, Joe, a very creative online marketer, does a beautiful job of getting my interest by talking about my talk during Pubcon on local. In fact I didn’t even really talk, but you can hear Joe discuss it.

I have consistently learned that one of the simplest, most effective ways to get someone’s attention, and get links from them, is simply to talk about them. Linking to them gets their attention even more, (hint – hint).

Remember, most of us who are active on the internet have wordpress blogs that let us know if you link to us. Even if your blog has no value, no pagerank, you will still get someone’s attention if you link to them.

These guys have a blog on Scottish Whiskey as well as other types. I don’t even drink, so never would have found their new blog if they hadn’t linked to my site from their blend of whiskey stories. Their site has a page rank of 0, but I found out about them because they linked to me. Want to have someone famous know about you? Link to them! Then you will have people like Brent Chase, Neil, Shoe, and the most important pair in the internet marketing world know about you. Then, maybe they will link to you one day? Then one day, you might even be noticed by the real power player in the internet business world, Barbara!

Remember, once you have a bit of clout, (Page Rank) it costs you to link out to others. But when you have a blog that is garbage, it costs you nothing to link to others, and lets them know you exist. If you link to a specific page on their blog, they will notice it much easier, than if you just link to the blog in general, since it will show up as a comment that needs to be approved.

Want me to notice you? Might as well link to me! It just makes sense!

Last year I had a guy who wanted to sponsor our poker tournament. He was not your average guy. He is a guy who has spent a good part of his years on the road. The only person I know to attempt the Pacific Crest trail, a guy who has built up some significant internet properties, and is the only one in the internet business world to pose in more pictures with girls/women in the industry. That guy is Patrick Sexton.

This picture is so you don't click out and read on instead

Last year at Pubcon I bumped into this very smiley, very friendly, guy at the Microsoft party, then got a good photo of him at the Poker tournament. I ran into him again at SES on the street outside the Internet Marketers charity party well past midnight, where we ended up selling discounted tickets to late arriving attendees on our own determinism. Guy just stands out from the RIS (Random Internet Stuff) crowd with his beaming smile and warmth. It’s not that other people don’t do it, it’s just that Jim Boykin does it more.

Last year at Pubcon, I ended up sitting across from this beautiful red head at the Wynn, the same time I met Aaron Chronister (The Mad Hat). I saw here again the next day at the Pubcon Pub part, and she appeared to know everyone, very, very connected. She also carried a real camera with her, which in my book at an event like Pubcon gave her a lot of credibility in my book. I was also lucky enough that SEO Rhea Drysdale attended our first Think Tank in September.

Lisa Barone is someone who just keeps popping up. I see her on Facebook, on Sphinn, on blog after blog. She is social media. Hardly know the girl, but she is my friend on Facebook! and for that I am proud!

These people have come together recently to make the Ninjas of We Build Pages. Their skills are as diverse as their personalities. I expect to see an amazing amount of creativity, uniqueness and innovative things to arise out of their New York office.

One of my favorite people, a great friend, a brilliant accountant, and loyal confidant of mine is Fajar (Smoochi). Fajar is well known as being a guy that a lot of companies trust with large amounts of money, especially when cash is involved.

Fajar with some of the inmates

Fajar comes originally from Indonesia. He is the warmest, most honest and gentlest guy you have ever met, but remember he has a Black Belt in Thai Kwon Do. Fajar was nice enough to head out to Vegas to deliver the money in person.

Jim wanted to be a sponsor of the Poker Tournament and asked what charities he could give money to. I told him about one that I like a lot, which is Heaven Can Wait. I love this charity because it is low overhead, meaning that most of the money you give them goes to helping.

Heaven Can Wait Personnel Cutting Through the Paper Work

They do a ton of spades and neuters to prevent unwanted puppies and kitties from being born. They also have tons of dogs and cats they take care of to prevent their being put to death.

They also have a way cool program where they put dogs into prison, not as inmates, but to keep the inmates company and the inmates train the dogs. Often these are dogs who are not as social and need a little extra help before they are released into the general population. Heaven can wait also has foster programs where they place dogs and cats. All in all, they have come up with some creative ways to give the animals productive lives where they can contribute, and avoid untimely deaths.

All these people, cultures, personalities and animals came together this past weekend. We Build Pages made a large donation to Heaven Can Wait as part of the Poker Tournament, Fajar drove out to Vegas to give them the check, and it all is summarized in these pictures taken when Fajar went, gave em the money, and got to meet some of their newest applicants for homes.

Fajar giving the We Build Pages Check to Heaven Can Wait

If you see anyone in the photos you would like to add to your family, just let me know and I will get you in touch. These are highly qualified aplicants looking to be placed in the right household, (or prison) to serve and protect, or at least eat and lay in the sun and maybe occasionally go fetch a ball!

If you want to toss them a few bucks, I promise that they will put them to good use!

Heaven Can Wait Banner

Jim, Pat, Rhea, Lisa and Rita, thank you for your donation and for the thousands of purrs and growls you will allow to take place in the future! Fajar, thanks for delivering the dough and getting the great pics for the blog!