Since this ‘strategy’ has been going on, Google introduced service areas which helped alleviate a lot of the issues related to being a home-based business.  But there are still a lot of small businesses using UPS boxes to help rank in different local districts.

I’m not necessarily saying it’s the right way to do it, but there are definitely a lot of them still doing it, and it works in many cases still today.

I have a client that has a UPS box, and he informed me the other day that the US Post Office is now ‘cracking down’ on UPS boxes.  Particularly, they are cracking down on the use of the words ‘suite’, ‘office’ and ‘room’ on UPS-bound parcels.  An item mailed to ‘Suite 100′ at a UPS box is now being rejected by the USPS and returned to the sender as a non-existent address.  If the address is changed to ‘# 100′ it is delivered as it should be.

This, of course, affects affiliate marketers as well.  I’ve heard of a few instances now where affiliate payment checks were returned because of the word ‘suite’.

Since both of the business owners I’ve spoken to use the same UPS (and subsequently the same post office), I’m not sure if this is a US-wide change, or just a local postmaster on some sort of bent against UPS, but it’s definitely worth mentioning.

If you have a UPS box, and are using the word ‘Suite’ or something other than the number symbol, and you’re wondering where your mail is, I recommend checking with your local USPS to see if they are bouncing your mail back.

Late last week Google announced a new feature for their mobile search where you can find businesses near you.  This little feature, which rolled out to all iPhone and Droid users can have a huge impact on your local foot traffic.

In order to be listed in what we call the 7 pack, you’ve got to have your businesses listed in the Google Local Business Listings (LBL).  Even if your business doesn’t have a website, you can still list it in there.

There are two main impacts by this simple change:

• Those businesses that are listed in the LBL are going to see an increase in walk-in traffic.  Over time as the service is rolled out to more and more smartphones, it will only increase this walk-in traffic.  Since smartphones continue to get cheaper, more and more people are going to have them.  It won’t be long before most cell phones are smart/data run.
• Not being listed in the LBL is only going to continue to hurt businesses that won’t get with the times.  It’s like ignoring the Yellow Pages 50 years ago.  It’s like saying the television fad will quietly pass.

Now, don’t forget that Google is already showing local/map results for generic queries.  That’s something they rolled out way back around March of 2009.  So it goes without saying that having a strong SEO presence in the search engines is becoming more and more mandatory.  Having your site verified in Google Webmaster tools is no longer an option.

Read other posts on Google Maps and local marketing

Oh – and once you’re listed, don’t forget to keep an eye on your listing.

“The new YellowPages are here!”

Offices would theme the event around recycling, and how great they were that they were doing their part for the environment.  “Bring your old YP so we can recycle it and you’ll get a new 1988 version” was the going phrase.

Then, around 1992 or so, a company called LitePages was born.  From what I remember, Litepages was an offshoot of Southwestern Bell.  As a webmaster for a federal govt agency at the time, I received a letter in the mail from them explaining that we could have one of their new CD White Pages in exchange for signing a letter stating that we’d order x percent less phone books the next go-round.   It was a win-win for both sides.

We signed up and soon had the LitePages on our intranet, and people really liked it.  For several years we’d continue to decrease our YP order and we’d receive new CD updates to the “online” system.

But somewhere along the line, LitePages disappeared.  I can’t remember if they were bought out, or if the company just stopped producing their product.  Either way, we were about done with it.  The Internet had really kicked in, and people could find more than just a phone number on a business.  Google Maps and business websites brought about complete information. Phone numbers were just a small part of what we could now consume.

Fast forward to 2009.  For the past month, this has been sitting in the hallway of a local business.  It’s collecting dust. (Yeah I know, crappy picture)

That’s a lot of wasted money for YP, or AT&T, or whoever is printing these things.  And what’s worse, this is probably the scene at businesses all over the country.

Now I’m no demographics genius, but I can actually see a need for the YPs.  Not so much at a place of business, but at homes.  Homes of old people.  Homes of people with no Interwebs.

Those sort of people probably still have a need for the good old Yellow Pages.  And that’s the type of demographic (in my mind) that still use them.  So if you’ve got a business that sells to old or not-so-well-off people, this is still your domain.

I’ve advised my clients to trim down 90% of their YP advertising in most cases.  Most of them now simply put their name, phone number, and website.  That’s all you need.  Gone are the days of spending $10k, $20k or more to be in all the city-wide and metro versions of the YPs.  Spend that marketing budget on something more 2000-ish.

As for Yellow Pages, who wants those things?

Actually, I do.  I use them to start fires in our firepit.

I’d define a really small business (RSB) as one that operates out of someone’s home or other residential location.  The RSB does not have a ‘main office’ or even a place for customers to drop off checks or view products.  A majority of these businesses have a website, and rely on it for most, if not all, of its revenue generation.  Most of these businesses have one to five employees.

Since these RSBs rely on their website, and thus their marketing/ranking of their website for a majority of their income, it would make sense that they need to rank well for local terms.  It would also make sense that they would prefer not to use their local address (ie home) on places such as Google maps, Yahoo local, etc. – yet they really need to be listed on these sites.  Plus, these websites won’t accept PO Boxes for addresses.  They want a real physical location.

Well, these businesses can have a ‘real’ address, not a PO box, and can use that street address to add their business to these sites.

Everyone knows that the UPS store will ship things, but you may not know that they also provide post office-type services as well.  They have PO boxes, but with a twist.  Instead of your address being PO Box 123, you can use their street address and then use a Suite # or Room # to distinguish your business.  This gives you a real street address for your business.

For example, my hosting business is run from my house.  But I don’t want people showing up at my house, and I don’t want to list my house address for my business on Google maps.  So I went up to the UPS store and bought a box, at a whopping $8/month, and now I have a real address which I can list on all the various websites.

Lighthouse Technologies Web Hosting
1243 Water Tower Place
Suite 180
Arnold, MO 63010

I could also say

1243 Water Tower Place #180

or even

1243 Water Tower Place
Room 180

The goal here is to get a physical street address, which this accomplishes.

I should also mention that there are other companies that do this as well.  MailBoxes Etc is a good example, and there are other local ones that may work for you.  The trick here (pay attention) is not to get the cheapest one, but to get the service that is physically located the closest to the center of your town, or the town you are targeting.

Why? Because when someone searches Google maps (for instance), they may type in something like ‘widgets in Utopia KS’.  If your fake PO Box address is located closest to the center of Utopia, KS, chances are you’ll be the first listing for widgets in the area.  This, of course, means you’ll have to optimize your business listing to have the word ‘widgets’ on it, which isn’t a hard task.

So how do you find the ‘center’ of town? Easy. Simply type in the name of the town into Google maps.  This will give you what Google maps considers to be the starting point of reference for anything related to that town.  In most cases, it will actually give you a street address.

Now you can go do a search for local mail box providers (make sure you weed out mailbox manufacturers and sellers, like hardware stores), then get a box there.

It should also be noted that it’s not necessary to get a box in your town.  If your ‘target town’ is one of more affluent people, then get a box in that town!  Wherever you think more people will search for your products or services, that’s where you need to list your address!

Lastly, there’s no rule that says you can’t have more than one address, neither.  If you can afford it, get a box in several target towns!

Mapquest sends me the wrong way, and there’s no way to change the route. So I decide to use Google maps.

I get the map all finished and go to print it, only to get a blank page.

So I open IE (you know, last resort browser) and try to print it there, same thing.

So I email it to a coworker, and he gets a blank page too.

Can anyone print a map from Google maps today?

“Which way do I go to get home, towards KFC or towards Dairy Queen?”

I pulled up Google maps, and luckily the streetview worked.  I looked at the map, then went into street view and took a look around.

“Go towards DQ Mom.”

Fifteen minutes later my daughter texted me: “fond the right way Zanks 2 u Dad!”

I think that’s a good thing, right?  Translator, anyone?