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Archive for the ‘small business’ Category

SEO Seminar ‘Failure’ - Lessons Learned

June 10th, 2009

For four years I’ve taught HTML, Blogging, Internet marketing classes and more at the local branch of the public library here in my town.  Over the years, I’ve fine-tuned my classes into two hours of jam-packed information.  I’ve received “rave” reviews since I started, and have been told many times that I need to get these presentations to bigger audiences.  Many that took my classes have said that they would have paid for the info they got in them.

Well, either it’s all gone to my head or there really is a market out there for business owners willing to pay for a solid, quality conference to learn how to get their websites rolling.  Or maybe a bit of both.

So after the spring session ended and my teaching classes was off until the fall, I thought I’d make a go of hosting a real seminar/conference, get some real industry professionals to speak, and host an awesome info-packed event for STL businesses.

But I failed.  Kinda.
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Will Marketing, conferences, small business , , , ,

Upcoming Internet Marketing Seminar in St. Louis MO

April 29th, 2009

speaking at upcoming internet marketing event in St. Louis MOI’ll be speaking at the upcoming Look at Me Internet Marketing Seminar in St. Louis on June 11.  I’ll be talking about SEO and how it can help your business create new streams of revenue.

This seminar is the first of it’s kind in the Saint Louis area, and was created for the purpose of helping businesses find new ways to wade through the recession.  It is for St. Louis area business execs, includes a nice lunch and a networking event afterwords.

The event is currently looking for other speakers on various subjects such as PPC, landing pages, and more.  Check it out and maybe you’ll learn something!

Will Saint Louis, St Louis, conferences, seminars, small business

They Finally Took the Phone Books Away

April 16th, 2009

In St. Louis, every March and October the Yellow Pages (YP)  are delivered to the homes and businesses across the area.  These new phone books replace the ones delivered the year prior.  Delivery dates may be the same across the country, I’m not sure.

Many of you know that I do some web work on an Army contract several days a week in the Federal Center in downtown St. Louis.  Well, I make it a point to watch for the new phone books, which showed up around March 8th this year.  Because of the large amount of worker bees here (about 250), they wheel the phone books in on pallets and put them in the hallway.  Then the worker bees can just come by and grab a new book (and put their old one in a recycle bin).

This year, I kept tabs on the amount of phone books.  Over the period of 38 days, about 16 phone books were taken from the pallet of 200.

Sixteen books.

Just for giggles, I visited a few of the other floors in the building to see how many phone books were still sitting around.  Every floor (except for the IRS area) had about the same amount of books remaining on their pallets.

They finally wheeled them out yesterday. I hope they went to a recycling center somewhere.

Mr. Small Business owner, what does this tell you about the future of Yellow Page advertising?  Are you still spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on YP ads?  Your audience is shrinking, and your money is being wasted.

I have a few clients who are ahead of the curve when it comes to Internet Marketing.  They recognized the poor use of their marketing budgets with YP and have since scaled back their spending on these sources, and have put that money into building their online presence through blogging and link building.  They are reaping huge harvests on their well-placed seeds.

I’m not saying to drop your YP ad.  In fact, I think it’s still a viable source of traffic, particularly if your target audience is over the age of 50.  But I am saying don’t put so much money into it any more.  A simple ad with your company name, phone number and URL is all you need.

Shameless Plug: Quit wasting money on dying forms of marketing/advertising. Put that money into hiring someone (like me) that will help your business continue to grow and thrive. Create a presence and a following online, provide outstanding customer service, and the customers will come.

Will customer service, local marketing, small business, trending, yellow pages

New Swimming Pool Site for Saint Louis

April 14th, 2009

I have recently completed a project for SwimStL - a website that brings pool contractors and customers in the St Louis area together.  The site, originally launched in 2006, has been redesigned and updated to provide their clients with referrals from the top swimming pool companies in the St. Louis Missouri area.

This business model is a great way to make money.  It is expandable to other markets, and could end up being a great asset to both pool contractors as well as people looking to build an inground or above ground pool in the area.

Client: SwimSTL
Website: http://www.SwimSTL.com
Niche: Inground and Above Ground Pools
Market: St. Louis, MO

Will Saint Louis, small business, web design