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Business Learning: Big Week Coming Up

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Next week will be a great week to be a business owner in Saint Louis.  There are a lot of events, all of which are focused on helping you build your business and customers.

St. Louis Business Expo – Oct 18
The biggest business expo of the year.  An entire day of terrific speakers (including myself) on a wide variety of topics.  Also, a speed banking opportunity and tons of vendors!

Business seminarHow to Build Your Credit Profile – Oct 18
The Saint Louis Small Business Meetup Group is awesome.  This month’s speaker is Willie Smith from WCS Credit Sense.  Learn how to identify and repair credit report errors and find money to run your business.

Using Video to Increase Your Website Traffic & Sales – Oct 20
Another great meetup, this one dedicated to helping business owners get on top of Google, Yahoo! and Bing searches for their industry.  This month’s class is all about video & how to use it to get to the top of the search engines.  Speaker: Mason Duchatschek

Show Me the Blog – Oct 21-22
The second annual SMTB conference will feature speakers from various Internet Marketing and Social Media outlets.  Topics will include new media, social media, SEO, blogging and technology.

Posted in conferences, St Louis | 1 Response »

If I Were A… Limo Rental Service

Monday, August 15th, 2011

There are certain times in everyone’s life when a limo is a great idea.  From birthdays to weddings to special nights out, a limo is a great way to make the night even more memorable.

St Louis isn’t a huge town.  It’s not like New York or LA where limos are seen every day.  If you see one here, chances are it was rented for some sort of event, not because a famous person is cruising by.  And this isn’t Vegas, where they’re waiting by the hundreds at the airport.

I imagine that owning a limo rental company can be a bit stressful.  Those rides aren’t cheap, they have a somewhat high need for maintenance (especially cleaning) and need to be on the road more often than not.  So keeping the limos booked is a huge priority.  The following is a few things I’d do if I owned such a company.
Click to continue »

Posted in If I Were A, Marketing, small business, St Louis | 3 Responses »
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St Louis Small Business Meetup Group Presentation

Saturday, July 16th, 2011

Your Website Needs Traffic

Back in May, I spoke to the St. Louis Small Business Meetup Group about getting traffic, climbing the search engine rankings and beyond.  It was a great meetup in a small restaurant in Kirkwood – a terrific atmosphere and I think you’ll enjoy this video.  In it you’ll learn:

  • Why Shotgun Marketing is a think of the past
  • Why You need a CMS
  • What Google Thinks About Your Site
  • How to Spy on Your Competitors
  • Plenty More Tips

Posted in SEO, small business, St Louis, traffic | No Responses »
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If I Were A…St. Louis Dentist

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Today is part one of a series called “If I Were A…” – in which I’ll take various professions throughout the Saint Louis area and show just what I’d do from an online strategy perspective.  First up – a dentist.

Prerequisites

There are some assumptions we’ve got to make here.  The dentist should already have:

  • An office
  • Existing patients
  • A website

Step One – Find A Keyword Niche

toothbrushesCurrently the search term ‘dentist st louis‘ comes up with just 860,000 results.  While this may seem like a lot, in reality it’s not.  Any result under a million is worth looking in to, and possibly ranking for.  According to the Google Keyword Tool, 4,400 people searched this phrase last month.

Switching the phrase around to ‘st louis dentist‘ results in 1.1 Million results.  Slightly more competition for nearly the same phrase. But check this out – this phrase gets twice as many (9,900) average searches a month!

And thirdly, the phrase ‘dentist saint louis‘ yields an incredible 2.7 Million results, yet only shows around 12,100 per month.  Which is a better deal? Click to continue »

Posted in local marketing, Marketing, St Louis | 2 Responses »

Is There a Marketing Baboon Loose in Your Neighborhood?

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

The big news in Saint Louis today is that there appears to be a baboon on the loose.

But what’s worse than a monkey running around your back yard? A business owner that is letting monkeys market his business.
Get that monkey out of your neighborhood!
Don’t let some monkey run your marketing campaign, telling you that you need to be on the radio, on billboards or even on the side of the Metro.  Where you need to be is on page one of Google for your main search term.

And there’s only one guy in Saint Louis that can do that – me.

I’m the number one SEO in Saint Louis (Search Engine Optimization) guy for a reason – because I get your business to the top of Google, Yahoo!, Bing and many other search engines.

Don’t waste any more money on untargeted shotgun marketing schemes.  Get that monkey out of your neighborhood and hire someone that can get you targeted traffic that’s ready to buy.

Posted in funny, local marketing, site ranking, small business, St Louis, trending | No Responses »

Searching the Lou

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Is St Louis and Saint Louis the same thing in the eyes of search engines? Should you care?

We’ve got a bit of a unique situation here.  Our fair city is one of the few that is searchable in many different ways – saint louis, st louis, stl and so on.  But does it really matter to you how people searching for local merchants?
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Posted in beginner sem, Saint Louis, St Louis | No Responses »
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Big Discount for Upcoming Midwest Internet Conference

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

On April 1st I’ll be speaking at the Market Saint Louis conference about how any business can dominate their local area in search results. Along with myself are some other awesome speakers including Jason Tinnin from Saint Louis-based SimpleFlame and Derek Chew, former SEO lead at Yahoo!.

The conference only happens once a year, and there are only 100 tickets sold.  It’s a perfect fit for  small and medium business owners/execs.  There are two tracks – a beginner and an advanced, so no matter what you’re expertise level, you’ll learn a lot.

The tickets are $249 each, but I’ve been given the green light to offer a pretty sweet deal.  From now until tickets sell out, all purchases are Buy One Get One Free!  But that’s not even the best part – if you use the promo code ‘SPEAKER‘ you’ll get $50 off of the ticket price.  That means 2 tickets to this premier conference will only cost you $199!

How cool is that?

Like I said, this deal only lasts until all the tickets are sold out.

As if I need to sweeten it any more, the tickets also get you admission to the conference’s pre-event mixer on March 31st at 7PM.  You’ll get a few free drinks and will be able to meet the speakers and mingle with all the other business owners.

It’s going to be so cool.  I hope you can make it!

Details
Market Saint Louis
http://www.MarketSTL.com
April 1, 8am-4pm

Mixer (free with ticket purchase – sponsored by SimpleFlame)
HoteLumiere
March 31, 7pm

List of freebies: http://www.marketstl.com/register/freebies/

Posted in conferences, Marketing, small business, St Louis | No Responses »
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Culvers Misses the Target

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Freelancing entrepreneurs like myself often meet clients on the go, at local coffeeshops and eateries with free wireless. These places are great for their (usually) quaint atmosphere and decent food.

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with a new client. After a few reschedules, we finally decided to meet at the local Culver’s restaurant. While I usually pick somewhere like the Bread Company, this particular suggestion was mine for a few reasons:

  • Client had kids in tow. Easy enough to stick them in an adjoining booth with relatively no maintenance or interruption
  • Client was on their way to a movie.
    The movie theater was across the street, so convenience was a factor
  • Free wireless
    I’ve got to have wireless Internet so I can dazzle them with pretty graphs and charts, right?

It seemed like a great idea, but it wasn’t.

The kids were great. Never bothered us once.  But there was a problem – no outlets for the laptop.

It just so happens that my laptop decided to stop charging my batteries a few months back.  It’s usually no problem – I just plug in and go.  But with no outlets, I’m screwed.  Totally.  So I had to do the entire presentation with no laptop – not an easy task.

I shouldn’t say there were no outlets because there actually were several.  The problem, though, is that they were on the roof ten feet up.  I couldn’t see myself standing on the table so that I could dangle my power supply.  Plus, the weight of the converter probably would have pulled the plug right out of the ceiling.

Culver’s, why are you offering free wifi?  I’m assuming it’s to cater to that 17-39 crowd.  But if they can’t plug in their laptops, you’ve lost them.

I won’t be back for any future business meetings at Culver’s unless the outlet situation is fixed.

Posted in meetings, St Louis | 1 Response »
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Interview: David Siteman Garland from The Rise to the Top

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

David Siteman GarlandToday’s interview is with David Siteman Garland, CEO of The Rise to the Top.  David bills TRTTT as The #1 Non-Boring Resource for Marketing Like an Entreprenuer: Smarter, Faster, Cheaper.  His website is an awesome resource for anyone who is getting started or already in business.  He also hosts a weekly TV show on ABC.

I’ve spoken with David a few times via Twitter (@TheRiseToTheTop) and also met him at the November ‘edition’ of the St Louis Social Media Group.  He’s quite energetic and I enjoyed his presentation.

David, I know your business has been around for several years, what first spurred you to get involved with social media for your business?

Social media for me was a little bit of being in the right place at the right time. I was one of the first 5,000 members on Facebook because I happened to be in college at the time (back when it was called THE Facebook and only for college students) and my school, Washington University in St. Louis, was one of the first schools to be added to Facebook.

For me, it started as a way to communicate with my friends in school and quickly evolved to be encompass forming relationships with other, promoting my businesses and other people’s businesses.
Click to continue »

Posted in interviews, Marketing, Saint Louis, St Louis | 2 Responses »
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Saint Louis Sees 16% Rise in Business Bankruptcies

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

News came out today that business bankruptcies in Saint Louis have increased some 16% this quarter.  This is apparently below the national average, but still a huge chunk of revenue and jobs going out the window.

I’ve spent some time over the last few weeks talking to business owners about their overall financial and economic situation.  As expected, nearly every industry is down for the year.  Overall, I’d put the average drop at right around 30%.

A 30% downturn in revenue can really hurt a business. One business was down over 50%. Ouch.
Click to continue »

Posted in Saint Louis, small business, St Louis | 1 Response »
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