Online Marketing Blog

Welcome to the first BIGLIST review of SEM and SEO blogs for 2010!  What a year it will be. We reviewed hundreds of marketing blogs in 2009 and well over a thousand since we started the original list. Today’s BIGLIST update focuses on a few local search marketing blogs we’ve recently discovered.

Expand2Web Blog – The design winner for this BIGLIST Update Local SEM Blog Edition goes to Expand3Web by Don Campbell. This blog offers a rich mix of WordPress and Local search marketing advice as well as how to screencasts & videos as well as a podcast.

10:45am: Leveraging Local Search on a National Basis with:
Moderator: Aaron Goldman, VP, Marketing & Strategic Partnerships
Marc Barach, CMO, Ingenio
Mike Margolin, VP, Interactive Marketing Director, RPA
Christopher Knoch, Principle Consultant, Omniture Consulting Group, Omniture, Inc.

Aaron excitedly shows slides/stats from eMarketer supporting that budgets are going to local, “local is here”. 20% of all queries are local based but over half of all queries are for local info but do not include geographic terms in the query (according to SEMPO)

Local campaigns
Chris describes the importance of having locations of all offices your company operates in as well as having a store locator. Don’t overuse brands and use geo phrases in ads.

Aaron: What are some best practices for online-only retailers?

Different regions of the country have very different ways of saying the same thing. Maybe it’s because our country is spread across such a large land mass, because we’re a melting pot or maybe it’s because we all love creating new words and coining new phrases.

Whatever the reason, there are various ways to say the same thing and most often the word chosen is dictated by the region, creating an opportunity for every website to capture more visitors, if they are indeed optimized for the variations.

For example, here are all the different ways one might search for a ‘cabin’ in which to spend some vacation time:
Cottage
Chalet
Retreat
Country house
Camp
Cabana
Shed
Villa
Lodge
Log house