Small business owners are generally a frugal lot.

Of course there are some who’ve got the budget to invest heavily as long as they see a return, but what about those who don’t?A long time ago someone coined the phrase “Parasite SEO” talking about the abuse of Blogger and WordPress.com to get better search term positioning.  I love the term, but “parasite” is just so ugly sounding.  I prefer “Barnacle SEO”.

Barnacle SEO: attaching oneself to a large fixed object and waiting for the customers to float by in the current.
As we know, there are lots of large trusted sites out there which by virtue of all those factors we know and love take very little coaxing to rank well for long-tail phrases.

And if I’ve said it once I’ve said it 1000 times “local search IS long tail search”.

So, here’s a few of those large fixed objects:

• Merchant Circle (just kidding — here’s their site)
• Yahoo! Local
• Yelp
• Insider Pages
• Super Pages

Local profiles have a lot of benefit for Barnacle SEO.  In many instances they play supporting roles — helping to increase the number of web references or “citations” as David likes to call them.

The following examples are from real, Main Street, clients who pay less than $500.00 / month for SEO services.  Obviously these are not our most competitive categories, but we’ve found that for many small businesses it doesn’t take a lot to move the needle.

Clearly we could, and will over time, better optimize the profile pages themselves.  And amazingly, in one of these cases the site uses a bad CMS so we can’t even control the on-page content.

Merchant Circle and Yahoo in supporting roles:

Notice the client, Puroclean RI, has top billing in both Organic and on the Map for “Property Damage Rhode Island“, even with a very bad title tag, and is present with both Merchant Circle and Yahoo! Local listings.  So, with a little Barnacle SEO we’ve got 30% of page 1 (and this is just one of many search terms) without breaking the bank.

Merchant Circle in a leading role:

As you can see, with the Merchant Circle listing we have 2 of the top 3 for “Accounting Firm Louisiana” for ASU, LLC in Metairie LA.  And this one is very early in our process.  Within 60 days or so we would expect his listing to supplant the Merchant Circle listing and hopefully knock out that top one as well.

Sara Palin Taking Aim on those Barnacles

Like all SEO it’s not a case of “build it and they will come”, each of these listings needs to be cultivated, and promoted around the web.

But, as the above demonstrate a little bit can go a long way when you first attach yourself to a big heavy object.

With Barnacle SEO, even a Sam’s Club shopper can compete with the Neiman Marcus set in local search engine optimization.

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Image Credits (Wikipedia):
Gooseneck barnacles taken at Limekiln Point on San Juan Island
Camp Buehring, Kuwait – Lt. Col. David Cogdell helps Alaska Governor Sarah Palin test out the Engagement Skills

Will Scott is president and founder of Search Influence a website promotion company in New Orleans, LA focused on local search engine optimization for small business.

I will come back and update this post with analysis from the various slides.

Will Scott will be speaking on two panels at the two day conference. On the 8^th he’ll be joining Marty Weintraub and Lisa Williams on “Opening The Contracts Kimono: Translating Your Pricing Model To Legal Agreement,” to speak on search marketing contracts, who will be defining the overall scope of contracts, and discussing making them performance-based, respectively. Will will discuss the liability aspect of contracts from the perspective of a search marketer who is actively updating and optimizing clients’ sites. This panel will be especially valuable for search marketing consultants and owners of search marketing companies.

Will is also part of a group of search marketers who have taken the initiative to conduct the first ever Foursquare advertiser sentiment survey! The exciting results of this first-of-its kind survey will be presented during the SEO & Vertical Search Track at “Location Services: The New Local Search?” on June 9.

This panel will be moderated by Greg Sterling, Founding Principle of Sterling Marketing Intelligence and the other speakers are to include Vince Blackham, Michael Martin, Mat Siltala, and Dylan Swift. More information about the Foursquare Advertiser Survey can be found on our blog, including profiles on the great companies that took part in making it happen!

Both of these panels will be must-sees next week in Seattle. For more information on SMX Advanced, visit their website. Will looks forward to meeting you at the conference!

SearchFest is the largest search engine marketing conference in Portland. Dedicated to search marketing education from the industry experts and thought leaders, SearchFest’s mission is to educate businesses on the benefits of SEO and SEM.

This is my second year talking to the Senior Movers and they’re a great, very appreciative crowd. This year, I spent about 3 hours after the presentation doing review / recommendation sessions with attendees and it was FANTASTIC!

Because these files are so big I decided to post them here. They’re referenced from Google Docs, which I like better than SlideShare given SlideShare shows other, competitive stuff next to your slides.

NASMM-Website Promotion Basics

Social Media – What’s in it for YOU?

I’ll update with more detail later.

I’d love feedback on these presentations and if you attended NASMM Las Vegas 2010, I’d love to hear your impressions.