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.

On September 28, they released a new version with clues that help us better understand the updated algorithm and a glossary of terms (something desperately needed in the original). It covers everything from SEO basics to effectively promoting your site on the web. Plus you get to stare at a cute little robot with sod for hair, flowers for a right hand and missing the left one that he no doubt lost in an epic lightsaber battle with his creator.

What I don’t get is why Google is still a slave to paper in this day and age! Wouldn’t this information benefit from- oh, I don’t know- a website? That way it could have updates regularly as opposed to a major one every two years. I’m just spit-balling here…

I know this can be a bit overwhelming, but that’s what we’re here for! Now you can be as well informed as possible before you get frustrated and come to us to do it for you.

Click to download the .pdf

We work with a number of plastic surgeons and have the opportunity to really get a sense for their zeitgeist. Right now many of them are feeling a pinch – our review had, to this point, been anecdotal rather than analytical. Suffice it to say we knew there was a problem but didn’t know if it was a lack of traffic, or a lack of conversion (window shopping but no buying).

One of our clients has been prompting me for some time to start providing benchmarks within his category (where we have some depth) as a yardstick against which we could measure his success. And then, in conversation with another client this evening, the topic came up again as we were discussing a former client who is really suffering.

For our benchmark we decided to look only at Google organic ranking and to compare a very specific date range, specifically a comparison of December 2009 versus May 2009. This date range seemed appropriate given the seeming decline in traffic and business, and given December is an historically low month compared to May.

Throwing out the high and the low in our sample, we found that the average decline in the studied group was 16.4% May to December. This is not a surprising number given the seasonality of the profession but it at least gave us a benchmark.

And in all, it doesn’t explain the massive decline in the client who left and in some of our continuing clients.

Below are screenshots from Google Analytics of the comparison:

Clearly we’re only looking at one metric, but there are clear correlations between the right kind of traffic and revenue.

View the whole set of screenshots at flickr.

My thanks to Dr. Paul Parker a Plastic Surgeon specializing in breast augmentation. New Jersey patients should visit his site http://www.parkercenter.net/.

Thanks also to Dr. Roy Kim a Plastic Surgeon specializing in surgeries of the face and body including breast augmentation and tummy tuck. San Francisco patients should visit his site http://www.drkim.com/.

And the moral of the story is: If you’re a plastic surgeon and your traffic is up December over May, good on ya. Give those monkeys a banana.

If you’re down, don’t sweat it. +/- a few percentage points beyond the mean is no big deal.

If you’re down 40% or more, look out. It may be time to reevaluate the model. If you’re down 40% or more and your web people aren’t scrambling then definitely change course.

Local SEO consultant and Portland, OR web designer David Mihm has just published his second annual Local Search Ranking Factors Survey and for the second year running, Search Influence has been chosen to participate.

This is the definitive document on Local Search Ranking.

The study asked participants to rate 49 factors on their impact on Google and Yahoo Local’s universal search algorithms, calculating their positive or  negative impact on ranking as well as the level of agreement the participants had on each issue. The following are some of the highlights of the survey:

• Positive Impact -  According to the 27 participants, local business listing address in the city of search currently has the most positive impact on ranking, followed by citations from major data providers, and properly categorizing local business listings.
• Negative Impact - Top factors to avoid according to the study include using multiple local business listings with the same address, multiple local business listings (Google) with the same phone number, and including a PO box with no physical address.
• Increased Positive Impact since 2008 –  Within the past year, participants say LBL with marginal categories has increased its positive impact the most, followed by LBL with videos, and KLM file submission.
• Decreased Positive Impact since 2008 -  Top factors that have fallen in positive impact since last year include the number of inbound links, the age of the LBL, and using a PO box without a physical address.
• Most Controversy -  Study participants had the least agreement on the importance of using the same address for multiple LBLs, using the same name on multiple LBLs, and naming products and services in the inbound keyword text.

The study surveyed 27 participants in the local search market field and was designed to help small businesses prioritize their web marketing needs.

Click for full results of the Local Search Ranking Factors study.

For those of you not already familiar, delicious.com allows you to store all your bookmarks in one place organized by date with tags for secondary management.

I was very fortunate in my reading today, thanks mostly to my friends on twitter .

• Best Fits for Social Media in the Sales Cycle | chrisbrogan.com
• How To Optimize For Conversion In Organic Search Results
• 27 Twitter Applications Your Small Business Can Use Today | SMALL BUSINESS CEO
• A Twitter Primer for Small Business | Marketing | Small Business | Mainstreet
• How to Answer the Social Phone | Customer Conversation | Fast Company

Metcalfe's Law And The Network Effect

What’s interesting to me about the recent Nielsen data regarding “Twitter Quitters” is that it makes a prediction based on current data without looking at how this technology is like others before it.  Surely Nielsen

doesn’t have data on adoption of all technologies since the beginning of time, but if they thought a little harder they might find some similarities.  Or perhaps they just want the attention of controversy.

Metcalfe’s Law

states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.

The most common illustration of this is the fax machine.  One fax machine = paperweight, two fax machines = dialog, ubiquitous fax machines = global communications in the pre-email era.

So what’s the point?

My contention is this: Twitter (per the Nielsen data) is a 1978 fax machine. If you had one you thought you were really cool, but the reality is you were probably only impressing yourself.

If you’re not aware of the concern, here’s a little background:

• Twitter Quitters Post Roadblock to Long-Term Growth
• Retention Problem for Twitter?
• Proof That Nielsen is Wrong; Twitter’s Retention Rate is Not 40%

Fax Machines - They're Everywhere

I mean think about it.  If you’re not one who is naturally tapped into online communication you sign up, cruise around without an instruction manual or map and it’s boring.  “Where to now?” you must think.  Then the phone rings, the teapot whistles or the dog barks and you’re outta there.

Unless you’re already in the know it’s hard to find the great resources there are out there:

• One Year Later, Why I Love Twitter
• Can Twitter Be Useful For Business?

It’s no wonder there’s a 60% dropoff rate.

If you believe TechCrunch, at the end of April there were a few more than 1 million users of Twitter with only around 200,000 really active.

From TC :

March 2008

• Total Users: 1+ million
• Total Active Users: 200,000 per week
• Total Twitter Messages: 3 million/day

So let’s look at that in context.  With around 1 million users worldwide 40% of whom are in the U.S. that means that only about 400,000 U.S. folks are on twitter.

It's Lonely Out There

So… if you’re not one of those 400,000 you’re one of the other 299,600,000, or thereabouts, U.S. folks who aren’t yet on Twitter.  That means you’re not one of the 13/100ths of 1 percent who are already hip.

That’s a really small number.  I mean really small.  You might be lonely.

So, I come back to likening Twitter to a 1978 fax machine.  Currently Twitter lacks mass utility — so did a fax machine in 1978.  Where’s the fax now?

The Fax is ubiquitous

.

Photo Credits:

• Network Effect image from Wikipedia
• Fax Cat courtesy of anomalous4
• Lonely Bench courtesy of Ann Kinney