I had the pleasure of attending the first Local University put on by GetListed.org in Spokane, Washington on February 4th, 2010.  This one day event, provided a fantastic amount of local search, SEO, social media and other Internet marketing information to over 150 attendees looking to have a better grasp on how they can be more visible online.

Organized by GetListed.org co-founder David Mihm, the seminar featured a great line-up of experienced Internet marketers as well as Google and Bing representatives.  The Local University seminar will be heading out to other cities in 2010, bringing a fantastic wealth of information for any business or organization looking to improve their online marketing knowledge.

In just a 4 hour session, attendees took part in detailed presentations, real world case studies, Q & A sessions, how-to’s, do-it-yourself tips, resources and more.  Overall it was some incredible search, social and local/maps information, from talented presenters, all for $129. A complete steal to get a ton of  basics, the best practices and the baseline to market online.

The panel of speakers form left to right were Mikko Ollila of Bing, Ryan Hayward of Google, Matt McGee of Small Business SEM, Mike Blumenthal a local search expert, David Mihm of GetListed.org and Mary Bowling of seOverflow. Not pictured above was Spokane SEO expert Ed Reese.

Local University is a must for any business that wants real answers, real examples and access to grasp the opportunity to succeed online.

In addition to attending the seminar it was a chance for me to finally connect in person with other search marketers I have read, done business with and interacted with for some time.  I had a great time meeting a few new ones too like Mary Bowling, Mike Blumenthal (aka Professor Maps) and Mike Ramsey as the presenters took in dinner the night before.

Minneapolis In The Local University Future?
The one last piece that put me on a flight to Spokane was to attract the Local University offering to the Minneapolis area later this year.  The amount of information, the level of expertise and the complete offering would be perfect for the local business community here in the Twin Cities.

I can tell you that the event left Spokane buzzing, satisfied and hoping for another one.

Hopefully I’ll have some good news soon, but don’t hesitate to let your voice be heard with a comment below.

I was very fortunate to get to speak at the Buffalo, MN Chamber of Commerce Quarterly Luncheon today.  I presented on some ideas to help a small business website succeed, search engine optimization (SEO) and web analytics. I think I only put one person to sleep and the group had a lot of great Internet marketing questions in the follow-up.

There were some great Buffalo and Wright County businesses / organizations in attendance and I enjoyed the 45 minute presentation. Getting to share my knowledge and passion for the web is one of the best things I get to do at Five. Thank you to the Chamber for the invite to speak and present!

Speaking of presentations, we will be announcing a business blogging seminar soon for late May.  We should be getting the details out next week.

Thanks to Five web programmer @travisneids for taking the photos.

Our last post looked at the new Google search features incorporating local search results into regular search queries.  For many search terms you no longer need to apply a city and state to get local results.

A New Top Keyword
I thought I would update that post with how this new Google search feature has effected our search engine traffic.  Prior to this local feature, our top terms of referral traffic were our company name and then “web design MN”, “Minnesota web design” and other variations.

In the past week we have a new top term for bringing traffic to our website, “web design”.  Prior to the Google change, we would have never even dreamt of competing for the term of web design without a location or another term attached. In doing just some minor research, we appear in the local search results for 11 different zip codes.  With our office being rurally located, we bleed into other areas results from as far as 20 miles away.  If we were right in Minneapolis this wouldn’t be the case, but the search volume for “web design” would be much higher.  Not too bad of a trade off.

This new local search feature creates a lot of opportunity for small businesses to attract more buisness from Google.  It also shines a much brighter light on local search, a focus we will see increase in the coming months for sure.

Google is looking to help users find more local information by placing local search results in non-local search queries.

Instead of having to search “Dentists in Delano, MN”, you can just type “Dentists” and get local results on page one. Google is using the location of your Internet provider (ISP) to determine where you are, so there will be some variables and inaccurate results, but local search results are there.  Google is trying to improve your search results, feeling that your search probably has local intent.

Local search blogger Paul Jahn weighed in on the new local search feature and the change location ability.  Having an ISP that is local is one hurdle, but Paul points out the “change location” feature to help correct that.  As my example above shows, my results are for Maple Plain which is 10 miles from where we actually office in Delano.  There are still a few Delano results though.

Matt McGee also put together a great post over at Search Engine Land on this and gave some examples, the positives and the challenges.

Local Search Is Important & Improving
The biggest takeaway here is that local search is getting easier for the user.  Google is working to understand what you want.  It is also going to become even more important for the small business to make sure they are represented in the Google 10 pack of local results.

Small business now have the chance to compete for popular one keyword or two keyword searches.  This opportunity shouldn’t be ignored.  This addition is great on many levels and I’m sure we’ll be posting on it more in the coming months.

Last week we launched the Blackwater Coffee Company & Cafe website. While the web design project was small in size on the surface, but its part of a very big service we are rolling out.

The Blackwater web project included the following:

• Custom design elements over an existing CSS layout
• Full CMS back-end for updating of all website content
• Easy to use menu admin that allows for creating unlimited menus, categories, sub-categories, item name, description, pricing and pricing options. We’ll be adding a photo element per item in the near future as well.
• SEO Friendly URLs, on-page optimization, local search optimization
• Email marketing set-up, e-letter design and support
• Interactive calendar that Blackwater will start using next month

Here is a screenshot of their food menu.

The Big Future of Restaurant Web Design

Last year we decided to start building an industry web and marketing solution for the restaurant, bar, cafe, coffee shop, bakery …. any type of food or beverage service business. That solution is called Taste Trend and Blackwater is the first client. We are just shoring up the Taste Trend website that will allow food service businesses to buy a web and Internet marketing package online and get started. Stay tuned for more on that launch next week.

Taste Trend will provide an affordable web solution for the small food service business. The set-up fees are as low as $450 and monthly fees starting at $75, anyone can use this service. We feel we’ve created an easy to use, great looking, value stuffed, SEO friendly web and marketing tool.

Here is just some of what a Taste Trend website package offers:

• Initial consulting and recommendations
• Semi custom design with desired elements over CSS layouts
• Full web management of content and pages
• Robust menu administration
• SEO friendly design & local search help
• Email marketing set-up, service and support
• Detailed web analytics on traffic and sources
• Ongoing support and education
• Many add-ons for photos, video, calendars, gift certificates and more.

All of these great features will be accessible through the Taste Trend account dashboard, called The Kitchen.

So as you can see, we have a lot going on here and we’re super excited about it. Stay tuned for next weeks roll-out of the website. If you are interested in being a BETA client of Taste Trend, let us know. We have a few spots left!