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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

I’m old school on Sunday mornings and almost always head out to buy the Sunday paper (Star Tribune) to read while having breakfast. As a gadget and tech guy, I usually look forward to the Best Buy insert.

As I flipped through the first pages and entered into the TV section I was intrigued by what I saw. A main focus of the TV’s featured were their customer review rating from BestBuy.com.
Below is the newspaper insert.

You can see as circled above that each of the three TV’s highlights a review quote and their average customer review rating. Online reviewers are supplying a piece of the feature/benefits for these products. Best Buy is leveraging the mass approval of these products having a 4.7 star or higher average to win trust and product confidence.

Small Business Review Idea
It also started me thinking of how local business reviews could be leveraged by small businesses. An auto repair shop could communicate their “Over 50 Positive Reviews on Google” to build instant credibility. The ability to position the consumer opinion to sell for you is an interesting one. The crew at Precision Auto Repair out in California could use customer quotes and their 5 star rating to it’s advantage offline (and on their website!).

Have you seen other examples of this? This Best Buy use is the first I’ve seen and I think it’s pretty cool. I would guess a few others have done it too. It really speaks to the change in marketing we continue to see as consumers and marketers.

The press release for the GetListed.org site offers a great quote from co-creator David Mihm.

“The search engines rely on so many different providers for their Local business data, it’s hard even for experts to keep track of where it’s all coming from,” said Mihm. “This tool really puts the power in the hands of the business owners and helps make sure the engines provide correct data to people searching for these businesses.”

Mihm shared with me that the site has already done over 10,000 business look-ups in just the first two weeks of being launched. They’ve also received very favorable feedback from users and other SEO consultants using the site.

Making the complexity of search a bit easier and empowering the root of correct business information, now thats a great thing.

As an Internet marketing professional this alleviates the multiple site checking and verifying we would normally do for a client. The site also offers tools to make our job easier with a Local Dashboard to track clients data.

Below I ran a report for one of my favorite Minneapolis pizza joints, Pizza Luce. As you can see they have not correctly completed their info in Google and Best of the Web.

The screenshot above shows you get the direct links to get your business listed if you are missing from any of them.

When you add on the value of their local search resource center and even a trusted listing of Local SEO professionals (we’re proud to be listed), the site offers so much more then just the tool.

The future for GetListed looks strong with improvements and additions coming for the site.

“We’re also going to be making it easier for small businesses to understand the transition between SEEING what search engines are returning about their business and actually CHANGING or VERIFYING that information–a couple of small, but important usability tweaks that we hope will solve that.” offered Mihm when asked on the next step for the tool.

Small businesses, I suggested you “get smart” for 2009 and work GetListed.org to the top of your websites to utilize.

If you want to follow David and Pat on Twitter you can find them at @davidmihm and @yummyman .

Internet Marketing Seminar – Five Technology from Five Technology on Vimeo.

The majority of the seminar was focused on the basics of SEO and the concept of building trust within your website and it’s content/pages. We covered a lot of ground, answered many questions and even reviewed some of the attendee’s websites to offer up suggestions.

I personally had a blast with everyone and learned a lot in preparing a 3 hour seminar and presenting it. I think that everyone there walked away with some great takeaways and tips no matter their level of understanding coming in. I met a lot of really cool people too. Thanks everyone!

Shortly after the blog post hit, which our client Sparkling Clean Window Washing subscribes to via email,  the owner headed off to one of our local pages and left us a great review.  It turns out that Ryan has been nudging clients to use online reviews for his business as well and in loving what Five did for his website wanted to shout out his happiness to others.  Thanks Ryan!

This also shows a nice little process that took place from blogging and interacting with our customers:

1.  Five blogs about online reviews, local search and the positive effect they can have on creating new business.

2.  A client is a blog reader / subscriber and reads this post.

3.  The client realizes they should give a review to help other users looking for a great Minnesota web design firm!

So even thought I didn’t consider this to be one of the outcomes of my post, it shows what business blogging can produce. It can produce reader action and further marketing for us.

1. Be basic and straight forward. Users appreciate less marketing jargon and more answers on today’s Internet.

2. Use a good mix of your main keyword term, but also mix in related or secondary keyword terms. Try to use both the industry or professional terms (if applicable) but also consider how the general public might understand your product or service.

3. Apply these basic elements to your page header, beginning paragraph, supporting information or bullet points.

You want an example? Ok.

Here is just a simple example of what I might write for a steakhouse in downtown Minneapolis. Lets consider that their downtown location and the fact that they are a premier steakhouse are the big keyword factors.

—————————————————————–

page header (H1):
Award Winning Downtown Minneapolis Steakhouse

intro paragraph: Peter’s Steak Palace is a downtown Minneapolis steakhouse and offers the best steak and food for your Minneapolis dining experience. With prime rib, filet mignon, porterhouse and our famous Pete Cut Steak, you can enjoy our award winning restaurant atmosphere and menu of steaks, salads and more.

supporting (h2): Visit Our Minneapolis Restaurant

• View our steak and menu items (list items)
• Make reservations online or call
• View our dress code and other helpful info
• View a map of our downtown location

—————————————————————–

As you can see from above I would also recommend finding a way to present your top keyword terms in anchor text to supporting pages. The “downtown Minneapois steakhouse” link can go to the “about page” and the other link to the menu page. With a bit more content, a photo or two correctly tagged and page meta data completed, you have a very well optimized page for the search engines that also helps the user (the main goal!). Mix in a few links pointing to the site and you’ve got a good SEO process starting to work.

Take a look at your content, is it basic enough? Does it clearly address what you do or offer? Where? How? If not, you would benefit from giving it a basic tweak or two that will benefit both your website visitors and search engines.