Search Engine Placement

Although the internet started out as a way to reach people all across the world, reaching people in your local area and community is also important.

Many businesses these days are concerned just with getting their products bought all over the world, but can advertising to your local customers also help businesses? The question is should businesses use local search engine optimization along with regular SEO?

The obvious answer for some businesses would be yes. If the business serves only one specific geographical area or region, then local SEO is one of the first things to do get put in place.

But even if you’re not based in operations that are strictly localized, having your business optimized in the local search engines can be a positive experience. Local SEO can be used to expand the number of relevant keywords for your company. These keywords will relate to the location of your operations. These will get you rankings for more terms than those that are related directly to your business.

Most people don’t associate internet marketing with local marketing. Internet marketing usually drums up thoughts of large companies buying banner ads on large multi national web sites. However, localized internet marketing can be much more effective then you think.

With the rise of the search engines and the information age, you have people from 5 to 95 using Google to look for local products and services. Forget having to flip through that 30 pound yellow page book only to realize you were looking in the wrong category. In fact, the trend in yellow page searches compared to search engines is drastically changing.

Pretend for example your a real estate developer in Asheville NC, and you want to find a local marketing company. So, you do a search for ” Asheville Marketing Company “. In less then one second you find a whole host of companies that provide local marketing services. First, Google shows you the results from their Google Local directory. Beneath that you also see the natural results, and hey us!

Search engines aren’t the only way local companies are found online. For almost every niche you’ll find a regional web directory (a web-site that lists businesses specific companies in a specific location). These directories usually list a multitude of regional companies in exchange for a small fee or advertising.

You’d be amazed at the amount of searches made for local services and products on any given day. We’ve heard time and time again from our localized clients how much their search engine marketing campaigns have helped their business grow. I believe its the most affordable and most effective form of marketing or advertising a regional company can do.

According to The Asheville Chamber of Commerce, Asheville has a high level of technology for a city in the south. With a fire optic network being developed,Google opening a 600M datacenter in nearby Lenior, a still booming real estate industry, and a highly educated workforce; many technology related firms are moving into the area.

Companies like the Blue Ridge Entrepreneurial Council are helping business that move into the area get set up with loans, mentoring, networking and more.

Our conquest for being the #1 firm in Asheville to go to for all things internet marketing continues as we begin to rank on the search engines for a majority of out top keywords. You’ll find us on page one for Asheville internet marketing, along with Asheville search engine optimization, search engine marketing, and now page two for Asheville marketing!

So it’s official…we’ve made the transition in to our new office in the Flat Iron Building of downtown Asheville. This comes just in time to enjoy our new space during Bele Chere, the annual street festival in Asheville. In just a few days, the streets of downtown Asheville will be packed with musicians, vendors, and tourists and we’ll be able to enjoy the activities from above.

At the end of this month we’ll be relocating to our new and bigger office in the Flat Iron Building in downtown Asheville! With a coffee shop downstairs from us and a sunset bar upstairs it won’t be difficult to entertain our clients that come to visit.

The Flat Iron building in downtown Asheville is host of several techical and IT related companies like Scullytown.com (web designers). Visit us our Asheville marketing firm today!

With Google setting up a 600 million dollar datacenter in nearby Lenoir, Asheville is sure to see significant growth in its tech and internet marketing sectors. At just over an hour away, I’m willing to bet we’ll see a growing community of techies walking the streets of Asheville. What does this mean for search marketing in Asheville? Probably not much except that we may see a slight shuffle in Google’s search engine results once the datacenter is up and running.

Asheville web development firm, Jaymunda, will be sponsoring a seminar geared toward business owners with websites. “So You Have a Website. Now What?” will feature four industry professionals to help business owners understand how to leverage their websites to maximize marketing efforts and communicate with customers. They will discuss how your website should fit within an overal marketing plan, how to attract the right visitors, how to use technology to get results, and how to integrate publicity with a website.The seminar will be held June 26 at the AB Tech Enka Campus (just outside of Asheville) from 5:30-8:30pm.

This weekend local web developers and internet enthusiasts gathered at the School of Communication Arts in Raleigh, NC for this year’s DCampSouth. DCampSouth is a BarCamp, or “unconference”, where rather than having scheduled speakers, everyone pitches sessions the morning of the BarCamp. Those sessions are put on a schedule, and lots of little groups form for intense group learning. Everyone is expected to teach, to talk, to participate.

Keynote speaker, Thomas Vander Wal opened up the day with a speech on the progression of how we interact with the web, social networking communities, and folksonomy among other things. According to Vander Wal, the original “I go get web” model of the internet consists of a person accessing the web through a single device (their desktop) and actively seeking information. The newer “come to me web” is much more complex, involving many individuals interacting with each other and via numerous devices (laptops, blackberries, etc.). The central characteristic of the “come to me web” is our ability to save important information and streamline the retrieval process according to our own taxonomy (enter tags and folksonomy). No longer are we expected to navigate through layers of webpages before we finally connect with what we are looking for. As the web develops, more and more information is being delivered to us based on our preferences and online behavior (enter social communities, RSS feeds, and yes….more tagging). The overall model is shifting from navigation to attraction and the new web is multiplying the power of the internet instead of adding it.

Additional information on the conference and Vander Wal is available here, here, and here.

Relocate-America.com recently release their list of the Top 100 Places to Live in 2007 and Asheville, NC has topped the list at #1! Relocate-America accepts nominations throughout the year and weighs these nominations based on user input and important city data including education, employment, economy, crime, parks, recreation and housing.

Asheville is not only a great place to live, but it’s also an excellent choice for business as well. Forbes.com cites North Carolina as “the clear winner” for “the best place to do business or start a career”. Raleigh snagged the top spot with several other NC cities ranking including Asheville at 23rd. Forbes notes that will many careers garner more income in the west, the cost of living in the southeast more than makes up for this discrepency.

We also think Asheville is a great place to live and do business as well, although we may be just a little biased. ; )