I had a great experience this week at BlueGlassX Tampa Moderating the “Local Mobile Domination” session the morning of day two at the conference. On my panel were two of the current Rock Stars of the local search world- David Mihm (formerly President of Getlisted.org and just now joining SEOMoz) and Dr. Michael Dorausch of Planet Chiropractic (who has been featured in USA Today and Investors Business Daily for his skills in local). To set up the session I shared a bunch of industry data on how and why the “market” for local search– meaning the number of searches as well as the opportunity for local businesses to drive results through organic search rankings– is exploding right now. Since I pulled a lot of data during my research and had only a limited amount of time to present during the session, I’m adding some super special bonus info here for all of you local search propeller heads.
I’ve been working in marketing and advertising since 1985, online marketing since 1992, and had my first experience with the revolution that is search working with the pioneering AltaVista search engine in 1996. I’ve run $100 million TV campaigns for Fortune 500 companies and lived the wonderful, reliable era of mass advertising and long client lunches by the Four Seasons LA pool. And what I can tell you having done this for a while is the safe and predictable orbit of your marketing universe has ended. If you are a marketer, advertiser or just a business trying to get a few customers, disruption is here. All that you need to do to get done what you need to get done, is changing very quickly. Social Media, Content Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search, Analytics and Mobile Marketing are revolutionizing the way you get people to buy whatever it is you’re selling. And you either need to get on the bus and starting tooting the horn, or at the very least figure out how not to get run over. This blog is here to help you do that.