Google Pin Point.jpgAt this point you would have to be crazy if your business is not located in the major Internet Yellow Page search engines. Or perhaps you don’t know about them. If the latter is the case, welcome; visit the sites below and begin placing your business in as many of these sites as you can!

What are the Internet Yellow Page search engines (IYPs)?

you ask, well my friend they are a number of websites that list your company or organization based on a geographic location. And many of them are FREE! I won’t bore you with unnecessary jibber jabber, I’ll just list a number of IYPs I’ve found over the years. And please bookmark this page as I will be adding to this list as I continue my everlasting search. Do visit these sites and take a few minutes to add your company. It will help us die-hard local searchers find your company, and bring you additional customer to boot.

Without further ado, in no particular order, the list:

Nationwide Internet Yellow Page Web Sites:
Click the “Add my business” link to add your business today.

Local City Guides and Recommendation Web Sites:

Region Specific Internet Yellow Page Sites:

Mobile/Cell phone Friendly Internet Yellow Page Sites:

Coupon/Savings Internet Yellow Page Sites:

Info/Data Companies for Internet Yellow Page Sites:

If this has helped you in anyway let me know. Leave your comments below. Thanks.

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It’s Sunday morning and you’re in the “library” flipping through the newspaper sales ads. Joe’s Furniture Store (Art Van where I’m from) has a full color circular in the mix every week. Why? They’re hoping to catch the attention of someone who might be in the market for a recliner.

It’s the end of April and the temperature is starting to rise. Now’s the time window & siding people come sniffing around. How? Door to door, if you can believe it! This is incredibly intrusive and annoying.

Mail arrives daily with offers from credit card companies hoping I’ll spread some of my debt to them. Like I need help increasing my debt!

What about the phone calls at dinner time? TV ads that aren’t watched because we’ve all got DVR? Radio ads we tune out, billboards we don’t notice anymore… The list goes on.

What do these marketing methods have in common? They’re not targeted. They waste a lot of money on consumers who won’t or aren’t ready to consume. They’re fishing for sales rather than strategically positioning themselves where those searching for their product can find it. This is where search engine marketing (SEM) comes in. If the goal is to sell a recliner, money should be spent wooing people who are in the market for cushy seating. Consumers are savvy. They’re online researching products, suppliers and prices. SEM nails them when they’re most interested. Benefits include, but are not limited to; low cost, measurable, and easy to change. Cost is low because you’re only spending money on consumers who are interested in your product. Results can be measured on a number of variables such as click through rate, conversions (did they do what you wanted them to), and at what point shoppers abandon your site. Campaigns are easy to change if they’re not producing desired results. Testing can be done on multiple campaigns simultaneously and results are available in real time. Can’t say that about print ads.

I’m not saying the other methods don’t have merit. If used in conjunction with one another they can be effective, especially if personalization is included. BUT, nothing is as cost effective or has as great a return on investment as SEM. With SEM you don’t have to hope that the consumer seeing your ad might be looking for your product – they came looking for you, they want it. And that is the furthest from annoying.

For more information on how Atilus can help with your SEM, please contact us at www.atilus.com

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Yes, internet marketing works! When you think of looking up information or an address where do we usually turn to? If you said the internet you are correct (MSN, Yahoo, AOL and Google).

Google holds about a 70% stake in the internet search business. So why is Google, so important? Because if you rank on the first page for search terms related to your business is likely to increase a great deal, because majority of users do not go past the first page to find results.

There are several way to the top of Google’s rankings, but one leaps ahead of the rest in terms of return on investment… Blog, Blog and Blog you can never blog enough.

Google uses the most current information to rank. BTW there is a complicated formula they use to rank their Search Engine Optimization. Also, if you notice when you go to www.google.com if you type in a search term and at the very top of the page towards the right hand side it says “sponsored links.” These are links and text that companies are paying for. How do you pay for these? You can hire a Google AdWords professional to do what is called Pay Per Click marketing, so you only pay for what people use. In other words, the price depends on what “words” you choose. Very common words are going to cost you more money, but again it’s about ranking in the top five results.

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Search Engine Store ClerkBefore going into detail about how you can optimize your website for search engines I would like to quickly explain what search engine optimization is and why it is so important.

Right now the web is dominated by three major search engines: Google, Yahoo, and MSN (live).

What is a Search Engine?

A search engine can be thought of as the largest storefront of all time. But, it dispenses EVERYTHING (all information on the web). You walk up to the counter (visit Google.com) and ask the magical clerk anything (type in your search), you hit “go” and off he runs back into the largest warehouse of all time to find you exactly what you need. In a matter of milliseconds he’s back with a list of the things he thinks you need. Essentially this is how a search engine works.

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Hang up your gloves conventional marketing!
In the first corner, standing 5′6, 360 lbs, blind in one eye and wearing a knee brace is the 78 year old former heavy weight champion of the world conventional OFFLINE marketing!

And in the second corner, standing a proud 6′2, a solid 225 lbs, is the fresh, fit, 22 year old undefeated light heavy weight champion of the world ONLINE Internet marketing!!

Hmmm… doesn’t sound like much of a fight, but I’d stick around for the finish. It’s gonna be quick.

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