This is why I like Marketing Pilgrim:

This is delivered through a partnership with AT&T—the apps are available for not only the iPhone but 20 other AT&T devices. It looks like you may be out of luck unless you have an AT&T phone. Of course, since AT&T owns YellowPages.com, this isn’t entirely surprising.

Report the news then get sly:

Now, is it just me, or does forcing your users to go to your website kind of defeat the purpose of creating a downloadable web app?

I must admit, Jordan McCollum has a point. It seems to me that YellowPages.com, though it is owned by AT&T, would seek to develop relationships with the millions of mobile phone users out there that are under contract with other service providers. But I do like the features that come with the YellowPages.com mobile search:

• Search for local restaurants, stores, ATMs, gas stations, airports and more.
• Save your favorite searches, locations or businesses and access them on the go.
• Map businesses and get turn-by-turn directions to or from your home, other businesses, favorite places, or recent searches.
• Choose directions tailored to your method of transportation - by auto, bike, or even by foot.
• Auto-complete feature remembers your favorite search terms and saves you time and effort.

The great thing about these services is that your local business does not have to be an AT&T customer in order to market your services to mobile phone users in your area. All you need is a business and something to advertise.

Local Live Search is somewhat like a directory. If you head over to maps.live.com you’ll see what, in effect, is a directory. The categories can be overwhelming, but they’re not really. They are there to serve as a way to organize the listings in the directory. The question is, how can you - the small business owner with a local presence - make the most of the Local Live Search directory to get the traffic, and the business, that you want?

Whether your business is an Arts & Entertainment business or a travel-related business, you can list your business in the Local Live Search directory and when searchers at MSN Live look for a business like yours in their area, yours will be one of the businesses they find.

Each category is broken down into subcategories as well. For instance, if you click on Real Estate & Construction, you will see that category broken down into several subcategories. And it’s not just a small list either. Consider these subcategories:

• Building & Construction Services
• Construction Site Services
• Doors & Window Construction
• Drilling & Pumping
• Roofing & Siding Construction
• Stone & Masonry
• Surveyors
• Wood Materials & Experts

That’s just a small sampling. Each of those subcategories are also broken down into further subcategories. The Doors & Window Construction subcategory has 11 categories of business listed under it. After a searcher digs down as deep as she can go into categories, Local Live Search will ask her to input her location. This is done either by zip code or city and state.

Local Live Search is a great business tool for local small businesses. Don’t just list in Google and Yahoo! Go the extra step and list your business in Local Live Search as well. Every little listing helps and you can’t overlook the third largest search engine online.

Yellowpage.com has a useful service they call YP411.

All you do is send a text message (SMS) to YP411 (97411) from your mobile phone and you can ask where the nearest pizza joint or massage parlor is. Well, if you’re not looking for pizza or a massage then you can ask where the day care center is, or whatever it is you’re looking for.

The way it works is like this:

You type YP411, or 97411, and type in what you are looking for in the message field on your mobile phone along with your zip code or city and state. Hit send and your mobile phone will display up to three businesses of that type in your area. Your mobile phone will also display links to maps and driving directions as well as a link for more information on each listing.

So how can you, as a small business owner, tap into this? That’s easy. You just register your business at Yellowpage.com and if someone is looking for your type of business in your area then have the potential to be one of those that are listed when someone makes an SMS query from their mobile phone.

Google has a special place in its heart for local business owners. It’s called the Local Business Center.

When you log in to the Google Local Business Center, you’ll see a list of your local businesses, the ones you’ve listed in Google Local, and just above those you’ll see two links. The first link will, when you click on it, allow you to add more listings to your local business listings. The second link allows you to upload files. But that’s not the extent of the Local Business Center.

If you scroll down, you’ll see more links. From the Local Business Center you can open and manage your Google AdWords account. This is one of the most essential tools for the local business owner. But you can also add a Google Checkout feature to your business website and, one of my favorites, add your products to Google Base.

Google Base is a useful tool if you have more than 10 local businesses. You can add them all at Google Base and increase the exposure for all of your local businesses. You do this through a bulk file upload, which saves you time. I highly recommend the Local Business Center and Google Base if you own a local small business.

We’ve discussed Google Local and Yahoo! Local, but we haven’t mentioned Local Live Search. Until now.

Local Live Search is just as important as Google and Yahoo!’s local services. Just because it isn’t as well trafficked doesn’t mean that Local Live Search can’t be of benefit to you. It can.

Local Live Search has many of the same features that Google Local and Yahoo! Local have. One unique feature that I like about it is the Collections feature. Local Live Search Collections allows users to save a local search result for future reference and for easy search by others. All you have to do to get your business searchable at Local Live Search is to sign up for an account, which takes all of five minutes, and then find your business and save it to your Collections folder.

To search for a local business at Local Live Search you can enter a business category or the business name then the zip code or city and state. Then you can sort by relevance or distance. If you can imagine people in your local area looking for your services then you should include a listing of your business at Local Live Search. When you list your business at Local Live Search, you can have a link in your profile to your website, but you can also get a link to your Superpages profile. That’s two ways you can be found through Local Live Search. How many more ways do you need?

One of my favorite things about Citysearch is its Best Of Guide.

The Best of Citysearch offers users of the online guide a chance to vote on their favorite businesses in certain categories. It’s a fabulous way to gain a local reputation that will far outstrip any advertising that you do. It’s almost a cliche, but word of mouth is the best form of advertising. The Best of Guide at Citysearch makes word of mouth possible among strangers and to the benefit of every business that uses Citysearch.

The categories of business that can be voted on in the Best of Guide at Citysearch include:

• Restaurant
• Nightlife
• Shopping
• Spa & Beauty
• Hotel

If you own a business in any of these categories you qualify to be included in the Best of Citysearch feature and your customers can vote on your business as their favorite. For more information about the Best of Citysearch polls, visit Citysearch today.

When it comes to local pay per click, you have many options. Google AdWords may be the most popular pay per click option, but it isn’t the only one. You have more than one choice.

Your local small business might do well with Google AdWords. I’m not knocking it. But you should consider other possibilities. Here is a list of companies that offer local pay per click services. I encourage you to shop around:

• Yahoo! Search Marketing - Google’s leading competitor
• MSN AdCenter - Third in line. Not as popular as the other two, but not an altogether bad pay per click brand
• 7Search - A smaller pay per click company with some respectability and specializes in small business pay per click for companies that can’t afford more than 10 cents per click
• Kanoodle - Another small pay per click company
• Miva - A specialized pay per click company that targets specific industries and offers advertising on a network of websites
• ABC Search - Another smaller pay per click company with local geotargeting options
• LookSmart - A pay per click company with specialization in several vertical markets, including Auto, Cities, Education, Food, Health, Home Living, Money, Music, Recreation, Sports, Style, Tech & Games, and Travel

There are literally hundreds of pay per click options for the local business. You don’t have to stick with Google, although I would start there.

Local business have special needs when it comes to local advertising online. You are not marketing globally. You are marketing to a specific geographic area and that requires a special strategy with the search engines, Yellow Pages, and other online advertising resources. Do you have a guide?

You might think you can do it all on your own, and you probably can. But, like anything else, there is a learning curve. You will spend the first year or two on your own learning the ins and outs of online advertising before you will see any real results. But if you hire Brick Marketing to be your guide then you can leverage our expertise in managing your local online advertising and get more bang for your buck a whole lot sooner!

Time is of essence. In business, time equals money. Right? If you agree then you’ll appreciate the value of leverage. That’s what Brick Marketing offers local businesses who want to market their services online and when you leverage your time and your money for maximum exposure online then you will see results a lot quicker. Give Brick Marketing a call today. Your online life depends on it.

Do you have a list of keywords for your anchor text? It isn’t enough just to use keywords on your web pages and create internal links. That’s all well and good and you should do it. But what if someone in your community wants to link to your website? Do you have a list of keywords to give them for the links?

Anchor text is the keyword phrase that people use to link to your website. For instance, if you issue hunting and fishing licenses then you might use the keyword phrase, “hunting and fishing license” in all of your internal website links pointing the page that takes those orders. But what about other local businesses that want to send people to your website? Will they use the same phrase? You can’t assume that they will.

That’s why it’s important to develop a list of keyword phrases that are important to you and that you want inbound links for. The inbound links can help you achieve better rankings at the search engines. Therefore, you should pick keyword phrases that you want to rank highly for and give that list to your potential link partners for their anchor text.

One way to impress your neighbors about your business is to put a listing for your business on Yahoo! Local. People will have the opportunity to review your business and everyone will see the review. What a great opportunity to get your customers talking about you!

Whenever someone types their zip code or city and state into the Yahoo! search box, they will see all the reviews of any business in your area. Why shouldn’t your business be one of them?

Not only does Yahoo! Local publish reviews from Yahoo! Local users, but it also publishes reviews of your business found elsewhere on the Web. That’s a great feature that you don’t get with other local online advertising options. If you truly want to make your local online advertising efforts shine like gold, list your business with Yahoo! Local.

There is more to the online Yelllow Pages than simply a database full of businesses with contact information. You can also advertise on the Yellow Pages with display advertising, much like you can with the print Yellow Pages. It’s hard to argue with 74% of the consumers who visit YellowPages.com who claim to contact the merchant and the 55% who actually make a purchase. These are actual advertisers on the Yellow Pages online.

If you want Yellow Pages advertising, let us set it up for you. We won’t just make you look good. We’ll actually manage your local advertising for maximum effectiveness. Learn more about local online advertising through the Yellow Pages today.

Yahoo! Local has three ways you can benefit. All three are useful depending on your budget and what you want to achieve with your listing.

1. Basic Yahoo! Local - Yahoo! Local’s basic listing is, well, quite basic. But it’s also free. If you have a limited - or no - budget then this might be your option, but you’ll get a very basic business listing with no bells and whistles. The Yahoo! Local basic listing includes a listing in up to 5 Yahoo! Local categories, information about your brands, products, and services, hours of operation, 800#, e-mail address, and other basic information about your business, a link to your website, and other contact information such as business name, address, and phone number.
2. Yahoo! Local Enhanced - The enhanced listing at Yahoo! Local includes all the features of the basic listing plus you get a company tagline and a 3,000 word description of your business, you can upload a logo and add two links to coupon pages or special promotions on your website, up to 10 photos, a little more exposure in the search results, and you can see how many people have viewed your listing and clicked on your links.
3. Yahoo! Local Featured Listing - Yahoo! Local’s featured listing includes everything you get with the enhanced listing and you get greater exposure to a larger geographic area plus guaranteed premium placement on the first or second page of the search results.

Which level is right for you? Only you can decide.

Local online advertising is the most important for you to be doing right now.

(Source) Did you know that 92% of shoppers search online for products to buy? Did you know that 95% of consumers purchase retail in the store? Are you taking advantage of that knowledge?

If your retail store isn’t taking advantage of this reality then you are way behind. Local online advertising will be one of the fastest growing areas of marketing in the next ten years. Now is the time to get in and the opportunities are tremendous.

The old adage “the early bird catches the worm” is true for online business as well. You may be too late to be the earliest bird, but in some communities, if you don’t start right now then you won’t be a bird in the chase. You might very well be an early bird where you are. Get your local online advertising campaign going today. Otherwise, you’ll be positioned to lose market share and I wouldn’t want that to happen to you.

Local mobile marketing is gaining ground. Text message and viral video have taken over on college campuses and big Metro areas. If you have a business that targets college students or a clientele susceptible to technological changes then you would benefit by considering local mobile marketing for your business.

All of the search engines now have mobile components. Since most mobile phones now come with browsers, it is easy to view websites on a mobile phone and contact a local business from your car. Text messages, pay per call, and other similar marketing methods are becoming all the rage.

Google, for instance, uses http://www.google.com/mobile/ as its interface for mobile marketers. The services offered through Google’s mobile marketing interface are:

• Search
• Maps
• Gmail (Surprise!)
• Picasa
• YouTube
• And GOOG-411 (the voice operator for mobile phone users)

These services make it easy for local mobile marketing professionals to find their target market. And all of the major search engines have similar services. The following URLs are the addresses for each of the search engines’ local mobile marketing pages. I hope you’ll use them, set up your accounts, and get started today.

• http://www.google.com/mobile/
• http://mobile.yahoo.com/
• http://mobile.msn.com
• http://mobile.aol.com/

Adding your business to Google Local is not difficult. You go to Google Maps and look down to the bottom left of the page, next to the huge map that appears on your screen. There on the bottom left of your screen you should see “Add or Edit Your Business” and a text link that reads “Learn More.” Click “Learn More.”

If you already have a listing then you’ll see it at the bottom of that page. If not, all you’ll see is a big white page that invites you to add a business. Click on “Add new listing.”

A Step By Step Guide To Google Local

1. Fill out the form on this page and be sure to fill in all the blocks that are colored yellow. After writing your 200 word description, click “Next.” Google will then bring up a list of businesses and ask you if your business is one of those listed. If your business is listed then click the little bubble next to it and click “Next.” If your business is not listed on that page then click the last bubble on the page next to “My business doesn’t appear here.” Click “Next.”
2. Choose a category for your business and move on to the next step by clicking “Next.”
3. Google will then ask you to specify operating hours. If you are a virtual business and have no operating hours then you can tell Google not to specify the hours. If you do have hard times that your business is open to the public then this is where you’ll define them. You can also select your payment options on this page. After choosing you payment options click “Next.”
4. You’ll also be asked to upload up to 10 photos. You don’t have to, of course, but I recommend it. The photos could help you get better ranked in Google (if anything, in the photo search). And that could mean more traffic for your business. After uploading your photos, click “Next.”
5. One of my favorite features of the Google Local business listing is your ability to add custom attributes to your listing. I highly recommend you give as much detail here as possible. Then move on to the next section.
6. Finally, Google will validate your Google Local listing by one of two methods, which you will choose. You can validate your listing by phone or by postcard through mail. If your business lists mobile features then you can validate it by text message. So I guess that’s three methods. Click “Finish” and if you elected to validate your listing by phone, wait for the call.