Uncover the missing formula in your web design and marketing | exceler8 the web

I’ve talked a lot about WordPress but I haven’t explained why it’s better than all the typical offerings pitched to small companies (products from Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google, YellowPages.com, CitySearch, and others). Today I’ll do that in just 200 words. To accomplish my goal I’ll just hit the highlights and leave further explanation for later posts.

• It’s the tool the Pros use and there is good reason for that
• Offers you tremendous SEO out-of-the-box – this means FREE search engine marketing
• Easy to write and publish new content with no need for technical knowledge
• It can be a web site, a blog or both
• People like me all over the world are showing you how to use it – for free
• For less than $100 a year you can get an equivalent web site and blog for what you’d pay a designer or programmer $2-$5K for
• It’s really free, (called open source) only pay for web hosting
• Infinite design and feature customization
• Access to WordPress community of contributors numbering over 10,000 to assist with design, programming, training or consulting (size of community drives competitive pricing)
• Geek stuff under the hood helping you without you needing to know Geek

QuickTime, iPhone or iPod Download.

In this three two-part series I discuss using social media to connect with local customers (run time 8 minutes).

First up, I’ll relate a personal story about a great new site called Alltop.com, and how using social media got Local Nation listed on the small business section of Alltop.

In my follow-up vlog session I’ll give you three practical uses for social media that can help you build traffic for your site and win new business from your local marketplace.

Saving loads of money on marketing expense highlights a fundamental value of social media marketing – that is, you can connect with customers online without spending a dime. The visitors I’ve already received from Alltop would easily have cost me thousands of dollars to acquire if I were to have used traditional online media like banner ads or offline media like Yellow Pages or Newspapers. Do I have your attention yet? Great!

Yes, using social media in your marketing mix will save you tons of money, but that’s not the only reason you should consider it. There’s also a very good chance that social media will connect you with new customers who aren’t using traditional advertising to find local products and services. This number is already large and grows bigger each day. Sure, some of them are younger and you may or may not care about this market (yet) but I can assure you that some social media tools connect with every age, race and demographic group. In other words, there are social media tools that you can’t afford to ignore.

I’ll end with a BIG THANK YOU to Guy Kawasaki, Kathryn Henkens, and Will Mayall who run Nononina the company that produces both Alltop and other sites like Truemors.

And now for a story about Julian (that’s me) and a guy named Guy.

Julian Seery Gude, editor Local Na8ion – Where you are is where it’s at.

Watch part II in our series on social media for small business and local marketers.

QuickTime, iPhone or iPod Download.

We will give you three simple-to-implement tips that can rocket your site to the top of Google’s local search results. In episode 8 of Local Na8ion’s video podcast (run time 12 min) we detail how we used these exact methods to move Linda’s Cleaning Service – a house cleaning service in Wellington Florida – from page four of Google Local search results to page one. This didn’t take months, it took days.

We discuss

1. Using your city name in your URL (your web site address)
2. Putting your location information on your web site
3. Adding your business to Google’s Local Business Directory

Yes, you can do all of these things in 28 minutes, even if you’re not a techie!

Subscribe via iTunes or our regular RSS subscription!

Corrections: apologies on our typo on slide 6 of the presentation (your NOT you’re – Yes we know the difference!). Would have taken 2 hours in video processing time to fix. Also, Linda has been in business since 2002 – not the two years I reported. Damn, I’m getting old.

Background: Linda’s Cleaning Service is my mother-in-law Linda’s local small business in Wellington Florida. Since Linda’s daughter Shannon (my beautiful wife and partner in crime here at Local Na8ion) and I are both web marketers it’s no surprise that we work on her site for free – and yes – Linda sends her cleaners to our house once in a while for free as well. Will market for cleaning!

Julian, editor Local Na8ion – where you are is where it’s at