Don't invest in LocalAdLink until you've read this page or you could be throwing away THOUSANDS of dollars.
LocalAdLink is NOT for everyone, nor should you buy it from just anyone.
LocalAdLink offers one of the strongest online directory listings available and represents an easy way for businesses to get online with a clean look that includes photos and videos (important for a web presence these days). This is especially important for those that don't already have a website. It saves on the cost of building a website and keeps control of content in the hands of a business owner.
But you don't want to market with LocalAdLink until you've read this page for three important reasons:
You don't want to get misled by overzealous LocalAdLinks sales reps who don't understand internet marketing or how LocalAdLink really works. There's a lot of misinformation out there that I've been trying to respond to on this site.
You want to make sure LocalAdLink is right for your business. I can offer cheaper, more effective methods for many businesses. Or I'll tell you if LocalAdLink seems to be a good fit for what you need.
Invest in LocalAdLink through someone else and you get ... LocalAdLink. Invest in it through me and you could get more than $1000 in additional internet marketing services at no extra cost. I do this because I see the strengths and weaknesses in LocalAdLink. If it's a good fit for you, I want you to use it; but I also want to make sure you get everything you need to succeed online, so I'll complement LocalAdLink with my own internet marketing experience.
Please take your time to really go through this page, because this is about money you save or invest, and it's about new business I can help to bring you. On this page, I explain the strengths and weaknesses of LocalAdLink and show you the services I offer in conjunction with it. So let's start out by helping you to understand the basics of what LocalAdLink offers your business.
LocalAdLink OVERVIEW VIDEO
Now let's take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of LocalAdLink and see if it's right for your business.
ONLINE PRESENCE
As I said, LocalAdLink offers a clean look with many features that can represent an entire online presence for a business if it chooses to take that road. This can save a business a great deal of money in building a website and helps the business to keep control of their online content.
However, many businesses don't understand how easy it can be to get online. I not only give you an inexpensive option (starting at $12.95/month) with TurnSites, but I offer a Total Web Solution package that gets your site built, written, hosted, and search engine optimized (helping to get it found in search engines) for one low price. And because this is built on the TurnSites platform, it allows you to change content, add pages, and even add pictures and video whenever you like.
Bottom line, LocalAdLink offers an easy way online without the conventional cost and inconvenience of getting online. But there are other options as well.
PROMOTION OF YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE
Of course it's never enough to simply have an online presence. You have to make sure people are finding it as well. And this is a big part of what LocalAdLink offers. (When you have a website, this is an additional cost, though something I can help with. With LocalAdLink, marketing your listing is part of the package.)
LocalAdLink has already gotten you online with a professional listing. Now it works to push that listing out onto the internet and get you found as often as possible. PART of how they do this is by purchasing Google Adwords ads. This means that they use Google's extensive ad presence -- which includes Gmail, Google search results, and Google ads featured on tens of thousands of other sites and search engine results -- to show an ad that pulls people in toward your LocalAdLink listing.
Depending on the ad package you've bought, this Google ad will show up in anywhere from 3 to 50 zip codes (assuming a Standard package or higher); and it will show up for 2 to 3 search terms that YOU select. For instance, if I'm a press release writer, I could choose the terms "press releases," "press release writing," and "press release writer" if I wanted to, and an ad for my listing would show (probably on a rotational basis) for those exact terms in the zip codes I selected. Take a look at this example:
However, this zip code coverage is a little misleading and this is where you need to be VERY CAREFUL about the sales rep you work with. When you select a zip code, your ad will actually show up in a 10-mile radius around that zip code; so choosing zip codes that are next to each other is actually a waste of coverage. (They actually fail to make this point in the video shown above.) You need to make sure you optimize coverage by choosing zip codes that take this 10-mile radius into account.
Now a lot of skeptics have put LocalAdLink down because they seem to think its whole purpose is to be a Google Adwords provider. I've already said that LocalAdLink provides one of the strongest directory listings, so right there you have more value than the Google ad traffic they send you. But in addition to Google ads, they push ads out through their own, proprietary network of websites and a growing number of online stores. This will get to be a bigger value with time, but is already an added value for getting your listing found. Here's an example:
In addition to this, your listing can of course be found through LocalAdLink.com directly, when people visit and use the directory. This doesn't yet add a lot of value, because people don't habitually think of making that kind of search yet due to the lack of branding. But LocalAdLink will soon be adertising on TV and raising brand awareness. If they do this well, then your listing will have that much more exposure. Here's an example of a listing in their directory:
"ORGANIC" SEARCH RESULTS
Of course paying for internet exposure should really be only one avenue of exposure -- if it's even used long-term at all. Sometimes that should only be used for testing; sometimes it makes sense to use it as constant ad exposure, depending on the ROI.
In any case, it's important that you position your website or online presence (if LocalAdLink only, for example) for "organic" search results. This means that people are finding you in the natural or un-paid search results when looking for anything related to your business. If you visit my internet marketing page, you'll see that this is the kind of thing I'm able to do for businesses.
Part of the value LocalAdLink intends to bring its advertisers is good organic search results. They intend to do this by making LocalAdLink such a powerhouse on the internet that all of its pages are ranked well by the search engines. You may have noticed that articles from Wikipedia often show up in top result positions in Google for this very reason. That's what LocalAdLink is trying to do as well.
Here's the reality though:
It will take time for LocalAdLink to establish itself with that kind of authority. In fact, I don't even see YellowPages.com listings typically showing up under competitive search results. Right now, LocalAdLink only has a 4 Page Rank in Google, which is good for a business this young; but it has a ways to go to be the authority that Wikipedia is.
I've been running a premium ad for a couple of months and still don't believe it's even been indexed by Google, which makes me wonder how LocalAdLink is mapped out. If it IS indexed, I cannot find it even when using search terms that are ridiculously aimed at finding that listing.
Let's say, however, that LocalAdLink does achieve this kind of credibility in time. If they can get their individual listings indexed properly, this will help quite a lot -- but there's more they can and should do. (And I won't be surprised if they do it; they've been advancing this platform pretty quickly.)
First, I think they WILL get the listings indexed properly, because they will start submitting EVERY LISTING on a monthly basis to 180+ search engines and directories. This is a very big, positive step.
But the other step they need to take is giving businesses the opportunity to produce more content on their actual listing, and to do more with it. And ALL of this content needs a way of being indexed, even if it's simply on different tabs within the listing.
My main thought is that they need to add a blogging feature. This way, a business owner can easily add relevant content as often as s/he likes. Second, it will be useful if you can add keyword links on the basic listing and/or within the blogs. In this way, the business owner can create valuable incoming links to his/her actual business site (if one exists) or from the blog to the base listing, etc.
In short, more content and the ability to add links, along with better indexing of the listings and more authority from LocalAdLink in the eyes of the search engines. All of this will add up to VERY STRONG natural search engine results.
But because these are NOT all in place yet, I think it's highly important that you work with an internet marketing professional if you decide to invest in LocalAdLink -- because you'll want to put other things in place alongside LocalAdLink to really get a good bang for your buck. I describe in detail what I offer AT NO ADDITIONAL COST when you invest in LocalAdLink through me.
OVERALL VALUE
As you can see, LocalAdLink offers a multi-faceted internet marketing solution. It gives you a great listing as well as several avenues of exposure for getting that listing found. While a business can develop a website and host pictures and videos on it, many do not. Those that do often fail to market the site. So while LocalAdLink isn't the only good option, it's an easy, all-in-one option.
Because it offers so many things in one package, it's hard to know exactly what the bottom line value is; but here's a real advantage of LocalAdLink: it offers real-time statistics so you'll know how many people are looking at and downloading coupons and videos, how many are finding your listing at all, etc. So you can get a very real sense of your overall ROI as well as what does and doesn't work. This is NOT something you'll find with most directories, making this a SMARTER investment in this regard. (Marketing should always involve ROI statistics when possible.)
Having said that, I still think the natural search results of LocalAdLink listings leave much to be desired at this time. I do think this will improve. But if you invest in LocalAdLink right now, I think it's important that you get that weakness covered, and that's why I offer my special LocalAdLink Partnership as described below. I hope you'll consider this before investing elsewhere in LocalAdLink.
LocalAdLink Partnership
Go month-to-month with LocalAdLink and I'll help you set up your listing, including copywriting, search engine optimization to the degree available, and use of zip code coverage. I'll also help you to update coupons as often as once a month on request.
Buy a 3-month package and I'll also review what's currently on your website and suggest how it could be improved, such as search engine optimization, quality of writing, quality of organization, etc. (If you don't have a website, I'll offer a $100 discount on my Total Web Solution.)
Buy a 6-month package and I'll also review what you COULD be doing on your website to bring more prospects into your marketing funnel.
Buy a 12-month package and I'll also go into detail on what you could be doing across the internet to create a vast presence that gets you found on a regular basis and pushes many more prospects to your website. This will include several other directories for little or no cost. LocalAdLink will already be helping you to get into some of them, but we'll assess what more can be done.
If this appeals to you and you'd like to get started with this partnership: Sign Up for LocalAdLink
To put this partnership in perspective, if you were to hire a writer / consultant with my background and proof of success, you would probably pay $300 or more for the services provided just in the "month-to-month" package mentioned above. What you get from me in the 12-month package would normally cost you at least a $1000 and maybe thousands of dollars to hire, and you wouldn't get the benefit of being in LocalAdLink.
As you can see, I invest more in you when you invest more in yourself, because succeeding in online marketing means making a commitment to the cause. Expecting LocalAdLink or any other marketing option to change your business in a month -- especially on its own -- is unrealistic. Search engines take time to find a web page, and they tend to promote it more over time, as longevity establishes credibility.
My time is precious to me, but I LOVE helping small business owners. So I'm looking for those who really want to succeed and will invest what's necessary. Then I will give everything I can to help a business succeed.
Sincerely,
Steve McCardell 248-210-4510
Some of My Page 1 LocalAdLink Results on Google
Remember, what you're looking for is someone who will GET YOUR BUSINESS FOUND. These are just a few examples proving that I can get the job done for you.
