According to the Kelsey Group, 97% of consumers research products and services online. Here’s the break down (as presented by Matt McGee):

• 90% use search engines
• 48% use Internet Yellow Pages
• 42% use comparison shopping sites
• 24% use vertical sites

And I love the conclusion Matt draws later:

That speaks to the importance of being visible on a number of channels — your own site, your blog, Google Maps, Citysearch, important industry sites, and so forth. Diversity of presence makes a big difference.

This is not only important now, but it will become more important in the future. Don’t let organic SEO be your only targeted marketing. Pursue other avenues as well. If searchers find you through a Google search then find you again in the online yellow pages then on two or three social networks and finally are recommended by a friend, chances are they’ll do business with you if you have what they need – and if you are local.

I’m excited about an Internet marketing workshop that is coming to town and have an exclusive discount just for Small Business Mavericks readers. The workshop is called Local University and will be presented by GetListed.org.

The workshop is for local Twin Cities business owners and will be held at Westin Edina Galleria on May 13, 2010. You’ll have your choice between a morning (8 a.m. to noon) and an afternoon (1 p.m. to 5 p.m.) session. The sessions are identical.

There is room only for 200 participants so you’ll want to get your seat early. But the agenda is awesome!

Minnesota business owner and SEO expert will discuss the basics on search engines and representatives from both Bing and Google will be on hand to give their own presentations. Also, Internet marketing veterans Matt McGee and Mike Blumenthal will have their own insights to share.

The cost for the workshop is only $129, which is a huge value in itself, but if you are a reader of Small Business Mavericks then you can get a $40 discount. Your coupon code is smbmavericks. Enter the coupon code, choose a session (morning or afternoon) and learn all you can about Internet marketing from Local University. To sign up for Local University, click here.

Another global service has gone local. This time it’s Twitter Trends.

Earlier this week Twitter announced that Twitter Trends has gone local and it’s been rolled out to everyone. Everyone, that is, within one of several major metropolitan areas. If you’re not in one of those areas then you see a message promising that they’re working on it.

This is good new. Facebook has had the ability for local people to network with each other for quite a while now. Twitter has had the ability as well, but by and large it is seen as a global mass communication tool. It most certainly has local applications and local small businesses in need of such a tool can now gain easier access to local information to help them in their communications. Count this as a thumbs up.

One way to make money online is through affiliate marketing. There are some Internet marketers who specialize in affiliate marketing and make good money doing it. This is when you take someone else’s product and market it to the max, earning a commission every time you make a sale. But is this a good way to make money for small business owners?

I wouldn’t suggest that you add affiliate links and banners all over your website, but you can earn some additional income by promoting one or two affiliate programs related to your niche. The key is to choose noncompeting products and services, complimentary even.

Let’s say that you are a farrier  and you run a local horseshoeing business. You know that not everyone who comes to your website is interested in your horseshoeing service. Some people might actually be interested in buying horseshoes or in learning how to become a farrier.

You could do some research to find related products and services that you feel comfortable promoting. Let’s say you find a book about becoming a farrier. You might join the affiliate program for that book seller (if they have one) and sell the book on your website along with custom horse shoes crafted by a blacksmith in another state. If you lead a customer from your website to buy the book or order the horseshoes from the blacksmith then you earn a commission. Otherwise, perhaps your site visitors will do business with you.

By choosing affiliate products related but not competing with your service, you give your site visitors another reason to trust you and maybe they’ll do business with you down the line. At any rate, you help them today and earn a little bit of extra income doing so.

Good content is the one mantra you hear over and over again. Actually, it’s “great” content, or “compelling” content. But what does that mean exactly?

As a local business, does good content put you in direct competition with the big national companies in your industry? It can, but not necessarily. Keep in mind who your local audience is.

The No. 1 rule for writing good content is to make it relevant to your audience. You can write great articles and web content that reaches a national audience, but if your business is strictly local then that won’t matter. What if your local audience uses a different language? You should consider local or regional catch phrases rather than try to finesse a larger audience for the sake of prestige.

Another thing good local content does is drive traffic to your website and your brick and mortar business. If you are getting more business or more traffic through your doors then your content is probably working.

But the one thing that is really important in determining the quality of your content is tracking. You should be tracking what your content is doing. Is your content really responsible for the surge of people walking through your storefront doors? If not, what is? How can you make your content better so that it does contribute to your increased brick and mortar traffic?

There’s not secret or magic formula for writing good content. It stems from knowing your audience.

Yelp is purchased by Google?

There is a rumor going around – have you heard it? – that Google could purchase Yelp for $500 million. What if that happens? What will become of local search?

First, I’m not convinced that Google will improve local search. I think that Yelp could become an important vertical for Google in the same way that YouTube has. Remember, people were using YouTube well before Google purchased it. It was the No. 1 video sharing site before the acquisition. It still is. And that is largely due to the fact that Google hasn’t made a lot of sweeping changes.

However, there have been changes. That is the Google way. But those changes weren’t sweeping changes that took YouTube away from its original business model.

The benefit to Google in acquiring YouTube is in expanding its audience for its other verticals and apps to a new audience. So it will be in a purchase of Yelp. Google will have access to a small business audience with local businesses and that means a whole new revenue stream for Google. But what will happen to local search?

I think it will change, but there won’t be sweeping changes. Right now, Yelp dominates the local search market. It’s likely that some of that market will walk out the door with a Google purchase. But with Google influence in other areas, they will likely pick up new Yelp customers. And local search will become more popular and more important with Google technology behind it.

What’s your take? Will Google improve local search if it purchases Yelp?

There has been a lot of focus over the last year on major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and to a lesser extent, Myspace. This has probably drawn a lot of small business operators away from their local internet marketing activities, particularly on local social media sites. They do exist although sometimes they take a little digging to find.

Are they worth the effort? If your focus is on a regional market rather than international one then answer is most definitely yes. If your focus is more national or international then perhaps not.

One of the benefits of concentrating on a local social scene is that almost everyone there is a potential customer. If your using Twitter or Facebook, your audience is huge and international. You can focus on local people on these sites but it can take a fair bit of effort. A local site takes no effort in comparison.

All the usual social media marketing rules apply of course. If you’re targeting a local primary customer base then don’t sacrifice your local internet marketing strategies chasing ghosts on the major social media sites.

Here’s an interesting situation. Your ex-wife becomes your business competitor and threatens to write fake reviews of your business – of course, those reviews will be negative. What do you do?

Well, you could seek a legal injunction preventing her from doing so but how would you ever prove that she was the one posting negative reviews?

This business owner is in a fix. First, the competition has inside knowledge of your workings as a business, which puts you at a distinct disadvantage. So what should you do?

I think in this situation you ask Google if you can change your LBC listing, perhaps even change the name of your business on paper. Still, a name change will always be public in some way so your ex-wife/business competitor is going to have that information. What would you do?

If you’re involved with local internet marketing then I am sure you have claimed your business through Google Local. Part of local search is the provision of maps and Google Street View. Google have upped the ante when it comes to local search by opening their doors and inviting individuals to join the Street View Partner Program. Through this program you can nominate places of interest to Street View. This can include your business although there is no guarantee of acceptance. What are the benefits? According to Google:

• Build your global audience and encourage visitors via the #1 mapping site in the world.
• Add Street View of your location to your website using our API.
• Show off your property to users who might otherwise not be able to visit you.
• Best of all, it’s free!

Of course, if your bricks and mortar business is located in a building with historical significance, or stands out in some way, this will enhance the possibility of having it included. This is just one option – and an option well worth following.

Other option for local internet marketing include incorporating Google Maps within your site. This can be a clever option if you have included a mobile version of your site. Anyone finding your site through mobile search will not only find information about the topic they searched, but also a map to your front door. Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Street View are three options that should be included in any local internet marketing strategy.

Andrew Shotland put together a local IYP list – a list of online yellow pages sites and their organic rankings in Google. In other words, he ranked them according to the number of high rankings the sites achieved at Google. What does the list mean for you, the small business owner? These are the sites you should be listing your business with if you want to reach targeted traffic. Here’s the top 10:

1. Superpages
2. Citysearch
3. Yelp
4. Yahoo Local
5. InsiderPages
6. YellowPages.com
7. BizJournals
8. AreaConnect
9. MagicYellow
10. Switchboard

I think if you are a local business and you want local traffic then you should definitely focus on the top 6 on this list. According to Andrew, those 6 account for 75% of the top organic searches at Google for local search terms.

Basically, if you are a small business and you want to get found by the customer that is a perfect match for you, there are three things that you should do:

1. Focus on organic search for your website
2. Run PPC ad campaigns
3. Get listed in the popular local Internet yellow pages websites

And you now have the list of the most popular IYP sites so there’s no excuse.