I’ll start by asking a few questions, and then I’ll share a few thoughts with you.

If you knew then what you know now about your business, then would what you know change the outcome of how you operate your business?

If you could reduce, if not eliminate, marketing spend, would you do this for more customer growth and revenue?

Answering without a shadow of doubt, could the lessons learned propel your business towards generating greater customer growth and revenue?

Often times, life’s greatest lessons are seen with great clarity when looking back. We must learn to respect the past as the key to unlocking the doors to our present and, more importantly, our future.

Much can be found in the past. Sometimes we find subtleties of truth, yet other times the glaring truth of mistakes stare a hole through us.

To say the least, the concept of setting aside one’s personal agenda for a greater cause can be challenging, especially in terms of a business that took the blood, sweat, and tears of leaders and visionaries to launch and claw their way to making the impossible possible.

And the truth be told for certain businesses today, countless numbers are missing potential customers at this very moment.

Why? The short answer is due to the uninformed decision making of a well-meaning business owner.

If you were told the one thing separating your business from generating greater customer growth and revenue for your business was your digital presence, then what would you do?

Just some quick thoughts I wanted to share with you today.  I’m nearing the end of my vacation, so you can look forward to having a regular daily domain auctions list starting tomorrow (if I didn’t already post one today).

But quickly, I wanted to give and share some insight with you about a recent experience I had just before going on vacation.

I was researching the various domain auctions to prepare for the coming days list when I noticed a domain that looked quite familiar.

As I usually do when a domain catches my eye, I added the 7 character .com domain to my watch list, and continued my search and review for more expiring domains.

For whatever reason, this one domain kept coming to the forefront of my thoughts.  I wasn’t sure why I kept thinking about it or what connection I had to it, if any, until I strolled into the laundry room.

Okay, this content is quite long… So, grab a cup of coffee and get ready for your mind to be blown with simple concepts to grow your business while reducing its marketing spend. 😉  

Are you ready?  Let’s get started…

I know the entire story about rising advertising costs as I’m sure your wallet has felt the impact too! No matter if you’re a local, regional, national or global business, search marketing is quite competitive and expensive.

Why is search marketing so expensive?

Let’s think about this and walk through the spend. The masses are blindly paying for pay-per-click advertising with YellowPages, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Yelp, Yodle, and other 3rd-party advertisers.

Then there are companies, and this may include your company too, paying substantial fees on a monthly basis for search engine optimization.

That’s just online marketing spend. We’ve not mentioned offline advertising such as billboards, radio ads, door hangers, classifieds, newspapers, magazines and television ads.

There are so many businesses competing to be at the most visible spot of the hottest and most visited media known in the world. The sheer number of companies competing is growing daily due to new businesses launching throughout the world.

And time is of the essence as no business can afford to wait for months and years to grow their business.

To answer the original question of why search marketing is so expensive, I have businesses look at one thing: their domain name.

I’m on vacation this week and a bit of next week.  In lieu of daily domain auction lists not being provided, I’m sharing some thoughts and a recent experience I encountered with domain names and business in general.

As I prepped for next month’s domain renewals, I encountered a few Austin area cleaning domains. Truth be told, I forgot that I owned the domains.

These names are considered geo-keyword domains, including the city and a keyword phrase.  For the said domains, the keyword phrases are “cleaning,” “cleaning company,” “house cleaning.”

We’re kicking of this year with a bang, releasing a MUST-READ ebook topic: Local SEO Marketing.

Yes, there’s an abyss of local SEO marketing content covering a vast number of options for small businesses to locally market services and products.

The list is long, including marketing and advertising options such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Yodle, CitySearch, MerchantCircle, Door-to-Door hangers, and many more…

But I’m not covering those topics in this book. I’m sharing and showing you another less traveled road that only a few are dare to travel.

That’s right, I’ve worked quite hard over the last year researching and experimenting with a variety of techniques and strategies to command local market share for a range of businesses.

And I wrote an ebook to share with you and the world about what I learned in my quest to understand local SEO marketing for myself and others.

In short, getting more revenue and customers in a local market can be quite the challenge for the every day small business and it’s owner (that’s you and me too!).

After all, I’ve been there with my own businesses, and executing local SEO marketing is not an easy nut to crack.  Why, you ask?

Only a few days remain in this year, closing in fast to being only hours.

There is a lot to do before year-end as we prepare for a new year.

And as I do every year, I take a moment to perform 11 MUST-DO SEO actions on my website.  Some of the 11 SEO actions I perform consistently throughout the year.

However, even if I lose track of time during the year, I make sure that the SEO actions we’ll soon discuss are completed at the end of each year without fail.

There’s always chatter about the coming year and what SEO this or that will impact a website and its overall search rankings.

I’m not discounting those articles and predictions.  In fact, I have my own 2016 SEO predictions to be published soon enough.

Stick around, and you’ll see.  But I digress.

There are more than 11 SEO actions to perform on any given website at any point in time.  Some of the actions I’ll soon discuss are reactive, while most are going to be preventative.

The preventative steps will aim to help you successfully and safely manage your website’s growing content while keeping it search-friendly and safe.

I’m sharing with you actions that I find and see substantial benefits to performing at the end of each year for my website.

I hope you receive the same benefits, if not more, that I have from performing the following 11 SEO actions.

Is this your business?

• You’ve had your website and blog optimized for SEO. Check.
• You post content for customers first and search engines last. Check.
• You plan and measure the effectiveness of your SEO effort using web analytics. Check.
• You’ve tried pay-per-click advertising. Check.
• You’ve tried guest blogging. Check.
• You have and are actively using social media profiles. Check.
• You’ve had press releases written and submitted. Check.
• You have local business page listings across a variety of online and offline entities. Check.
• You’ve tried give-aways, contests, whitepapers and various digital materials to educate and inform customers. Check.

So, I know you’re thinking “what is there left to do?”, right?

If your business has consistently accomplished all of the above on an ongoing basis where applicable, then congratulations as you’re ahead of most small businesses and businesses in general. But not so quick!

Have you tried small business SEO tips using domain names?

Yes, domain names can be used as a very value-add SEO weapon for small businesses to drive more local business, capturing more customers and making more money.

Today, I’ve provided you with a round up of my best domain name articles that discuss how small businesses and businesses in general can execute small business SEO using domain names.

So happy reading, and let’s get you on your way to capturing more customers and making more money!