It’s been known for quite a bit of time the importance of a domain name and its ability to provide businesses with search ranking advantages.

If business owners would have known the outcome of the Internet and the .com craze of the mid 90’s some twenty years ago, then I’m almost certain that most would give thousands of dollars to go back in time to have purchase their premium .com of choice when they were free or cost a few hundred dollars.

There were millions and millions of domains floating around with little to no financial investment.

You simply had to be a risk taker, gambler, or saw just a glimpse of what the Internet could and would become.

It’s always difficult to predict and know the future from where we stand today.

However, it is much easier to take a 20/20 glance back down memory lane and see all the signs pointing to your current position.

Fast forward from decades ago, and it looks like history might be repeating itself again with the second coming of new gTLDs or new domain extensions.

By time its all said and done, there will be nearly 1,900 new domain extensions in the open market.

For a small business, the local market for their line of business can be quite a competitive and saturated market.

From traditional advertising avenues to search marketing and other online advertising venues, small businesses are trying to get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to driving new business.

For some, it’s a matter of keeping the doors open.

But like any small business that relies on the web for new customers or their website to act as a 24 by 7 by 365 online salesperson, there is always the question of what is the most effective path to take in optimizing one’s website for local SEO.

One crowd believes in using a single domain to rank local SEO, while others believe in multiple domains to boost local SEO rankings.

So which party is right or wrong? Or are both parties right and wrong?

Today, I’ll take a moment to outline a few local SEO scenarios for small businesses and also discuss the pros and cons of local SEO using single domains and multiple domains.

I get a kick out of potential and existing customers who are very skeptical of my SEO process here at Kickstart Commerce.

Some are surprised to know that I hire writers to create content as a part of my content marketing strategy.

And even more shocking, potential customers are shocked to hear that I’ll hire writers as a part of their SEO strategy to rank their website.

I’m very transparent in sharing how I will go about positioning and optimizing websites for the greatest chance and opportunity for increase search rankings.

I take pride in sharing simple on-page optimization techniques and practical SEO tactics that even the most technically challenged person could implement with little guidance.

In addition, I allow potential and existing customers into my most intimate thoughts about keyword selections as well as freely provide additional insight into keywords they may have overlooked or forgotten.

And to really surprise potential customers, I walk each through my process for how I optimize my very own personal and business websites, including showing real-life keywords that are ranking and generating revenue.

One of the things about search engine optimization (SEO) that never ceases to amaze me is the sheer ability of a business to underestimate the long-term consequences of their zig-zag, one-time SEO decisions.

What I mean by zig-zag decisions is a business’ ability to zig to implement the hottest or latest fad in SEO only to zag when the next best SEO tactic arrives for all to partake.

One of the problems with this type of SEO strategy is that it leaves you open and vulnerable to the long-term impact of negative SEO should the tactic become too popular and deemed black-hat SEO by search engine algorithms.

I never fail to receive an email or phone call from a potential customer asking me how much search engine optimization (SEO) services are or what the going rate is for SEO service offerings.

Most of the time, I answer their question about whether they aim to save money on SEO or drive tangible and profitable results using SEO.

Sometimes potentials then explain that they are on a very tight budget and looking to get the biggest bang for their buck without breaking the bank and their existing search rankings if any exist.

However, most conversations I classify as tire kickers because potential customers are truly not after sound SEO services as much as they are trying to make the price of SEO fit their understanding and budget of what a small business should pay for SEO services.

If you own or operate a local business and are in need of increasing local SEO and search rankings for your business, then you’ll definitely want to continue reading why paying per lead using local SEO is the most sound investment your small business can make.

It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to raise my head and breathe.

Things around here at Kickstart Commerce are kicking into high gear with local SEO, converting more pay-for-performance SEO customers.

And why are customers choosing pay-for-performance SEO to boost their local SEO efforts?

Like most domainers, I’ve been watching and reading about the new gTLDs, also known as general top-level domain names or new domain extensions, for over a year now, following TheDomains.com, Rick Schwartz, Morgan Linton, and other domainers.

I’ve also followed GoDaddy’s new extensions promotion as well as 1And1.com’s new gTLD promotional commercial.

1And1.com created a great commercial that was well positioned, but what a waste of time and money in my opinion.

To think that 1And1.com wasted nearly 50 million dollars in one-time new gTLD advertising just baffles me to no end.

And for the record, I’ve not seen that same 1And1.com commercial advertising for new gTLDS since my post.

But I digress.

Personally, I’ve taken the stance that domain names, especially premium and super-premium keyword domain names, using new gTLDs are not going to be as successful as .com domain names.