Every now and again I get someone asking me if I can teach a course on how to become a local marketing consultant. I have certainly thought of the idea because I have been told my local marketing skills are quite savvy.  But when there is already a great training course available from a guy who taught ME how to be a local marketing consultant – I will gladly pass the information over.

And that is Howie Schwartz with his IM Leadership program…

Howie has been involved with internet marketing for several years now and has generated some amazing results with his social media marketing. We’re talking about owning 80% of the first page of Google for various competitive keywords. This is not an easy accomplishment to achieve.

When Howie saw the need for a local marketing consulting course last year, he jumped on it. Taking all his skills including social media, seo and copywriting – and applying them to the local market, he was ready to teach local search marketing to 50 students.

47 successful case studies later… (including me)

Out of the 50 students who signed up to the training, 47 ended up becoming full time local marketing consultants. That is a 94% success rate.

Why is IM Leadership so successful?

Well, he only takes on a few students at a time to ensure a small virtual classroom and leaving more personal one on one training time for each student.

So, if you are interested in becoming a local search marketing consultant – be sure to check out IM Leadership with Howie Schwartz.

Well, Google has done it again. They tweaked the flux capacitor and made local search results even more goe-targeted than it already is. I have found this new emerging trend by implementing postal codes into local search, thus making the results very geo-targeted.

These days, when customers search for a business or service within their local area, usually they query service + geographic area as seen in my example below.

In this example, I am searching for restaurants in Victoria BC.  The seven local search results at the top are restaurants listed with Google’s local business centre. A free submission that any business with an mailing address can own.  Now that’s awesome, but…

Let’s say though, I am staying at Bear Mountain and want to know what restaurants are located near where I am staying. So, I search for restaurants and then add a Bear Mountain postal code.  Here are the results.

See how all those local results have changed? Google is showing me all the local search results that are within the postal code area.

As a customer, this is great because I can find the service I am looking for that is very close to where I am. As a business owner, this is a huge opportunity to attract local customers by implementing your postal code within your own website.

How can you take action with these postal code local search results?

Well, if you haven’t already, get your business listed within the Google local business centre.  You are required to have a Google account to be listed.

The other action I suggest you take is have your postal code listed on your own website.  The contact page would be the most suitable place. What will happen is Google will index it and when someone searches for your business category and that postal code, your business will be shown not only within the local results – it will be shown below in the natural search results.  Now you then own more than one spot on that first page.

For you visual folks, I have made a quick video explaining all this in plain language. Enjoy!

For those of you who have been following this blog and have attended any of my live speaking events, you know that I dabble in the realm of affiliate marketing. It’s a world that I very rarely talk about, but since it now consumes most of my business endeavors (because it puts big bread on the table), you can say I’m coming out of the affiliate closet.

That being said, I have been quietly working away on a new website that allows visitors to rate, review and submit affiliate resources such as affiliate training programs, seo tools, article spinners and much more.

Well, after a couple months of late night coding and tweaking the flux capacitor, IMrush, Inc. is proud to announce that our awesome affiliate resource website AffiliateResources.org is now live and ready for submissions.

AffiliateResources.org is primarily for affiliate marketers of all skills levels but can also be applied to traditional online business or websites.  The current affiliate resources listed on the site are a small handful of tools that I use personally to build and run my various affiliate marketing campaigns.

The reason why I started this website is the result of not finding reliable resources for my affiliate marketing business and education. I would literally spend more time researching decent affiliate resources than I would building my campaigns. I quickly learned that I was in the same frustrated situation as many other affiliate marketers, thus why I felt the need for a one-stop place for tools and resources.

If you are not familiar with affiliate marketing (as it’s something I’ve never really talked about), let me give you a quick explanation.

Affiliate marketing is essentially an online based system where you (as the affiliate) get paid for referring sales or customers to another business.  This is not to be confused with Multi-level marketing (MLM) where there is a tiered system.  In traditional business, affiliate marketing can be defined as a paid endorsement.

Here’s a simple example: One of the tools I use for keyword research and SEO is called Market Samurai. Now if you click on that market samurai link and end up purchasing the software, I will receive a commission of $50. So, every time someone purchase that software from through any of my links I have on the web, I make money. I’m sure if you do the math, you can see how lucrative this business is.

So, back on track… If you are involved in affiliate marketing or have a keen interest in getting started, check out the shiny new affiliate resource website – AffiliateResources.org