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.

What I were to tell you that most visitors who land on your website only read about 30 percent of your content and the majority of that content is at the very top AND on the left side.

It’s true, your visitors are only picking up a fraction of your message. Our eyes are ‘trained’ or ‘conditioned’ to pick up the content that is on the left side.

Want to know what your visitors are reading on your website? Print out one of your site pages, and draw a big ‘F’ on the page with a highlighter. The content or images within this ‘F’ is what your site visitors are seeing and absorbing.

Don’t believe me? Have a look at the below eye tracking study from a Google Search engine result page (SERP). See the ‘F’?

So now that you understand that why your website deserves an ‘F’, make sure that the most important message is within this area of prime visual real estate.

Your competition is beating you when it comes to your search engine rankings.

I know it’s a tough pill to swallow, but if you are not taking action and focusing on internet marketing for your business – then it leaves great opportunity for your direct competitor to dominate Google.

Now, it doesn’t have to be that way if you apply a couple simple search engine strategies that will boost your rankings.

1. Add your business to Google Local

This is often an overlooked strategy. Have you ever search for something and noticed that there are a bunch of business listings at the top of the result page? This is the result of Google Local and businesses taking advantage of it.

There is no charge to submit to Google local and it only takes a couple minutes to submit. Simply head to the Google Local website and login to your Google Account (if you don’t have a Google account, get one now) and the rest is straighforward.

2. Use internal linking with keyword anchor tags

When you write a webpage, make sure you add some sort of link to another of your webpages within your website as Google sees this as a good thing and thus ranks your page with the keyword anchor tag you use.

A keyword anchor tag is the keyword you use to link to the other webpage. A simple example would be:
"At XYZ Super Widgets, we offer a variety of Round XYZ Green Widgets…"

The term "Round XYZ Green Widgets" would link to your products page from your home page. Google will then (eventually) rank your site for the term "Round XYZ Green Widgets".

Funny side note: If you look up the term "Round XYZ Green Widgets" right now on Google, this post will most likely be ranked on the first page. That’s how we roll here at IMrush.

3. Sitemaps and Privacy Policy Pages

A sitemap is a page that is like a directory which has all the available pages that are listed in your website. Google sees this as an important factor to all websites as it is a simple way for your clients to navigate to what they are looking for.

Privacy policy page is a webpage that simply says that you will not spam your customers if you have an email opt-in (newsletter etc.), why you collect infomation about each persons computer details (for tracking reasons). If you Google privacy policy templates, you are sure to find several examples to model from.

So, there you have it. Follow these 3 simple strategies and watch your search engine rankings dramatically boost.

What other techniques have you used in the past that boosted your rankings?