Here’s a followup on the new site Xsitepro/xsitepro-templates-xsitepro/new-xsitepro-local-business-directory-template/" target="_blank">The Best of Mchenry I set up on July 18th, 2009.

I’m working on an Xsitepro Business Directory Template and set up an example on a new domain at www.BestofMchenry.com, unfortunatly I had one of my attacks and ended up in the hospital on the 19th, 20th and 21st so today July 22, 2009 is the first time I had a chance to check out the whether or not the site was indexed.

As you can see from the screen shot Google indexed 10 of the new sites pages in 3 days. I wish I could have checked on the second day because I’ve been able to get new sites indexed in google within 24 hours and I suspect this has been indexed under 24 hours according to my web logs. That’s pretty exciting!

I constantly read about people not getting any traffic or not being able to index their sites….Xsitepro owners included. Xsitepro has some pretty awesome tools that allow you to get your sites in the search engines quickly and I’ll give you a quick run down of what I did.

First I created the site from the Xsitepro Business Directory Template and added a couple of business listings by creating some pages. Then I created an XML file for the site from within Xsitepro, this is bestofmchenry rss feed. Next I created a Google Sitemap from within Xsitepro.

I submitted the google sitemap to Google and I submitted the RSS feed to some rss directories.

The only other thing I did was to link back to www.BestofMchenry.com from this site and from new blogger blog. That’s all I did and at least 10 pages have been indexed….pretty cool huh!

Now, the next thing to do is to start submitting some articles and press releases for keywords I want my clients pages to rank for. I’ll try to document my progress, I’m limited because of health reasons but hopefully I’ll get a few more clients and get this local business directory ramped up!

Here’s the screen shot of the pages indexed by Google.

Tags: offline market, offline marketer, offline marketing, offline consulting, offline portal template, sitepro business portal, offline directory template, offline template, xsitepro business directory

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New Xsitepro Local Business Template looks very promising. Simple design allows any ambitious internet marketer enter the offline marketing niche. Although not available yet, the Xsitepro Local Business Directory Template will soon be launched. Get on the notification list by signing up at the bottom of this post.

Offline marketing can be very profitable and there are many different types of business models to follow. Basically offline marketing is the concept of helping a brick and mortar type business by using your internet marketing skills to give the business an online presence.

From that definition you can see how it would be possible to come up with a variety of different marketing schemes. It could be as simple as creating a Blogger Blog with an opt-in form for building a list or even a Squidoo page with an otp-in form for list building. You could make it as complex as desired offering many different options for driving foot traffic to the offline or brick and mortar business.

I’ve been working on a Xsitepro Offline Directory Template that is a little more complex than the standard Xsitepro Template and is designed for the offline marketer. The template can be used for a simple offline directory or offline portal to a very complex directory or portal. The below image is a sample Local Offline Directory in Mchenry, Illinois.

This template is designed to be used by the offline marketer to go from city to city or town to town with the intent of advertising and marketing local business operations….driving traffic to their websites, advertising their business through appropriate keywords and marketing their businesses by offering list building through optin forms.

The Xsitepro Offline Directory Template is designed to provide a multitude of monetization models. Across the top are 3 ads with images. These appear on each page and can be sold for $100 plus per month. The ads can be stationary or rotating.

Below the 3 ads across the top is a Xsitepro’s dynamic menu. I’m working out a few kinks but it should serve perfectly as an easy method of navigation.

The main panel is configured with a premium advertising space. The premium ad could start at $200 plus a month, of course it depends on the traffic you’re getting. The space would feature an image along with an advertising message which would contain a link back to the advertiser’s site.

I haven’t really developed the left navigation colum yet. I’m not sure I like the scrap paper look….but we’ll have to see how it works out. The Nav Column could feature more ads or banner space to advertise along with providing some standard nav links. A rotating banner space could work out well….something like special of the day or week. Again, this feature would be sold as an add on.

I think one of the most interesting features is the premium advertising page here’s an example for Forever Floors in Mchenry. Many small businesses don’t have a web presence, they do not have any type of web page and the thought of getting online scares the crap out of them. The Premium Advertising Page is basically a single one page website they can have. It includes their basic information along with an advertising message and a few images. Most importantly this page can be used to get them on Google Local. I have a few things to do on this page yet, but take a look and see how you might use this page.

There’s more but this will give you an idea of what Xsitepro Offline Marketing Template will offer. All pages will come with basic templates that you simply copy and paste. Of course Xsitepro’s full compliment of features will be able to be used on the entire site. This will give you, the offline marketer, tremendous flexibility and power.

I have to say the income potential with this type of template is unlimited. You are limited only to your imagination and ambition. You won’t get rich over night sending out a few emails….but if you approach this as a real business, get on the phone, knock on doors and figure out how to set up a local business directory in your own neighborhood, town or city…..you can then take this worldwide.

Keep an eye on Best of Mchenry Local Business Directory and watch for my lauch of the template very soon! Leave your name and email address in the form below and you’ll get the template at a very special and reduced price when I release it…..only if you sign up to the list though!

Tags: offline marketing, xsitepro business directory, offline marketer, offline portal template, offline consulting, offline market, offline template, xsitepro business portal, offline directory template

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Today offline marketing has an entirely new meaning to the internet marketer, however, the end result is always the same…that is to sell more and make more!

I ran across a list of 100 ideas to promote a local offline brick and mortar business. Almost all the ideas can be effective and certainly all could be tried. I’ve used some of these ideas when I had a large offline business before the age of the internet (boy that sounds like a long time ago!).

As I looked over these ideas again I began to get excited because I realized they could become extremely effective for the offline consultant or offline marketer to help promote just about any type of business. So I’ve been taking about 10 ideas per post and added my comments. These comments are meant to help anyone effectively utilize these ideas in offline marketing, that is promoting a business by means of the internet and all the tools available to the internet marketer.

#12. Donate a Product to your local area Radio Station, they have numerous contests and they are always looking for sponsors!

Your donation can be written off as a tax deduction plus you will get FREE Advertising & Business Exposure for your donation!

For instance if you were promoting a handyman business you could offer one gutter cleaning, you could go as far as to specify 1 story building only and even limit the footage to 200 feet of gutter. Whatever you are promoting it is important to put limits on the product or service. Maybe you’re promoting a wine store, of course you could offer a free bottle of wine or even a free case  of wine to anyone who fills out an entry form at your website….which of course is your aweber autoresponder. Negotiate with the radio station for as much time as possible…..heck, go for a month’s worth of promotion with your big ticket items.

#13. Donate a Product to your local area Bingo Halls! They are always looking for sponsors of their Bingo Prizes! Bingo is BIG in alot of areas!

You could use a smaller product or service for this. Don’t waste a lot of time with this method, but always try to get them to register at your website…..Remember…Build that list!

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Grab a copy of a FREE Ebook teaching Offline Marketing by some guys
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#14. Call your Chamber of Commerce and find out about Local Area Job Fairs. Get a booth and set up info about the fabulous business opportunity!

Job fairs can bring in big numbers! The perfect scenario would be to have your laptop open to your website and let anyone who’s interested in winning the prize fill in their name and email address in your optin form.

#15. Call your Local Area Colleges and find out when their next job/employment fair is. Alot of times you can get a booth or table for less than $35 and you will get alot of GREAT new recruit leads by participating in events like these.

In today’s economic climate this could bring in some decent results. Once again, promote your free product or service.

#16. Contact local area car dealerships. I have 2 in my local area that hand out a small packet that I made up for FREE to their customers who come in to take a free test drive!

One of the most profitable methods of promoting your service or products is to work with the other merchants in town. In this case, if you still have an auto dealer left in your town, you know they are hurting for business and would be open to any professional offer you made. Of course a win-win situation is even better. If you promised to drop off their business card on each lead you visited, that give them even more incentive.

#17. Target your local area gyms! You can get a table space for $20 or less in most cases! Make sure you have 3-5 products on display, plenty of catalogs, business cards and fliers.

===========================================================
“Offline Marketing Guide For Selling Online Services To Offline Businesses”
will explain exactly how to sell your services to offline businesses.
Access this manual at: http://www.smallreport.com/onlinetooffline
unveils secret tips needed to land your client.
===========================================================

#18. Network with others in your community who are in home business. Find out what events and activities that they participate in. They are usually “in the know” and can help you get started in networking in your community.

Like minds always attract each other. You’d be surprised at the results you can get by networking with other businesses in your area. Done correctly this alone could bring you more business than you can handle.

#19. Contact Companies in your area to see if you can come in and set up a table in the employee lounge or cafeteria for a employee shopping break! These days alot of companies will allow you to do this if you ask them!

You’d obviously would want to visit businesses of decent size….otherwise I’m afraid this would be a waste of time. However, it depends on your business. If you are promoting a remodeling company and get 1 lead for a $150,000 room addition, then, it would be worth your time to either pay someone to sit there all week or do it yourself!

#20. Does your local area tv cable company have a local information channel? Inquire about advertising! These ads will reach thousands of potential buyers for you! I recommend you only use your website address for these types of advertising and not your personal at home address.

In highly populated areas this will result in a lot of eyes on your promotion.

======================================================
Revealed Marketing to Local Business in the FREE guide
called“The Offline Consultant’s Quick Start Guide” reveals the steps
needed to began in the lucrative Offline Consulting field,
download here: http://smallreport.com/land/offline-consultant.htm.
======================================================

#21. Contact local small companies and shops to see if you can offer an exclusive discounts or freebie gift to their employees. Companies are always looking for a way to “treat” their employees to specials from the local surrounding community.

This one is a no brainer. Let’s assume as an offline consultant you’re promoting a Chiropractor. You could offer something in addition to your normal free examination. Perhaps a free muscle stim session….or a free or discounted massage. Use your imagination on this one and look for situations where you have or develop a repeat customer.

Tags: offline consultant, online-offline, offline market, offline consulting, offline marketing

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When marketing a brick and mortar business with the intent of taking it offline, you’ll find many of the same strategies and  procedures are applied, however, in a different way. If you’ve ever had a real word, old fashioned building where you sell something then you have probably stumbled across some of these ideas. As offline marketers and offline consultants we want to merge the two worlds for a positive result.

I guess I’m trying to say that as an offline consultant, we want to utilize the best of two worlds in an effort to get our customer more business and help him make more money!!! I tell you there is not a more gratifying feeling when helping your fellow buisness man/woman to increase their bottom line through the use of new offline-online strategies. I’m going to go through some of these ideas and see if we can add a flair of our own to the technique.

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Grab a copy of a FREE Ebook teaching Offline Marketing by some guys
that are actually out there selling and working with brick and mortal businesses
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#1. Take a small zip close baggie (snack sizes work well) and include the following in it:

Your Business Card, Business Oppty Mini Flyer, a Piece of Candy such as hard candy or a lollipop, mini flyer of current host specials, discount coupon (optional) etc.

Hand these out to the bank tellers, retail cashiers, at your kids sport events, every where you go!

Simplest thing is to make sure your url, that is www.mystore.com is on everything you put out. Include an email address along with the standard phone number. Try to use your hadouts to direct the client to your autoresonder for an automatic squence of emails and offers about your store, your products, and your promotions.

#2. When I stay at hotels & motels I leave a mini catalog, my business card & discount coupon and the mini coin canister for the maid! I put her tip inside the mini coin canister! I have gotten 3 orders by doing this!

Be creative when you leave tips for Hotel Maids, Waitresses, Waiters, Hair Dressers, etc. Don’t just hand them your business card, make it memorable!

You can also buy cute little beaded change purses at your local dollar discount store!

I like the change purse, leave a monetary tip, but also on the back of your business card tell them to go to your url www.mystore.com and tell them to add their name and email for an automatic free prize by email…could be anything that would be appropiate. What happens when you start working with other stores, you can use the products of store A to give to Store B……in this care maybe the bonus or prize for filling out their email and name would be a free sandwhich at Store A……am I making sense?

#3. Print out flyers with your contact info (not your personal address), your website address & email address along with any current specials you are offering.

Then contact local area mobile home park offices, apartment complex rental offices, housing developements etc and ask them if you can leave fliers in their office or hang on their tennants doors. Give the office employees a free gift or discount on their personal orders.

#4. Contact local area bridal supply stores, bridal gown stores, caterers, tux rental centers, wedding dj’s etc. Ask them if you can leave your business cards & fliers about the great (Company Name) Bridal Gift Registry for them to give to their customers.

Offer store owners a free gift or a personal discount for helping you spread the word about your business.

Good way to network with like stores…..but always focus on something that will create and develop a lasting relationship with the other business. That almost always requires getting their name and email into an autoresponder form.

#5. Daycare Centers! They are excellent to contact and leave business cards and/or fliers at!

I print out a flyer of just a few items from our Tupperware Childrens line and I attach my business card & a discount coupon. I get alot of orders by doing this!

So whatever company you represent, find some items that cater to children or to moms and make up a flier!

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Offline Marketing can be. Free Download: http://www.smallreport.com/offlineforumthread/ .
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#6. Alot of churches hold a Spring and Fall Fest! Contact them about getting a table or a booth. Alot of times this will cost you under $15.00 for a space!

Make sure you take products with you along with business oppty fliers, plenty of catalogs, business cards etc.

Churches present all types of opportunities. Try this one. Create a quick website…something like www.firstchurchfundraising.com and on that site make sure you show them what an autoresponder is and how it is used. Add a couple of pages for the site that reflect the main times of year fundraisers are in operation. Create a quick screen capture video of the site and explain how it works, the autoresponders, the paypal buttons (donations) and anything else that would be unique to that specific church. Now, you could operate the site or sell it to them and/or you could rent the site to them……you’d be surprised at their reactions. Most churches don’t have the budgets to hire a webmaster and most don’t have talented internet marketers in their congregation…..so, you’d be doing them a big favor. When charging churches be fair, however, you might want to treat them as a loss leader. If the church has a nice size congregation you could end up picking up a couple of good clients!

Do a contest drawing at these types of events. Make up entry blanks that gather the customers info so that you can initiate contact with them again!

#7. Join your local area chamber of commerce! They are always holding local business events that you can participate in.

Show them the Local Business Portal website you’ve developed and ask if they would like some free space.

#8. College Campuses! Dorms & Housing Students are always looking to spend money! Alot of college students are also looking for an extra income so target them with the Business Oppty too!

Drop off fliers and business cards to the College Student Center! They usually have bulletin boards, tables and other things where you can leave your information at for FREE!

======================================================
Revealed Marketing to Local Business in the FREE guide
called“The Offline Consultant’s Quick Start Guide” reveals the steps
needed to began in the lucrative Offline Consulting field,
download here: http://smallreport.com/land/offline-consultant.htm.
======================================================

#9. Contact your local area Welcome Wagon or Welcome to the Neighborhood Group! Ask them about you leaving mini catalogs, fliers, business cards, discount coupons, freebie mini gifts, etc with them.

They are always looking for additional items to place in their Welcome Bags!

Always find a way to direct them  back to your website for a free gift so you can use your autoresponder to collect names and email addresses.

#10. Contact your local area hospitals and ask for Human Resources Dept. The Majority of hospitals hand out New Mommy Diaper Bags filled with products, samples and other stuff for New Moms who just had a baby!

It’s FREE for you to add in your information! I have gotten party hosts, new customers and new recruits by participating in these types of programs.

#11. Contact your local medical offices, particularly Gynecology and OB Offices and Pediatric Offices and inquire about you leaving information with them.

This is a way for you to target Parents of Children with both the home party oppty, the business oppty and new customer sales.

If you are representing a local baby or childrens shop, it would be easy to provide a free box of diapers for signing up to your marketing list via autoresoponder. Remember, once on your list you will have a customer for life, so the cost of a box of diapers is an act of good will on your part and the recipients will feel obligated to visit your store and or buy something from you. Of course, through the autoresponder, they will be visiting your shop weekly or monthly and they have no idea what happend. But you will end up with traffic through that store that will buy things until their kids grow up!

===========================================================
“Offline Marketing Guide For Selling Online Services To Offline Businesses”
will explain exactly how to sell your services to offline businesses.
Access this manual at: http://www.smallreport.com/onlinetooffline
unveils secret tips needed to land your client.
===========================================================

Tags: offline market, offline consulting, offline marketing, offline consultant, online-offline

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Amazingly people have given up using the yellow pages to find your business, instead people use a variety of search engines when looking for a product or service but did you realize that 85% of any given market will first check out the internet? If you have a small business you better pay attention because this is a huge segment of your market. If you run a small or large business, then having exposure on the internet is really important due to the existing statistics as well as the increasing popularity of the internet. There’s more people who use the internet today than ever and they access the web through their phones, computers, cameras etc so, if your site doesn’t show up when they search, you just lost a customer.

In today’s world internet access is a given with people accessing the world wide web from just above any electronic device which means when someone types in your keywords, your site pops up first. Most importantly is consideration of the fact that most people use Google to search and if you aren’t one of the top three results, your traffic will suffer. To state the obvious, you want your web site to show up in one of the first 3 results on Google.

Runnning your business takes all of your effort, not leaving you time to learn how to build websites, set up autoresponders, optimize webpages, set up pay per click advertising, set up your social networking sites or try to understand and learn internet marketing. However, there’s no question on whether you should have these things done, it’s an absolute must! You simply must get online and do it in a way that conforms with current internet marketing standards.

Considering the facts that so many people currently access the internet and the high degree of difficulty involved in getting your website to rank, it becomes very obvious that you should consider finding an internet marketing company that specializes in offline marketing or offline consulting. Optimize your website properly and watch your profits take off along with knowing you’ve taken a giant step into the future for your business!

Here’s where most small business owners get confused. You hire a standard web design firm to build your company website and figure at this point you’re ready for a rush of internet business. Unfortunately, most web design firms are clueless when it comes to search engine strategies and other offline marketing strategies, so they fall short of getting you listed on Google.

Your only alternative is to find an offline consultant. This is someone who knows all about website design, search engine optimization, setting up autoresponders, driving traffic and internet marketing. They will consider your business as unique and find out what is needed to get your business to come up in a favorable position when somebody searches for your keywords. The offline marketing approach will consider many variables of your business and it’s only through these efforts will you find a small business getting the results they desire.

Tags: offline gold, offline marketing, offline consulting, offline gold on steroids, offline marketer, offline consultant

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It can all be so confusing. Am I an online marketer or an offline marketer? Does it really matter what I call myself?

Probably not the most profound questions, but worthy of a quick look.

I remember reading a series of books that portrayed an ancient Roman Merchant in the prosperous days of Rome and the stories were build around the secrets of being a merchant, basically buying and selling of goods. The Roman Merchant told stories which revealed his secrets of buying and selling to a new found friend, he never shared them before and he was getting up in age and wanted to pass his legacy down. After all he was the richest man in Babylon.

The sales and marketing lessons were all surprisingly applicable to any of us today! All of us try to satisfy basic human needs which left uncontrolled all end up in greed anyway. But the fact remains, someone has to display, market and sell everyday goods, making them appear as the best to the would be buyer.

That’s what we do….don’t we. Our internet stores are our display racks. The shelf’s and cases and isles are our web pages. The products are really just electrons, but we dress them up with virtual covers with pretty colors. The purchaser clicks a button to order, we get the cash or I should say a bank gets the cash and we then delivery the goods, could be an electronic book, maybe we have to send a real book!

There’s been big changes since the days of the Romans, changes in how people and products get distributed. In Rome’s day, people walked..they might have a donkey, usually horses were just for fighting and carts were pulled by asses to deliver the goods.

Next came boats, people and products were moved by boats, we were able to touch the 4 corners of the earth for the finest of anything.

Next came cars, trucks and planes. We go anywhere for anything in our world today. We are only limited by our pocket book.

Then came Computers.

Somewhere along the line came this geeky guy by the name of Bill Gates. He worked to develop systems that could be used in computers to process information, these systems were to become available to everyone.

The world wide web was about to start. First used for educational and military means the structure was laid and computer users dreamt of common usuage and being able to communicate with other computers around the world or even in the next room.

It’s been said that the internet was started around 26 years ago.

A major paradigm shift in the way we do business was about to take place. More and more computers were hooked up to his new internet thing, but communicating between computers and finding information proved next to impossible and was truly for geeks!

Then…..about 10 years ago Google appears on the map.

Google was like asphalt was to the automobile. Suddenly we could find what we were looking for and each year it gets faster and more accurate.

Today we use our computers and the internet to communicate in so many different ways it is astounding. It would certainly look like magic to the richest man in Babylon. We can buy things from the other side of the world and have it delivered to our inbox in seconds!

We have just entered the breaking of traditional business as we knew it 20 years ago. Yellow pages are no longer needed. Newspaper classified ads can be replaced with free online classified ads. Your customers can be gathered, grouped and tracked. As your customer base is grouped together, you can communicate with your group of “buying” customers on a daily, weekly or monthly basis…..and on a personal level no less. The big change is the fact that you can now contact your customers regardless of where they are or time of day.

Yes the internet has changed the way we do business. Google Adwords allows you to test local marketing conditions or worldwide marketing conditions. You can test every component of your ad or product. You actually get to advertise and test your ads at the same time. This has never been done before.

So….my point is, marketing and selling is as old as the sun. The way we’ve done it over the years has changed but the concept has remained the same…Customer buys X and Merchant delivers X. High speed internet has only enhanced the buying and selling process and with the new modality the customer can find exactly what he wants and he can buy it from just about anybody around the world. The merchant, on the other hand, can determine the perfect combination of words, images and/or presentation that’s needed to sell the product.

Also, the merchant, as he employs the new technology to his business, will sell more and profit more, maybe he will stay local and maybe he’ll go world wide. These new options have opened the entire buying and selling process wide open.

Because of the internet we will lose some things simply because the market is dictated by value. Yellow pages will be completely online. Classified advertising is almost all online now. I recently heard one person talking about the demise of newspapers and how much of their fall was due to revenue….particularly classified ads. Television will merge with the internet and its outcome is yet to be seen.

The internet is all about giving people what they want. It’s all about servicing and providing the best solution to someone’s problem. That’s why newspapers are dying on the vine. Most are far left in their views or worse they simply project their leaning in all they write….nobody wants to read that. So…where to people go…..they go online!

The local merchant or offline business can use the tools of the internet to focus in tightly on their market. They can use email to develop a relationship with their buyers. A restaurant can set up a blog for their website and post the meal of the day and even a review of that meal….of course their entire menu will be online. That same restaurant can use Google Adwords to drive traffic for special meals or holidays for literally pennies per visitor. The restaurants webmaster can optimize the pages of their website so that all their traffic is organic search traffic….which is free! If that restaurant owner is smart and hires a qualified offline marketer, or internet marketer gone offline consultant, the restaurant will literally be able to control and guide the traffic that comes to their website. That traffic represents customers, so in essence, by using the internet the restaurant is now in control of their cash paying customers and thus their cash flow.

Offline Marketing and Online Marketing are slower merging together as time passes and one will serve the other in the end. But for now there are 4 basic dimensions of online and offline marketing as mentioned by the Rhodes Brothers.

1. You can use online tools to sell online
2. You can use online tools to sell offline
3. You can use offline tools to sell offline
4. You can use off-line tools to sell online

Keep those divisions in mind as you work and both the offline marketer and the online marketer will prosper!

If you want to further study Offline Marketing I suggest you check out Offline Cash Formula by the Rhodes Brothers. It will help the creative juices start flowing and you’ll really get a handle on brick and mortar stores, marketing and the internet.

Tags: offline gold, offline gold on steroids, offline consulting, offline marketing, offline consultant, offline marketer

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