The Blog is Mightier Than the Sword

I recently had a chance to stop by The Wild Bird in Poulsbo, WA and say hi to Scott Pomtier, the owner. Scott’s been a MerchantCircle member since September 2006 and one of our Top Merchants. In the past, I’ve spoken with him by phone and email, so it was nice to finally put a face to the words and voice.


Scott was telling me how he recently wrote a blog post on his MerchantCircle blog about the new restaurant that was opening up next to his store – Taprock Northwest Grill. Later that day, his blog post was already coming up when people searched for the restaurant on Google. He even received a bad review on his listing from someone thinking his was Taprock! (He can delete that review if he wants).

The fact of the matter is that the content he’s been creating on his page (blogs, coupons, pictures) helps his MerchantCircle listing show up on search engines and has boosted the page views on his listing from a few dozen, to over 1,000 page views each month. The content he’s creating shows up on search engines as well, even writing about Taprock early, has put that blog on searches that are returned on Taprock!

Statistically, a claimed MerchantCircle listing with no created content gets 12 page views a month. A listing with at least one written blog, one created coupon, one uploaded picture, one written newsletter and one review gets just over 200 page views a month. Those with all created content AND are a member of our lowest-priced ad package (at $29/month) get an average of 588 page views a month!

Scott is doing everything right, when it comes to utilizing his MerchantCircle listing. It’s one thing to claim your listing, upload a picture and write a blog – all that helps – but it’s very important to continue to do this. It’s unique content, which the search engines love!

Sincerely,
Kevin L.
Community Relations

Small Business Finding Online Success

Success stories from small business owners are always great to hear. We recently came across this interview with John Tuggle, a MerchantCircle member, on search engine land. It's one of the most informative and inspiring I've read in awhile. In the interview John gives us a great shout-out:

search engine land: Of all the things you're doing -- the blog, podcasts, YouTube, etc. -- what's working the best for you?

It's hard to say which one is working the best, because I get a lot of visitors to the site from each of those areas. If I had to pick one I would say YouTube. I've had about 40,000 views of all my videos in three months, and I get a lot of visitors that buy from YouTube.

I've also used local online promotion, such as Yahoo!Local, Google Maps, MerchantCircle -- which gets fantastic Google rankings -- and a few others, as well.

Learning marketing has been the best thing I've ever learned how to do. I see tons of talent go to waste because of the lack of how to get the word out about yourself.

The interview goes on to offer a ton of other tips on getting the most out of your blog, bookmarking, and of course, finding more customers.

Sincerely,
Kevin
Community Relations

New MerchantCircle Verified

According to a recent Nielsen/NetRatings survey, 78% of respondents said they used the internet more today than 2 years ago. That's a big change, and with it comes a larger responsibility from local merchants on the web. We wanted to give all merchants a chance to compete with the national brands. Read more about it in our Press Release.

Or click here to get started right away!

Sincerely,
Kevin L.
Community Relations