Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr. Local Internet marketing is getting a fair amount of attention these days, and for good reason. People search for stuff to do, places to go, and things to buy on a local level, and they are increasingly turning to the Internet for the information they need. As a result, the SMB (small and medium business) is now having more pressure than ever placed on them to make sure that their local Internet presence is well thought-out and executed. talk about this a lot because I can see how important this element of the SMB's Internet presence is becoming. MORE >>

Image via CrunchBase. by Eva Lyford. Occasionally, I am asked what the point of foursquare is. OK, more than occasionally—a lot. think people see a lot of potential in the app generally, but aren't quite sure how to use it. That's an easy question for me. From my standpoint, it's just a game—a game with some interesting social features. I'll leave out describing how foursquare works, since there are already iconic descriptions of foursquare functionality. If I'm nearby and a friend checks in to my local lunch spot, I can drop in to say hi. Love you, dear. I win the game. MORE >>

Image via Wikipedia. After reading that headline, you'll be forgiven if you think that I've finally gone off the deep end (and I am not a particularly strong swimmer). But the venerable old Yellow Pages does have some distinct advantages over Google that have not been exploited, which I've shared with several regional Yellow Pages companies over the years. To my knowledge, these pearls of wisdom I've provided have been ignored, and the Yellow Pages businesses seem to be in a kind of decline shared by products like denture cleaner, whose customers just seem to keep dying off. The nerve of them!) MORE >>

Image via Wikipedia. I've often counseled that you need to solve your customers' problems to be a successful Internet marketer. For B2B businesses, you might be able to figure out how to do that. If you're a consultant or a technology maker or a service business, you know why your customers need you and you can design your marketing to explain what problem you solve, as well as why you do it better than others. But some businesses seem to have a much bigger challenge. mean, what problem can K-mart solve? It would have been easy for them to give up and just push merchandise, but they didn't. MORE >>

Image by oooh.oooh via Flickr. by Tim Peter. So, you're trying to finish up your budget for next year and, just like last year, you're trying to get funding for much-needed SEO work on your site. For whatever reason, you've never been able to persuade your CEO of the importance of organic search. Oh, he says that he gets it, but it never seems to make the cut when the final budgets are approved. You're used to it, because it seems to go the same way each year. But this year is different. It seems your CEO has heard that your #1 competitor ranks ahead of you on Google. What's in it for the CEO? MORE >>