Wtf is this here interwebz thing

allco is right in regards to going crazy if you try to create a directory yourself. And it's only worth buildign a "city doctors" blog if you actually live in the city, and write useful stuff about this city's doctors (ie. interview local doctors etc.) - in which case, this is not a quick business since you'd have to be passionate and keep writing about the topic for a while.

My suggestion: if you know how to hustle, are a people person and specialize in sales, then partner with a local nerd to take care of all the technical stuff. I did this for a project (I was the nerd), and was very happy with the complimentary skillsets. The vast majority of technical wizards can't stand to do sales.

To find out who is linking to your competition, check out siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com. Also, step #1 should be to read about Google's advanced search features: More search help : Google search basics - Web Search Help
You need to know what searching for "~puppies", "site:wickedfire.com", "inurl:shopping_cart" will do...

You sound sane, and you can spell, feel free to send me a PM if you're stuck on something.
 


Good points. Though you're likely right that the blog would likely require updates. Wouldn't a few updates (2x200-300 word pieces) combined with some seo service get the blog high enough in the SERPS provided the keyword has "low" competition? That is, I'm targeting the low competition keywords that the google kw tool comes up with.
 
1st to answer your initial questions:

1. Keywords- Google's kw tool is nice, but ...... This
would give me a much more solid number to present during the sales pitch.
Click to expand...

All the keyword tools will use google data (plus other less relevant search engines) so thats what you have to work with. The smaller the locality you target, the less data you can get from these tools. Yes adding the city into the key phrase will help, but you may not get much data.
The only relaible way to get accurate data is to test yourself, the quickest way being with a targeted search only adwords campaign.

However this costs money, and at the end of the day you are looking at this wrong.
You are looking at DIRECT SALES so do you really care if the data could be misleading? You can quite legitimately say "Google data show xxxx people search for whatever in whereever, and we are number one", even if that data might include 3 different same named city's, does it make your sales pitch any worse?

2. Competition- I constantly ... I basically need to figure
out a way to size them up.
Click to expand...

As i said before, install the seoQuake firefox plugin. Its a very good start and will give you easy access to a wide range of data on your competition. It wont wipe your ass for you, but its pretty bloody useful.

3. SEO- Sure I can buy SEO services, but first I need to find out what
services would work best given my competition. I found and will be reading
this Local Business SEO thread.
Click to expand...

SEO has many intricacies, but its pretty basic at the sharp end. I wont cover on page seo, as i presume you have the brains to work out / search for the basics. After that, it comes down to links.
You cant go too far wrong with the BST section here, especially since the massive cleanup operation going on recently. Start off with the more basic, less spammy services, then scale as required.
I suggest buying from the 200+ post theads, as they should be pretty solid.

Off the top of my head, try:
http://www.wickedfire.com/links-seo...rp-boost-guaranteed-check-reviews-inside.html
backed up with:
http://www.wickedfire.com/links-seo/24884-social-bookmarking-100-dofollow-social-sites.html
I HAVE NOT USED either of these, but they mirror almost exactly what i have done for a while, and have great reputation so far.

If you have time>money then manually creating 2.0 pages and social bookmarks is not too hard or time consuming.

You will probably be pleasantly surprised with the level of competition you face on a local level.

Next "should i build a blog / directory / whatever.

Well, your business model is based on DIRECT SALES so at the end of the day you just need to build something you can pitch. The better you are at sales, the crappier the product can be. Only you know how this stands.

Right, enough spoon feeding, go buy a domain, hosting and install something ( my votes still very much with wordpress). Show me you actually intend to do something, before i waste any more time!
 
Just do it, man. As some of the other people said.. learn as you go! Set yourself a goal.. What do you hope to be doing in the long run? Just dive in and do it.. that is the best way.

So you want a directory site that you can SEO? Do you have a script / package for the site? Do you have hosting? A domain? A market? The template designed to fit said market? The main thing is actually do it and see it through.... Don't half do it and move on. Then you can learn from your experience and do something else.. maybe even flip the site to compensate for some of your time.

PM me if you want some cheap space / DB on my server.
 
Well its morning (2pm). Time for me to get this started.

Wheres a good place for hosting? is godaddy alright? It seems inexpensive.

Im researching KWs now, hopefully by the time i'm done with that, someone will take a stab at the question above.
 
Nvm my hosting question. I just saw that hosting sites recommended by wordpress offers hosting and wordpress installation for those of us who aren't tech savy.
 
came here for tits, found "yet another" thread where op talks about doing shit instead of doing shit. my advice: Fucking try shit!
 
greyhat, I'll take any advice you have. I currently am a college student in a college town and Im working on creating a directory model with WPMU to target local businesses. I feel that since I am in a college town and most of gen x lives on line, I can pitch it fairly easily.
 
At the moment i am charging $7 per advice.

LOL jk, pm me and we can chat on aim or something.. i have something similar i want to get off the ground.
 
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