I want to continue today talking about Local SEO and a few local marketing tips that can help you gain rankings in your local area and make a good first impression to possible clients for your business. Everything that I will describe can be done for free and it only takes a little time and effort on your part. You will get out of it what you put into it.

Do not be afraid. Anyone can follow these tips and implement them on your own site. You do not have to be a technical coding geek to do this. So, breathe easy and keep reading.

For this example, I’m going to use a friend of mine’s chimney sweep website, HomeSaverChimneySweeps.com. His name is Mark Ferraiolo and we have been friends for many, many years. He lives in Pennsylvania now and has allowed me to use his website to illustrate a few examples that one could use to make their sites better in the eyes of the search engines.

Mark has done a pretty good job listing his site on Google local. Below is the screenshot of how it appears.

At first glance at his Google local listing, I would recommend that Mark ask more of his customers to write reviews about his business. He is only showing 1 review. I know for a fact that Mark has many satisfied customers and he should be asking each customer to go online and write a review. Word of mouth and testimonials are very powerful.

Here is what I observe and what I think Mark should do to his listing:

• Be more descriptive about what your business does. Mark only has 2 sentences describing his business.
• Post more photos showing your work. Google allows up to 10 photos to be posted.
• Post youtube videos of his chimney sweep work. Google allows up to 5 videos to be posted for the listing.
• Add coupons to his listing. The coupons will appear with his business listing on Google maps.

Wrist slap #1
Here is where I’m going to fuss a little bit at Mark and slap his wrist. When I visit HomeSaverChimneySweeps.com, Mark does not have a blog on his site. As we all know, the search engines love fresh content.

Wrist slap #2
Add video to your site Mark. You and I have discussed this in detail. Start a youtube channel. Youtube is the #2 search engine in the world next to Google and unfortunately, Mark is not taking advantage of this.

There is no evidence of any social media presence for Home Saver Chimney Sweeps such as Facebook & Twitter. Do you think that Mark could benefit from using Social Media in his chimney sweep business?

Google Insights:
The next thing I would do if I were Mark, is to visit Google Insights to search for the top terms I could use to help customers find me. I searched for the term “chimney” and used the filter of the state of Pennsylvania and all metros.

A quick search using Insights turned up a ton of useful information that Mark could use. The screen shot below shows regional interest for the search term “chimney.”

The screenshot below is the pot of gold for Mark. Google Insight shows all of the top searches related to “chimney” for the entire state of Pennsylvania. It also show the top rising searches for the term.

What should Mark do with this information? It’s simple. He should be incorporating these terms into his site. There are many other things that Mark can do also. Start posting youtube video and tagging his videos with these search terms. Posting photos on his site using “alt tags” with these terms.

Add a blog to his site and write specific articles about each search term. Mark should start building links to his site using these terms as anchor text for the links. I only see 15 links pointing to his site using the Yahoo Link Domain tool.

If Mark could start to rank in the search engines for these individual terms, combined with youtube videos of his work and customer testimonials, I believe Mark, my good friend, would have more chimney sweep work in Catawissa, PA than he could handle. Actually, I don’t think it…I know it.

Of course, this is not everything that Mark could do to help himself. These tips are quick and simple that he could start to implement today. What are some recommendations that you would give to Mark to improve his local SEO? Feel free to join in and leave your tips.

2010 Bloggerlens.com

Local Businesses do not seem to grasp the power of the internet and local search that is right at their fingertips. There is a trend here in my town and most likely yours. With just a few simple steps, small businesses could own their local search terms in the search engines and do a better job of controlling their message. Most business owners seem to be too busy running their business instead of marketing their business. This appears to be a fact for small business everywhere and could provide opportunities if someone were interested in starting a business and becoming a local SEO Consultant.

Let’s take my town of Monroe, NC and look for some examples. After you see what I will point out to you in my town, it will be very easy for you to recognize the same situation in your hometown. For my example, lets use the term “Monroe NC BBQ” and look at the results. I love BBQ and here in the south, BBQ is king.

Personally, I am drawn to the Outlaw BBQ listing. The business listings are ok, but still seem to be a bit more like a telephone book listing. Out of the 4 listings that you see, you can bet that Outlaw BBQ will definitely get a look from most people on the search. Which one would Grandma click?

Diving in a little further, I click on Bob Gibson’s business listing. As you can see from the screenshot below, Bob Gibson has not claimed this local listing on Google? Just below, Bob Gibson has about 12 reviews. Some are good and some are bad. Ol’ Bob is really missing out on some great content he could add including photos and videos. This is a Failure! BTW, the other 2 businesses have not claimed their Google listing either.

I would venture to say that Bob Gibson does not have a clue that the bad reviews are there because he has no response to the bad reviews. It’s obvious that Bob is not interested about controlling the message or possibly trying to get it changed. This one comment alone has probably driven customers to a competitor. If I were Bob or if I were working for Bob, I would have responded or would have asked what I could have done for this person to have this negative removed. At the least, I would have encouraged my customers to go online and write positive reviews about my restaurant that would drive this comment far down the line.

Here is what I did on the review. Bob Gibson’s is one of my favorite restaurants in Monroe and I go there quite often. The food is great. I took this opportunity to write my own review and to hopefully cancel the negative somewhat and to push it further down the page. If I were Bob Gibson, I would not hesitate to ask my friends or customers that if they like my place, to please go and do a review. I would hand them a free lunch card along with directions on how to do it. I would do everything possible to control the message.

If I were a local SEO Consultant, I would use what I did as a way to get my foot in the door to offer my services. I would print out what I did and maybe make a few notes on the pages, attach a business card and stop by and ask for the manager. I’d give it to him or her, speak for just a moment and probably leave. If they were not on Twitter or Facebook, I’d ask why not? I’d follow up in a couple of days and if the response were positive, I’d set up up a meeting. If you have a cool reception, I would mention that you really like Bob Gibson BBQ but if they do not want my services, I’m going to move on to one of the other BBQ restaurants and make my offer to them. I would do this in a very nice way.

Below is an example of a business owner who claimed and took control of his business listing. He’s a long time friend of mine. I advised him on a few internet ideas early on when he started his business and he’s done a great job. It’s not BBQ and it’s in another state but it’s a good relevent example of the point I’m trying to make. He owns a Chimney Sweep business, and he has done a good job for his Google Local listing.

There is a lot more to cover and I will continue in the next post about how to identify some of the local search terms and to gain ranking. Local SEO is much easier to rank for local terms than you think. I’ll cover more real life examples in the next article.

If you are a small business located anywhere in the country and you feel as if you are not making the most out of your internet presence or if the landscape is confusing, we want to hear from you at Echelon Media. Give us a look.

2010 Bloggerlens.com

Are you using your existing multimedia for effective SEO on your hyperlocal blog? Generally, I think we all fall somewhat short getting the most out of what we have. It can be a little tedious to SEO your hyperlocal blog but today I want to share some SEO Tips to generate traffic to your hyperlocal blog.

For this illustration I am optimizing for the term “Your Neighborhood Produce in Monroe, NC.” I will illustrate simple ways to do it that takes little effort and time on my part. I want this article to give me traffic for years to come. If I do a little extra, I’m pretty sure my efforts will pay off.

This is a real life example of what I have done to a particular article on my hyperlocal website in Monroe, NC, The Monroe Scoop.

I recently went out and shot a video of an event called Your Neighborhood Produce. I want to show you the ways I have used the video to give my article and site an SEO and traffic boost.

Hyperlocal Social Media

The first thing I did while editing the video was to take a short segment of the video and post it to the Monroe Scoop Facebook Page. I was editing the video anyway. I took an extra 3 minutes to post a snippet of the video. I wanted to generate some buzz for the article before I published it. Below is a screenshot of my Facebook Page.

The next thing I did was to take a snippet from the video I was editing and upload it to YouTube. This takes virtually no time whatsoever because I’m already sitting and editing my video. It takes just a few moments to grab a piece of the video and upload to YouTube to give your site and article the SEO boost for some long term traffic to your site.

Below are the 2 videos I uploaded. The first video was a short clip and the second video was the completed version. In the video description on YouTube, I linked out to my site in Monroe, NC. YouTube is awesome for the links and traffic. Hey, you already know that though.

The next thing I did was to grab a few screen shots from the video and upload them to my Flickr account. I use the handy Flickr uploader and it took a total of about 3 minutes to upload and tag 7 photos. I did this while I was still editing the original video. I have posted a couple of the photos below just to give you an example.

Since I’m showing you these photos, I will also put in “alt tags” on these photos and they will link back to my original article. Might as well do it since I’m writing about it, right? The links from Flickr are no-follow but they may send me some additional traffic based on searches. I made sure I placed appropriate tags on the photos.

The next thing I did was to grab the embed code from Flickr for my 7 photo slideshow. You can see that below. Your readers love photos, video and slideshows. Give them what they want, it’s easy and takes very little time to do a little something extra.

I hope you are still following along. Writing this article has taken a lot longer than what I actually did. Since I have more than one hyperlocal blog, I did a little extra work to send more links back to my original article. I placed a couple of the still photos in a new article. I placed the photo slideshow into the article on my second site.

Here is where I got a little fancy, I placed a screenshot of my video into the new article. It looks exactly like the video but instead will hyperlink back to the article on Monroe Scoop. This created even more links to the article and will also count toward my traffic. I’m hoping to get traffic to both sites because of this little maneuver. Below is the screenshot I used to send traffic back to the original article. If you click it, it will take you to the original article also.

I actually host my own videos on my own hosted server on my sites for the most part. I occasionally post a youtube embedded video when I’m pressed for time. YouTube is great for the links but I do not like how they stream video. I don’t think they operate on enough bandwidth and cause videos to stop and stutter.

I estimate it took me an extra 15 minutes of work to do what I have described above. It’s important that you use what media you have and turn it into multimedia. The SEO benefit for your hyperlocal blog will be long term and beneficial. There are SEO Experts out there that would do more and are much more talented than I am, but for the citizen journalist trying to get more out of your articles, these few extra steps will help immensely.

Of course I will also send out a few tweets to get visits to the site.

I have no idea when you, the reader, may stumble upon this article. Why don’t you test me out and type in Your Neighborhood Produce in Monroe, NC into Google and see how I did. If I’m not outranking the actual site, hopefully I’m just under it. I could certainly go after the top ranking with more links but that is not necessary for my purposes.

Give this a try the next time you are working on video or posting some photo’s on your hyperlocal blog. Try to get the most out of your multimedia.

If you apply this little tip about common sense marketing, I promise you can see a spike in traffic to your site. If you run a Hyperlocal Blog or a Community Website, I’m going to give you a very easy SEO Tip for your hyperlocal blog that will definitely increase traffic to your site. It requires you to be a little proactive and you must do a little bit of work a month or two before your expected traffic arrives.

It’s actually quite simple. If your community has an event scheduled such as a Holiday Festival or a Parade, you should be acting right now. Go ahead and write a couple articles and build a some links a few weeks before the event. The people who live in your community will start searching the event 2 or 3 weeks ahead of time and if you are proactive, you will receive the benefit of extra traffic for those weeks. Guess what? All of those people who have never visited your site will find you for the first time. This is a great strategy to market your website. This is also just common sense marketing and if your event is an annual event, you will already be in position to capture the majority of traffic the following year.

Make article SEO and common sense marketing an ongoing process.

As the traffic starts to trickle in early, go back and edit your articles and build new anchor text links with the phrases and keywords that you are being found for. Add appropriate tags to your articles. I would also make a youtube video pointing to your site. Using Youtube is powerful SEO and can deliver a lot of traffic to your site. If you stay on top of this process of using a little common sense and SEO on your website, you should see a significant gain for at least a little while. I wish you some common sense success with this SEO tip for your blog.

This is a quick post with a definite purpose. The purpose is two-fold. Provide a link to my friend, Allyn Hane over at BloggerIllustrated, the internets best Internet Marketing Video Blog about his most recent post covering the A-Holes at Monster Energy Drink and their corporate greed and hate for America in trying to harm a Vermont Beer Brewery who embodies the American Spirit and employs 7 employees.

Please visit Allyn Hane and listen to what this Corporate Pig is trying to do to this small businessman. Monster Energy Drink Sucks and I will never personally buy this crap other than to do a review to see for myself what others are calling a drink that must taste like camel piss. This is not what America is about and we should all send this company a message. If you think Monster Energy hates America, please join in the effort. Both of the videos are rated R, so this is your fair warning. Put on some headphones so the kids will not hear. This could easily happen to you or someone you know and it should scare you all that this can happen.

I would encourage all of you who are outraged to write posts about your disgust and point some good links toward Allyn Hane who has taken on the cause. That’s a small way in which all of us can help a fellow American Small Business Owner. Visit Rock Art Brewery.

How do you determine value?

I came across a site recently, dnScoop.com, that claims to estimate the value of any website that you enter. Ok, just like all of you, I couldn’t resist. Yes, I typed in the sites of a bunch of my friends and the A-listers because of my own curiosity. Some of the numbers were staggering. The numbers were beyond ridiculous and I have no idea what kind of formula that dnScoop is using to determine value. I have always had a little personal saying that goes something like, “you ain’t got nothing thats worth a dime unless someone buys it.” There are variations of that also that I have been known to use, it depends on how much beer I’m drinking at the time.

For me, it all stems back to the baseball card craze where everyone claimed stupid values over cardboard cards with pictures of baseball players. Think about it. Unless it’s Babe Ruth, it’s a fairly dumb concept. Sorry all of you collectors who own Mark McGwire rookie cards where he looks like a bean pole. Mark’s steroid use and fake home runs have rendered that card pretty useless. Sorry to all of you Barry Bond rookie card collectors also. To me, value is what other people are willing to pay, not a number that you or other people put on something. Value is not actually determined until something sells. Once it sells, now you have something to go by.

I realize I am digressing but just trying to make a point.

Looking at the values placed on these websites got me to thinking a little. Starting a free Wordpress blog would have been the smartest investment the world has ever seen. Starting several would put you in the same league as Donald Trump and Warren Buffet. Those idiots actually used their own money to invest in things like the stock market and real estate. What losers. If they had only become professional bloggers, imagine what they might be worth today.

What would the Problogger put on his net worth statement? Should a bank require the CopyBlogger to list his $2 million dollar website as an asset? Should Seth Godin use his website as collateral when applying for a loan? What in the hell would the banks think if they even thought you had a website valued at these crazy values and did not list it as an asset when applying for loans? Would it be fraud?

Should the CopyBlogger list this on his net worth statement? See what a .pdf e-book aimed at noobs will get you.

The Problogger’s new forum site. Griz makes this in a month doesn’t he? BTW, it would not give me a value on Griz’s ugly blogger site that dominates the serps in which the new Problogger.com forum administrator advises against using.

Problogger.net is doing quite well. See what sea turtles can do to your bank account.

Seth is kicking ass. Seth is an A-lister who I think actually does give value.

The original Trust Agent. This begs the question.
Why would you build an A-list site with your name? How can you sell your name?
If he sold and walked away any so-called value would plummet I think.
If I was part of the herd of any site and I knew my master had sold out and left, I’ll find me another herd. Would you?

The Keyword Academy is probably grossly undervalued.

Wouldn’t most people think that Squidoo was worth less than HubPages? I guess not.

Sorry HubPages, you got schooled by Squidoo.

This is the one you have all been waiting on. Make me an offer folks.

This is B.S. The internet’s best internet marketing video blog is obviously undervalued.
I did not rig the number to be the same as mine.
Go to the site and check for yourself.

Are you kidding me? How long would it take to earn that kind of ad revenue?

I expect that BloggerLens will be worth a couple mil by 2012 and I’m willing to wait. What say you folks?

**Update** From my last post here on Bloggerlens about AWeber email marketing sucks, Josh Whitford from Marketing Ideas got my hint and acted on it. Thanks Josh. Whose your Trust Agent?

This may be one of the shortest articles I’ve ever written here on BloggerLens but I would like to pose a question to you. This week , I made a focused effort to sell some items from around my house. I shut out most all other distractions. I took pictures, I made a couple of videos highlighting the products. I posted to Ebay, Craigslist and to a related Forum for the items I was selling.

I focused like a laser beam and didn’t let up until I had properly marketed and posted my items for sale. As a result, in 3 days I have made my first sale from the items I’m pushing. Total revenue, $250 placed into my PayPal account this morning. I realize that this is not what people normally think of when you mention making money online.

So I ask you this. With the effort I put forth with the ultimate goal of making the sale, in much the same way as getting someone to click on my Adsense or Amazon affiliate link, do you consider what I did as making money online?

Your thoughts?

BloggerLens.com

I’m always looking for ways to market my hyperlocal blog in my community. I’m a simple man or at least I try to be and I love simple ways of doing things. Simple just strikes me as being effective. Today I would like to show you the latest thing I’m doing to market my website. Each and every one of you can do this. It’s simple and cheap. Once you are done, it’s also free advertising within your community. This was especially cheap for me. It was a gift from my daughter for Fathers Day.

I must ask you what is better? Having 10,000 followers on Twitter who do not have a clue as to who you are? Or having 10 people in your town become subscribers to your hyperlocal blog because they saw your site while at the grocery store? I’ll leave that answer to you.

I had a little fun with this video. I hope you enjoy it.

Update: I’ve been asked where the graphics came from. I called my daughter and here is the website. Jazzy Graphics. Cheap too. It appears it was only $5 plush shipping. Goof thing she also got me a Costco Gift Card or else the Old Man would have had to have a talk with her about being so gift frugal.

Here is another article I wrote specifically with marketing ideas for your Hyperlocal Blog.

If you would like to leave a voice comment on this article, just have your phone ready and click the call me button.

Copyright 2009 BloggerLens.com Hyperlocal Blogging

A little something new here on Bloggerlens.com. A video intro to my latest article. If you have an opinion on this, good or bad, please share in the comments. No need to mention I need a shave, I already know that. I’m pretty scruffy! The intro was made with my favorite little flip camera, the Kodak Zi6.

Have you planted any seeds lately in your hyperlocal garden? If you are wondering what the heck I’m talking about, I’m talking about networking and building relationships in your community. When you make the decision to go hyperlocal, you will immediately broaden your horizons and your your circle of friends and business relationships will start to grow.

If you are new to Bloggerlens, I started this site to share my ups and downs on my journey as a hyperlocal blogger. If I find something that works for me I will share it with you. If I find something that bombs, I will share that with you also. What may work in my community, may not work in yours and vice-versa. Wherever you are and whatever type of site you publish, it’s a good idea to plant seeds everywhere in the hopes that one day the harvest will come.

Today I’d like to share a little harvest with you. I’ve been working on a business relationship that is starting to pay off a little and I want to share how I did it and how you may apply the same principal. I created my hyperlocal blog, the Monroe Scoop, in an effort to create my own job. The site gives me tremendous personal satisfaction as well as the potential of a full time income in the future. I have tried not to be stupid with it so far as to not alienate certain parts of my readership. I want everyone to feel welcome when they arrive and I want the site to be beneficial to my community.

Here’s the Scoop. This is how it all went down from the beginning. My little case study:

Early on I republished some articles and information I found that pertained to our local shopping mall. I was basically passing on some good community information I found readily available and used my hyperlocal blog as an additional outlet for exposure to the Mall. Every time I published anything, I would go to the Mall website and use the contact form that was provided and notify them of what I did and give them a link. (you can easily do the same in your community)

I probably did this 3 times and finally received a response and a thank you from the Director of Marketing of the Mall. The Director wrote me a nice e-mail telling me how much she enjoyed my site and felt like I was filling a need in the community. She especially liked the fact that I posted a lot of community videos. That did a lot for my ego as well as send me a message that I was on the right track.

I did the same thing a couple more times. When I would send an e-mail, I always asked to let me know of any special events at the Mall so I could cover them on the site. I always received a thank you email from the Director.

One day I received an email from her with a press release that the Mall was going to have a huge fashion show which was co-sponsored by prominent local businesses. She invited me to cover it on my site. I agreed and expressed that I might even shoot some video. She was thrilled at the possibility. Long story short. I covered the Fashion Show and shot video. I met the Director of Marketing that evening as well as many local prominent business leaders that she personally introduced me to. I handed out business cards all over the place. I was pleasantly surprised when many told me they were already aware of my site and they visit everyday. I was extremely encouraged at this point.

I worked pretty hard on the video I shot that evening. My goal was to establish a business relationship with the Mall. I wanted to impress them with what I could do. I also hoped that other business would see what I did for the Mall and it might open up more opportunity. Here is the video that I shot of the Fashion Show.

As you might guess, the video was a huge hit in my community. I received a ton of traffic to my site. I gave free publicity to the Mall. I had a very happy Director of Marketing. This was actually very good publicity, not only for the Mall, but for the Director personally. These folks are usually looking for anything positive they can send to their bosses and it helps build their portfolios. I burned a copy and gave to the Director for her to use in the future and the video was also played at the next Board of Directors meeting for the Red Cross in my community.

The video was actually worth several hundred dollars if someone were to pay for such a video, but I did it for free. Sometimes you have to give before you receive.

Let’s move on. I have now basically worked my ass off for free but I have developed a relationship that I previously did not have. I have spread some good will in my community and more and more people are becoming aware of my site. One of the other features on my site that I do are called 5 x 5 videos. I shoot 5 video clips that are 5 seconds each in my community. You have to guess where I’m at. As it turns out, the Mall Director loves these videos. The 5 x 5’s are not my idea as I’ve seen them posted on other sites. The one’s I’ve seen are usually just that, just 5 x 5 clips period. I decided to put a spin on the idea and make people guess where I’m at. They have been popular on my site. These are quite easy to make. Here is an example of one below.

Here’s the good part. She liked them so much that she wants the Mall to sponsor 2 of these per month. The Mall will be giving away Mall gift certificates to the winner who guesses all 5 locations. It’s taken quite a while to get to where I’m at in my opinion. I feel extremely fortunate and a little bit lucky. Many hyperlocal bloggers will tell you that you can’t really expect to monetize your site for 2 years. I was definitely on a mission to break that time frame. Just like a hyperlocal blog that focuses on a community or even a small section of a city, I focused on a business that I wanted to be my flagship sponsor. I’m seriously hoping that Mall Sponsorship will give me the street credibility I need for other advertisers to jump on board. I can’t discuss the financial arrangement but I’m happy that the site is going to produce income.

Just this week, I kicked off the article and video interview with the Director of Marketing announcing the Mall Sponsorship. My 5 x 5 videos start next week. Here is the video interview that appeared on my site this week.

Harvest Time

Building a hyperlocal blog is not easy, it’s hard work and requires a time commitment but the rewards are out there. I consider myself to still be somewhat new at this and I never know what’s waiting on me around the next corner. Why don’t you start a 5 x 5 video series on your hyperlocal blog? They are a lot of fun and will get the attention of your community. Get out there and start building some relationships. Do you have your eye on who may be a great flagship advertiser of your site? If so, my advice to you would be to go do something for your advertiser for free and let them know about it. Plant those seeds. Plant them all over your community. At some point in time, the harvest will come.

Don’t forget my free offer to help you get set up with your own hyperlocal blog in your community.

I made the quick intro video at the top of this article with my favorite flip camera. The Kodak Zi6. I recommend that every hyperlocal blogger get one. Go get one today.

Copyright 2009 bloggerlens.com Hyperlocal Blogs & Citizen Journalism

Good morning or good afternoon to all of my friends here on Bloggerlens. I trust that all of you had a great weekend. It’s now time to get back to business and see what we can discover together about making a strong hyperlocal blog.

Today I’m going to feature just one of the tools I use on my hyperlocal blog. I use many and they are all important to me. Since I do a lot of videos on my site, I thought I would give a video review of the Kodak Zi6 HD Flip Camera.

I love this camera! Ok, review over….no just kidding there, but this is one of my favorite tools in my hyperlocal arsenal. For a long time, I had a flip camera in my sights and I lusted to own one but which one? I’ll be honest with you, they just looked like they were flat out fun! Now that I own one, they are flat out fun!

As many of you, I started reading reviews and watching video reviews trying to figure out which flip camera would suit my needs the best. It was a little confusing to me but one camera seemed to be taking the lead the more I researched. The Kodak Zi6 seemed to be the overall favorite for so many people. I made the decision to buy the Zi6 and I couldn’t be happier. I have had so much fun with this camera and I never leave home without it. Literally folks, if I drive off and forget it, I turn around and go get it. I bet many of you do the same thing if you forget your cell phone. If you are, or become a hyperlocal blogger, you will feel the same way about your camera. I figure, sure as the world, if I leave home without it, I’ll stumble upon the biggest local story of the year and I will not be able to capture the event because I was too lazy to turn around and go back home. You do not want this to happen to you.

Let’s get on with the review. I could keep blabbing away but why don’t I show you? I would appreciate all of you keep the snickering to a low roar. This is my first attempt at a video review. The review goes into a little depth on the camera and I hope that if you are currently sitting on the fence, that this Kodak Zi6 Review will help you make a decision. If you have any trouble viewing the video below, here is a link to the same video on YouTube. Kodak Zi6 Review.

Ok everybody, wake up, the video just stopped. LOL! I hope you are still awake. Here is direct link to the Zi6 on Amazon. It is my affiliate link and if you make a purchase, I’ll make a couple of bucks and it helps to support this site. Kodak Zi6 HD Pocket Video Camera on Amazon

I want to show you an example of when I grabbed my camera just in case I could shoot a video and post it to my hyperlocal blog. A while back, a brand new IKEA Store opened in Charlotte, N.C. I live on the outskirts of Charlotte and for months, the news of this store was all the rage in my area. I’m a guy, I don’t understand these things but that’s ok. I understand taking a club, killing my food and cooking it over fire, that’s it. Shortly after it opened, my wife informed me that I would be accompanying her to the store for a glorious afternoon of hand holding and shopping. Oh please…kill me now I thought.

I went with a smile on my face. I grabbed my trusty little Kodak Zi6 (notice the bold-faced keyword for SEO purposes) and headed for Charlotte. I hate to admit this, but I had a great afternoon of hand holding with my wife and the store was cool as hell. We even ate dinner at the store. The Swedish Meatball Specialty they served were enough for me to break at least 2 commandments. It’s the biggest single store I’ve ever been in. The Swedes make awesome furniture and right now, I’m typing this blog article on a desk that I went back to IKEA and bought. So much for my caveman exterior I try to keep. Check out the video below and see how I turned a shopping trip into an article for my hyperlocal blog.

I shot this video realizing that my target audience would most likely be the ladies. Most guys are not shoppers. I think it’s important when you shoot a hyperlocal video, try to understand who will most likely be watching the video the most. If you notice in the video, I stop talking at one point and try to shoot the tour to give an idea of what you can expect to see when you visit.

The store is located in Charlotte and not necessarily hyperlocal to my community. However, everyone in my community was buzzing about this store for months. Here is a link to the article that appeared on Monroe Scoop. It was a great article and video for my blog. Here is the gravy. In my area, when I type into Google, IKEA Store Charlotte NC I usually find myself on the first or second page. I have been in the #1 spot many times when I check. As I write this article, I’m sitting on #13 in Google in my area. This article and video has sent my blog a lot of traffic and continues to do so.

Never miss an opportunity to post a hyperlocal video or article. Sometimes when you least expect it, an opportunity presents itself. Make sure you add some sort of video camera to your tool kit. Take it everywhere you go. Please tell me how you use video on your hyperlocal blog. I am very interested in hearing about it and I’m sure you would be helping the readers of Bloggerlens.

Here is a free download of the song I used in the IKEA video. “Shopping” by Bare Naked Ladies. Be my guest to download and put it in your own hyperlocal video if you get an opportunity. Review a local store and drop it in your video.

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If you are considering starting a hyperlocal blog in your area, don’t forget my free offer to help you get set up and going. It’s never too soon to start.

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