Marketing for local businesses is a lucrative way to build your own online business while helping small service businesses in your community to get more clients and customers. These companies do not understand marketing on the Internet, and you can use your blogging, article marketing, and social networking skills to make their phones ring.

 

I always recommend starting out by helping a friend or relative to market their business. I did this for a handyman when I was just starting to learn how everything worked on the Internet. I set up a simple blog using the Typepad blogging platform, mostly because I did not know enough about WordPress to set that up at the time.

 

Then I wrote some articles, posted to his blog, used pictures that were optimized for his keywords, and joined a free business forum. All of this took me about three hours each week, and with a month he was on page one of Google and the other search engines for every one of his keyword phrases.

 

At the time, I was only excited because of what happened with his business. He was able to stop advertising in his local newspaper and a magazine, saving him several hundred dollars each month. He was also able to turn down the jobs he did not like to do because he was getting enough calls from people asking him to do what he enjoyed doing. He was also able to stay in business and increase his income during one of the worst recessions in recent history.

 

Within a few months I realized that I could do this for other businesses to make money with what I was learning. My own online business was growing, but I still needed more income. That’s when I started helping a local insurance agent to get more homeowner’s policies. I did the same exact things for him with setting up a blog, writing some articles, and posting to a business forum. I had learned about free internet radio by then and interviewed him once a month for fifteen minutes. His business started to take off within about three months, and he was amazed at how many people were now able to find him.

 

Now I teach others how to market for small service businesses in their local communities. This business is growing daily. Everyone who currently advertises in the phone book, newspaper, or other publications is an excellent prospect. Best of all, you can make money using the skills you are learning to build your own online business. This is a true win-win for both you and the small businesses you will be marketing for.