Dominating the local SERPs has been something I’ve been pondering for quite some time now. But as with so many of my projects, I never get around to them, lose inspiration, or some other pathetic excuse. The reason local SEO has always appealed to be is the added sense of security. There will always be small business in my area that are looking to expand onto the web, and I certainly believe I can help.

My plan of attack is to create a number of various, high traffic, web properties for my “hometown” of Gaithersburg, Maryland. I hope to make some valuable connections with local small businesses, by offering low cost, high traffic, ad spots across my network. But where will they direct this traffic? Ah-hah! That’s where I come in. Not only can I offer my customers low cost, highly targeted, local traffic, but I can also provide them with a full blown web presence, and internet marketing campaign. In other words, the cheap ads will be my foot in the door.

Gaithersburg Local

My first project is GaithersburgLocal.com, which will be my main hub. I’m honestly not quite sure how I’ll be keeping it full of fresh content, but maybe November is just the start of many 50k word months, thanks to WebWriMo… we shall see. Working on a local project will hopefully get me in touch with some people that will be happy to help out too.

Anyway, the goal is to compete with the local newspaper(s), and hopefully I will gain the advantage as newspapers become obsolete. I plan to be providing news, business, entertainment, sports, dining, and event coverage. I’m still not sure if all these different super-mini-niches will be contained under the GaithersburgLocal title, or if I will migrate them over to their own domains. Wordpress probably isn’t capable of everything I want to do, so it will likely be the only option. Again, we shall see.

Day 1:

I justed started working on this a couple hours ago, but I’ve gotten a good chunk of work done already.

• I got another sexy theme from Elegant Themes. I’ve actually used a few themes from Nick, the owner already. I figured I would take advantage of it since it’s only $19/yr. The theme still needs a lot of changes, but it’s hard to work with without much content to fill it with. Many changes will be made in coming days.
• I got a post up about a Veteran’s Day event being held in downtown Gaithersburg. I plan to stop by tomorrow, during the event, so I can take pictures and such. Community involvement is going to play a big role in the success of this site, so I figured I’d start sooner than later.

Whats Next?

I obviously need to add more content so the site can start looking worth the $8.81 I payed for the domain. Once the site fills out a little more I’ll be able to present it to local business owners, and properly promoting it.

I know a few business owners in the area, and am going to try to strike a deal for free ads on the site, in exchange for some in store ads, that will hopefully bring some traffic in. I also plan on taking a page from Shoemoney’s book (though I doubt this is in anyway original), and try to collect emails by offering coupons from local merchants.

I’d really like a community of some sort to go along with it, but it may be one of those features that deserves it’s own site. Speaking of which, has anyone ever tried phpizabi? I used it when it was still very unstable, and it caused me nothing but trouble. However, it looks much more promising than before. Glowleaf recommends phpfox, but I almost always prefer to go open source (because I’m cheap and like the faster development).

The other option is to go with a forum, and I’ve always wanted to use Vanilla or bbpress.

Anywho… I’m just rambling at this point, and I doubt anyone wants to continue to read my frantic brainstorming. I’ll try to update you guys on the progress of my local efforts, the results in particular.

I wish I knew exactly what was next, but then again, this industry wouldn’t be as fun if I did.