Aaron Weiche

Finding a trusted source, it's a challenge for business owners in many things to run your business.  Good news, I have the best source for a business owner or marketing person to learn best practices of SEO and Local Search.

Coming to the Minneapolis and St. Paul area on May 13th is Local University.  Local U is a 1-day Internet marketing workshop focused on entry level to intermediate level information for marketing online.

Who are you learning from?  Only the best.

• GOOGLE:  Reps from Google are part of the workshop and will walk you through their Local Business Center and explain the basics you need to properly claim and edit your business information on Google. 
• BING:  A Rep from Bing will be there to discuss their local search offering and what Bing offers as a search engine. 
• NATIONAL EXPERTS:  Trusted, experienced and highly sought after speakers will walk you through search engine optimization for your website, social media, blogs, local search, Google maps, do it yourself tips and more.

--> View the details, speaker bio's and sign up online now!
Use promo code five2010 to save $40!  Only $89 for the workshop!

Below are just 3 of the many positive comments from past Local U attendees:

I was completely new to these concepts, but they were well explained. It was very easy to go to the office afterward and implement everything discussed.
-- Benjamin Pingel, Marketing Director for Thrifty Car Rental of Spokane, WA

I appreciated that this seminar was directed towards FREE methods of improving search results and improving site traffic.  We are equivalent to a non-profit and so we have no budget for ppc marketing. Also was impressed that the presenters are top in their field - that gave a little more weight to what they were saying.
--Sarah Reynolds

I really appreciated all of the small details that you clarified (meta tags are NOT used to classify my website? HUH?) as well as the differences between organic, maps and adwords and how to boost my status. I also appreciated knowing what I need to do to help the spiders figure out who I am and what I do. If you ever need a regular, run of the mill business person to speak at any of your events - call me! I would love to participate!
--Tia Wooley, Beautiful Photo Studio

Local University is a great opportunity for Minnesota and I hope to see you there.  A big thanks to the support from local sponsors Deluxe For Business and ReliaCloud - Cloud Hosting from VISI.

Five Technology is currently being featured through December 30th on Around Town TV, a Twin Cities cable program that airs on cable Channel 6.  Around Town TV has been a client for a number of years and is currently undergoing a redesign as well.  Here is the Five segment:

You can also catch the full episode (No. 16 for 2009) on their website.  Around Town has been featuring great local businesses for many years and you can catch host Carla Beaurline and the current episode multiple times weekly.

Our office had a lot of fun with the lights, camera  and action.  Thanks Carla and crew.

Free, easy and one more way to communicate with residents, Twitter can be a great tool for cities. I live in Buffalo, MN and noticed that they took the plunge onto Twitter last week (@BuffaloMN).

For someone like myself who spends plenty of time on Twitter, I'll likely be better informed.  If they use it to listen to what residents might have to say as well as talk, I'll be even more impressed.

The obvious big challenge will be in the number of Buffalo residents using Twitter and I'll be interested to see if the city promotes it via other tools.  These days it's important to find ways to bring your message where the people are, not try to get them to the message.

Is your city on Twitter? Is it helping you as a resident?

Aggregation, crowdsourcing, RSS readers, feeds, apps ... the list goes on of how the Internet can allow for success in being the location where information is pulled together.

Now it's being tried with local news as former / longtime KARE 11 anchor Rick Kupchella (@kupchella) has launched Bring Me The News (Bring.MN). The website focuses primarily as a gathering point for Minnesota news from other sources, filtered by a handful of experienced news professionals.  Bring.MN will be reporting themselves, but just roughly 10% of content will be from them.

In a nutshell, I really like it.  I think it can bring light to many other sources for great information.  Local blogs, hyperlocal blogs, small town newspapers and more can have a bigger platform if all goes well. Could even Twitter or Facebook be part of the landscape someday?

On a web design note, I like the interface, but feel that the stories are far to subtle in their layout and callouts. I think the minimal use of a header and the lack of banner ads is fabulous though as well as the listing of the story source right upfront.  Will it be good or bad for users that they are not a typical news layout with the web design?

I'll be paying attention to Bring.MN simply for the fact I love the idea, now let's see if it can bring more than news ... a profit.

Visit the website:  http://bring.mn

I'll take any compliment I can get from web and Internet talent Ed Kolher.  Ed recently posted on his own list of Social Media Innovators in Minnesota and I made the list.

3. Aaron Weiche does a nice job balancing work related and social tweets for his web design firm (Five Technology) and has measured the revenue per tweet that he’s generated.

Thanks for the nod Ed (Twitter: @edkohler ).