Changes over the past 2 years?

Since you've been gone...the Parade of Newbs, some are now two years down the road, have entered local...

And the services you offer at your site, are the sames one being offered by a spate of marketers, who operate mostly on PRICE.

EVERY service you offer on your site, can be done remotely from India or from anywhere really, and at prices you can't compete against.

Your entire approach is INTERNET marketing, you will find some stiff competition..but there will be one guy or gal who kills you day after day.

That is the person in the trenches of Greater Griffith, from 94 N to 30S from 65E to 394W is going to kick your ass every day.

The guy who spends some shoe leather, treats these small businesses as PEOPLE and not as an ATM.

First, you need to reactivate your blog, the almost 3 years between posts says what?

I do digital, blah, blah, blah as do 1001 Warriors, and they are also using state of the art. You say you combine with tested and proven, like what?

You site goes back to 2013, maybe do a blog post as to WHY you have been absent.

Good luck Paul, I think you are going to find this market a bit harder to crack before you started chasing Amazon. ONE hot idea for local, is PRICE.

Go be the cheapest. A no brainer. An automatic yes.

Instead of offering a 395 buck ad on a co-op postcard, offer one for 97.
Instead of charging 1500 a month for a package of services, go lower.
Instead of chasing after customers, set it up so they come to you, and one last point, you're website has too much about you, who cares who you studied from and not enough great REASONS, just a general "more business" hazy promise by using digital, you can do better than that.

GordonJ

You need to reactivate those old customers, and perhaps you can offer personal appraisal in addition to the free ebook.

You are right about Amazon and ebay.. things have changed. Ebay has been far easier to compensate for adjust... Amazon as far as a "non assisted" point of sale is a lost cause. However I have been working on a strategy for about the past 2 years with Amazon, by doing what it is you want to move into, and targeting my listings "locally" and maintain the platform.

I primarily use Amazon as an affiliate seller, I do however do some direct selling there. I have found that targeting local and "assisting" traffic towards your product that way helps in giving your product the needed algo boost to get better internal Amazon search rank.

The biggest thing that has changed in Local search... I would say is the use of "same address" for different aspects of business... you cant do it anymore - which sucks. Google right now is taking a single address and allowing a single listing ( site wide ) regardless of business type. so if a plumber and a seller of goods happen to share the same address 325 a street #a and 325 a street #b - only one of these 2 business will get a 3 pack listing... the lessor of the 2 will actually even see a decrease in the organic Serp.

Aside form tha tI would say local is pretty much the same.. go check the most recent local updates, and do a quick read and you will be fine.

Hope that Helps!

Thanks for the feedback Gordon. I've been in business for almost 20 years and have never been even close to the cheapest so don't plan to start now. I've always focused on quality. There have always been plenty of people in every business I've been in who will do it cheaper so I'm not too worried about that. I could be wrong I guess. Guess I'll find out soon enough how much more competitive it is.