2009 Online Loudoun County Business Marketing Challenge - 3rd Quarter Update

Here's a quick update to our "2009 Online Loudoun County Promotion Business Challenge", started to help stimulate business investment in the county.

The keyword phrase we researched that best illustrates the joint goals of promoting Loudoun as a great place for business investment, along with promoting Loudoun as a great community, was "Loudoun Virginia business DC location great community invest". While it's a very "long-tailed" keyphrase, when used in searches without the quotes it seems to capture the results we're looking for.

We're seeking local and/or regional businesses who are doing their best to promote, online, Loudoun County as a business destination; a great place to invest commercial and community assets. The results so far aren't spectacular - it appears there's a heavy reliance and expectation on the government by businesses to promote the county for them. Some businesses (like us) are taking "matters of the common good" into their own hands, however - as the results reflect. (We did strip out our own businesses, investments and marketing clients from these results - for example, Ingrid Myers, Realtor, who shows up very high in the results.)

Our guidelines for choosing a winner include:

- the business must be local to the DC metro region; final winner's preference given to Loudoun-based businesses (i.e. "Made in Loudoun"), "single" owners (vs. groups or associations, though we'll include these)
- the business must be actively promoting Loudoun (with results not simply based on coincidental copywriting)
- the results will be drawn only from Google search results, with much preference given to results that are current, i.e. from 2009
- businesses which are primarily "traditional media" or "political support" in nature are excluded
- businesses who are direct competitors with us and/or our clients will be indicated as such

Here, then are the top 5 leaders - note that the business who "wins" our challenge at the end of the year, will receive loads of "free" online publicity for their efforts to help all Loudoun businesses and residents, by promoting Loudoun's economic climate as an attractive reason and place to invest...

1) Kae Davis, Realtor out of Ashburn, VA
2) Cornerstone HR Consulting out of Leesburg
3) Kelly Gaitten, Realtor out of Hamilton, VA
4) Thierry Roche & Associates Realtors out of Fairfax
5) Virginia Business Networking, part of a web design/promotion services organization out of the Shenandoah Valley.

(Here's a secret - it should be pretty easy to increase your status in these rankings, as a Loudoun-promoting business - just include some information on your website or blog about how great Loudoun is, and why investing in Loudoun is such an attractive proposition!).