I maintain my umpire blog (www.amateurumpire.wordpress.com) because I enjoy it – but also as a laboratory for my search consulting business. As I have previously mentioned, last year a fellow umpire told me he got a game because someone found him on Google. He is the umpire coordinator at Livingston little league and is listed on their site. When someone googled “umpire livingston”, he came up. I vowed that I would never let that happen again, and got my blog started the next day.
Results have been, I must say, great. In a pretty obscure niche, I have gotten at least 5 phone calls from people who googled a related phrase, found my site, and called me! 3 of them were people looking to become umpires, but that’s okay..they found me. One of the calls was an absolute home run – exactly the kind of call that the site was designed to generate. It was from an attorney who’s firm was hosting a tournament and they needed umpires – so the 1st place he turned was google. This is EXACTLY what I am pitching small businesses on. I didn’t get the games for some logistical reasons, but the call made my day.
An then just now I got a call from someone who is planning on having a series of informal games over the next few weeks and is looking for an umpire. Again, a great, encouraging call. Hooray for me!
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