Mount Shasta offers many dining experiences from hot dogs to sushi, hosting more than 30 cafes and restaurants. Here are some that I’ve tried …

Popular Eateries

• Seed of Life Cafe; 414 N Mt Shasta Blvd — coffee and other beverages, bagels, pastries, sandwiches and home made soups and chili, plus dinners some evenings, and specials
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• Lily’s Restaurant; 1013 S Mt Shasta Blvd — offering American style food and dining
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• Casa Ramos; 1136 S Mount Shasta Blvd — Mexican food, full bar
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• Piemont Restaurant; 1200 S Mount Shasta Blvd — Italian food, steaks, fried chicken, full bar
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• Andaman Healthy Thai Restaurant; 313 N Mt Shasta Blvd — American style dining
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• Vivify Japanese Restaurant; 531 Chestnut St — Japanese food, sushi, sashimi, full bar
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• Mike and Tony’s; 501 S Mt Shasta Blvd — Italian American dining, full bar
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• Fusions Thai & Chinese Cuisine; 1328 S Mt Shasta Blvd — Chinese and Thai specialties
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• Billy Goat’s Tavern; 107 Chestnut St — pub fare, full bar
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• Black Bear Diner; 401 West Lake St — diner-style
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• Say Cheese Pizza; 305 Maple St – pizza, calzone, pasta
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• Burger Express; 415 N Mt Shasta Blvd – the american favorite
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• Dos Geckos; 401 North Mount Shasta Blvd –tacos, burritos, nachos, and specialty plates

I’ve eaten at every one of these, and I say … Yumbolicous!

It has been and continues to be a destination of recreationists, adventurists, vacationers, seekers, writers, artists, plunderers and scalawags, as well as to people looking for a quiet life away from the urban sprawl.

High Desert to Sub-Alpine Climate in One Place

The high desert to sub alpine region boasts beautiful forests, panoramic vistas, lakes, streams and rivers enough to keep the writers of Sunset and Field & Stream busy for some time to come.

City of Mount Shasta

The town itself, situated in the south of Siskiyou County, is equidistant from the other three towns in southern Siskiyou County — Dunsmuir, McCloud and Weed. Mount Shasta City has an abundance of history and natural wonders galore, and visitors have many options to enjoy, and accommodations to suit anyone: hotels, motels, bed and breakfast, a resort, campsites, and health spas.

Ya’ll come see us, now, ya hear?

It was a great place. The owner was a local man, and he really knew all about beading and making lovely things. And he enjoyed teaching people, and it was fun. And you know what?

After some months, and a valiant struggle, the owner closed the doors.

It was a bummer, but not a feeling that was so rare, because I had experienced this before, seeing small businesses that I loved and enjoyed close their doors. A health-food Mexican food restaurant here in town. A bagel shop. An art gallery specializing in Western art and landscapes.

Bummer.

Don’t you hate seeing a local business close because they can’t make ends meet?

Why Local Businesses Fail

And the deal is this… usually, it’s because they don’t know how to market their goods and services. For example, I know a lot of musicians. Many are brilliant and talented, and they create the most beautiful music. But most of those do not know how to market, so they struggle endlessly with trying to make a living doing what they love.

And the same for a barbershop, a petstore, a bookkeeping service, a tarot-card reader, an expresso cart, or a small botique.

As someone who has been doing marketing for small local businesses — my own and others’ — for 40 years I really don’t like to just sit back and let this happen.

So I’ve created a free report called “Nine Free Ways to Get New Customers.”

I’d like to give you a copy. And I invite you to share it with your friends, send it to relatives who run small businesses in other towns, and in general get it into the hands of small businesses who need it.

Although the online world is remarkably similar to the physical universe in the principles of marketing, the way you apply them is quite different and most local business owners never figure this out, because it’s not so obvious, and it has a long learning curve.

Please download the following special report, and also share the link to this article with your friends on Facebook, twitter, and any e-mail list that you have.(If you don’t have an e-mail list, buy my book “Marketing Online, Clear and Simple” on Amazon today, and learn why you should have an e-mail list. In the meantime…

Download your special report here. Right-Click and Save to Your Computer –

Nine Free Ways to Get New Customers

[from the article]
Internet marketing is the wave of the future, according to Weed small business owner and e-commerce specialist Arthur Cronos.

“If you’re business is not capitalizing on effective internet marketing, you could be losing a ton of possible revenue,” noted Cronos, who recently led a day-long workshop intended to help local business owners develop their web presence.

Gathering to glean some of Cronos’s pearls of wisdom was a group of local entrepreneurs looking to infuse new energy into their businesses. The answer, as far Cronos is concerned, lies on the web.

In a lively and engaging presentation, Cronos stressed the importance of incorporating the internet as a marketing tool for all businesses, even ones that appear to be unlikely candidates. He noted that 12,000 new buyers are discovering the internet on any given day.

How does the business owner effectively target his or her customers?

How does that person build a database of clients and maximize their return on their advertising investment?

[Ecommerce for the Local Business: read more]

Arthur Cronos’ Book Teaches Using Internet for Business

[reprinted with permission]

“A Siskiyou County man recently published a book that tells local businesses how they can harness the internet to make more income.

“Arthur Cronos’s ‘Marketing Online Clear and Simple’ gives detailed instructions that are not only easy to follow, but interesting to read.

“The book also includes a free video series that demonstrates click by click how to do everything he explains.

“Cronos has worked in sales and advertising for more than 40 years. As the owner of CopyDragon Business Writing Services, Cronos now specializes in online marketing.

“His book outlines three steps which he says will help local businesses make money online.

[read more]

Since so many customers do a search of local business before visiting or calling — and this trend is accelerating with the growth of smartphones — it’s become *essential* to have a location online. Even if it consists of nothing more than What You Offer, some prices or a FAQ, and contact information, you *must* be there, because to the searchers, if they can’t find you … you just don’t exist.

The Affordable Websites service is something I worked out that will do just that.

Get a Website for $99, 3-Day Turnaround

It’s just that simple. Check out WebNova Affordable Websites, and share it with your friends.

And, for those people who need a simple solution like this, I also created a simple one-page summary that describes what works today in online marketing.

Read it here:

Marketing Online on One Page

Most people search online, even when they’re looking for a LOCAL business … especially with the ongoing tidal wave of smartphone use.

Smartphone Consumers Search a Lot

Statistics from the Google report “The Mobile Movement: Understanding Smartphone Users,” 2011:

• 95% of smartphone users have searched for local information
• 61% of users call a business after searching …
• … and 59% visit the location
• 90% of these people act within 24 hours

The Three Waves of Google

Google, and other search engines have generally gone through three modes of operation, all with the intent of delivering up to the searchers the information that’s most likely to satisfy –

1. In the beginning, google simply used title, keywords and meta description .. but it was subject to abuse, and became completely unreliable as the sharpsters got wise and gamed the system
2. Then google began to rely upon inbound links, thinking that if external sites thought the current site was important, then that was a ‘vote’ and this worked until sharpsters got smarter and smarter about how to game the system by manipulating external sites
3. And in 2011, and in 2012, google is turning toward two other things as a way of gathering votes, on the expectation that these new ‘vote-gathering’ approaches will be harder to manipulate

The Increase of Mobile Phones

Right now, there are about 1.25 billion computers in the world … and 3 billion cellphones. And the trend within the cellphone users is to migrate overwhelmingly to smartphones. By 2013 there will be more people searching via smartphone than via normal desktops and laptops. (Sources: Gartner, 2010; Google Internal Data, 2011; Cisco, 2011)

Since Google’s prime directive is to make happy the searchers, Google is already rewarding folks who have a specialized mobile site, and penalizing those who don’t. People who buy Google’s ‘adwords’ advertising now pay less for their clicks if they have a mobile site, and pay more for their clicks when they don’t. And you can bet your bootie that search results are working the same way … ESPECIALLY google’s mobile search results, which is growing in importance every single day.

The Increase of Social Marketing

As described in my book (“Marketing Online, Clear and Simple,” available on Amazon), making money using the internet only happens when three essential steps are done.

If you are a local business marketing online, here are the essential steps: First is having a location online, a website. Second is some METHOD of engaging visitors in a conversation … otherwise, statistics tell us they visit once, and then never ever return again. And third is a METHOD of increasing traffic to the site.

Guess what?

Social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Digg, and Redit all provide a METHOD of engaging visitors into a conversation, and they all provide a METHOD of increasing traffic to your site.

And social site usage is booming.

The Rise of Local-Business Online Methods

Most local business owners are too busy handling the alligators of daily operation to engage in the rather long and changing learning curve of effectively learning online methods that actually work. Some of them “get a website” but never do the other two essential steps, and then wonder why “the website” doesn’t make a dime.

However, this is going to shift a lot in 2012.

The increase in smartphone usage will provide more local-business searches. The increase in social marketing, including people who run local businesses, and the local “chatter” from their customers … will increase search methods leading to greater foot-traffic into local businesses.

Further, the hijacking of first page search results by online sharpsters will become more difficult, and less profitable. That business model usually amounts to the sharpster seizing google results with the intent of grabbing the results, and then sending the buyer to the seller’s website, while extracting some profit in doing so. That model will become more difficult.

However, the “local” searches for a local business marketing online, such as “divorce attorney in pittsburgh,” will still be effective, and the rise in smartphone searches will make this kind of search more effective. Google development of Google places and local search results will support the accuracy of this kind of search.

The Result: A Boom for Local Businesses

And this represents two opportunities …

• If you are a local business, it will be worth your while to (a) get an effective website, (b) create a conversation system, (c) engineer a traffic-building system.
• If you are an online consultant or web-builder or marketing expert, you will most help your clients with their local business marketing online if you can help them with the “Three Step Marketing” Formula (described in my book), and especially with traffic and promotions using a mobile site, a facebook business page, and the new QR-Codes to snag even more smartphone users.

Is this only for big businesses? Or folks with lots of money?

Not really. Sure, big businesses will have web-gurus, but that’s unchanged from the past, and LOCAL searches won’t be much impacted. Local businesses will either have more money and less time to spend, like attorneys and doctors and hardware stores, and they can hire out the work … or they’ll be smaller and have less money and more time for smoozing on Facebook, like a musician and a hair salon and a local coffee house.

Need Help with your Local Business?

Contact me for a free 15-minute Discovery Session.

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Check out the cool graphics on our Facebook business page –

http://facebook.com/CopyDragon

What is a QR Code?

The odd-looking graphic is called a QR code, or Quick-Response code. The graphic can store various kinds of information, contains some error-correction information, and is designed to scan easily and quickly, and can be oriented in any direction for that purpose. (A little different than the bar-codes on cans of peas at the grocery store!) This leads directly to making how to create qr code promotions very useful.

Because of the proliferation of cellphones and the wide availability of scanning ‘apps’ — I use ‘Scan Life’ on my android phone — the QR Code is becoming immensely popular, as a way of providing information very quickly. For example, scanning a QR code with your cellphone can quickly insert into the phone:

1. A phone number, ready for dialing
2. A website address, automatically loading
3. Name, address, and phone, inserted into ‘contacts’
4. A bookmark
5. A wifi location
6. A text message
7. An email address, ready to send
8. A location
9. .. and more!

How to Create QR Code Promotions

The QR Code can store quite a bit of information, and is growing in popularity for promotional purposes. For example, you can now embed an entire email-capture system into (or behind) a single QR code, and because the QR code is a picture, you can use this system anywhere you can place a picture.

That means: on the web, on your business card, on your restaurant’s menu, in a newspaper advertisement, on a window sign, on your stationery, on postcards, in the yellow pages, on your Facebook business page … and the list goes on.

If you would like to employ the power of QR codes and create unique, popular promotions that people love to use … contact CopyDragon.

And to make it really easy, just scan the following graphic with your cell phone …

When surfing with your mobile phone, just go to CopyDragon.com as usual. Our website will immediately know that you’re using a mobile device, and route you to an optimized website that’s easier to navigate on the phone.

==0==

Note to google (only):  the CopyDragon webwriter’s mobile site is located at http://copydragon.com/mob/

If you want to attract customers, the answer’s a no-brainer.

Websites are perhaps the most overlooked vehicle of advertising for local, owner-operated businesses. Yes, every retailer needs one. Every dentist, lawyer, accountant and minister needs one. Every café, restaurant, coffee shop and nightclub needs one. Every wholesale supply company needs one.

I’m not suggesting that all these businesses need to actually transact business online. I’m only saying that everyone listed in yesterday’s Yellow Pages needs to also be available on the internet today–it’s where your customers expect to find you.

If you’re thinking you might not be able to afford putting up a website, think again. For a simple website, a budget of $2,000 to $5,000 for construction and $100 to $400 for monthly maintenance and updates should cover it. Robust sites with streaming video, opt-in subscriber functions and other, more complicated features can run between $12,000 and $20,000 for construction and $500 to $2,000 for monthly maintenance and updates.

How a Website Helps a Local Business

Properly constructed, a website allows your prospects to gather the information they need from the privacy of their own computer monitors. What are the questions your salespeople answer virtually every day? And how, exactly, would your best salesperson phrase those answers on his or her best day? This is the information that needs to be available 24/7 on your site.

Think of your site as a relationship deepener, a half step between your advertising and your front door. Do you suppose it’s easier to convince customers to visit your web site or to convince them to get in their car, drive to your store, park that car and walk in your door?

The internet is heaven on earth for the 49 percent of our population who are introverted. That’s because introverts strongly prefer to gather information anonymously. They’re unlikely to dial your phone number, except as a last resort. Even more unlikely is that they’ll choose to walk into your store and engage a salesperson. Introverts aren’t necessarily shy–they simply like to gather all the facts before they put themselves in a position where they’ll likely be asked to answer questions. Forty-nine percent of your customers strongly prefer to know what they’re coming to buy before they walk in your door. And even the extroverted 51 percent of your target market will appreciate an informative site that functions as an expert salesperson during all those hours you’re not open for business.

Don’t think for a moment that your customers aren’t already online. Several times a month, I speak to groups of at least several hundred people. And I always ask, “How many of you have used a search engine within the past seven days to research a product or service that you were considering purchasing?” I raise my own hand as soon as the question is finished. The hands raised in response have never been less than 85 to 90 percent of the crowd.

The most interesting of these situations happened about a year ago in Las Vegas. I was the keynote speaker for a trade organization whose 1,600 delegates had been gathered from around the world. I was there to deliver a speech on the keys to more effective advertising. The trade organization published a full-color magazine for their members, and prior to this conference, the executive council had been complaining to me privately about the high cost of publishing and shipping that magazine. I was waiting offstage while the emcee introduced me when the chairman leaned over and whispered, “Almost all our membership is over 55 years of age, so you probably don’t want to mention the internet.” Just then, the emcee finished his jabber and barked, “Roy H. Williams!” I opened my mouth and asked this roomful of oldsters, “How many of you have used a search engine within the past seven days to research a product or service that you were considering purchasing?” You guessed it, about 95 percent.

I think maybe that chairman is still standing offstage with his mouth open.

Roy William’s is Entrepreneur.com’s “Advertising” columnist and the founder and president of international ad agency Wizard of Ads. Roy is also the author of numerous books on improving your advertising efforts, includingThe Wizard of Ads and Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads.