The LocalPAGES team is pleased to announce our Business of the Week winner, GrowMap! Considered as one of the top small biz blogs on the web, GrowMap serves as a go-to resource for people that want to grow their small business or blog. As its name clearly indicates, consider this websiite as the map that will help and guide your business towards growth.

One of the great things about GrowMap is that you can always get advice in plain English. Even if you’re not a tech-savvy user, you’ll find that browsing through the site’s blog posts and how-to articles is a breeze.

GrowMap was founded by Gail Gardner, a highly experienced Small Business Social Media and Internet Marketing Strategist. Gail has helped countless bloggers and entrepreneurs increase their revenue through Internet Marketing and online advertising, so you can be confident that this woman knows what she’s talking about and can give great advice.

Another commendable thing about GrowMap is that you won’t find any recommendations that weren’t tried and tested by the founder herself. According to Gail, she never recommends products or services because she was paid to do so. While you may find some affiliate links in the site, they’re only for products or services that she truly believes in. Now that’s a website you can trust.

SMBContest

Gail has definitely been working hard to ensure that bloggers and small business owners alike get the attention that they deserve. In fact, she’s currently spearheading a contest that can help bloggers and entrepreneurs generate more traffic and exposure.

Check out SMBContest, a small business and blogger outreach competition where participants stand a chance to win thousands of dollars in cash prizes, while promoting blogs and small businesses at the same time!

Contest participants: Bloggers that wish to join the contest can do so by writing a post about the best small business advice that they have. This post will be the main contest entry, but participants will receive bonus entries by writing about the contest’s sponsors. Winners will be determined by a panel of impartial judges (influential, social-media savvy experienced bloggers) who will rank each post on a scale from 1 – 10. Their cumulative scores will account for 60% of the total score while the other 40% will be determined by social media metrics.

Contest sponsors: Not a blogger but still want a piece of the SMB action? Then consider participating as a sponsor instead.  There are three levels of sponsorship: Those that contribute $1500 and $1000 to the cash prizes, those that contribute $100 – $500, and those that contribute $50. All sponsors get the benefit of having blog posts written about them by participants, but those that give $1500 and $1000 get the added benefit of having 300 x 250 ad blocks on the SMBContest website. Sponsors that give $500 (and possibly $300 or lower depending on the total number of sponsors) on the other hand will be entitled to 125 x 125 and 468 x 60 ad blocks on the site. Meanwhile, those that contribute $50 will get links to their site posted on the SMBContest site and on participants’ contest entries.

Interested in joining? Get the lowdown on the official contest rules, here.