Tag Archives: business

Local SEO, Website Marketing

Implementing Local Business Internet Marketing

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by Liz Jones

About one-third of people deliberately search for information about local businesses through the internet rather than through the phone book or other traditional media. Ignoring this fact can be detrimental, but those that take advantage of local business internet marketing will see the advantages that are available. There are three basic steps that a local business can utilize in order to market itself online. They are not necessarily followed in any particular order, but they include managing online business profile information, optimizing web pages for local internet searches, and increasing the local popularity of the site by dominating the search results.

There are various sites that provide business profiles, and the most important ones are those run by the primary search engines. In order to ensure that the search engines have an accurate profile of a business, it is necessary to improve and correct profile data through various online channels. These include data providers such as Amacai, infoUSA, and Acxiom. The search engines themselves have business profiles as well. These include Google Maps, Bing Local, Yahoo Local, Local.com, Ask.com Local, and TrueLocal. The search engines obtain information from the national data providers, but allow businesses to submit their information as well. Internet yellow pages such as Switchboard, YellowPages.com, SuperPages.com, and Citysearch should also contain up-to-date information.

The next step is to optimize the primary website. This means performing keyword research, providing relevant local information, organizing the site both for users and search engines to understand, and obtaining links from high quality sites related to the subject of the business. In addition to these tasks, which are relevant to all online businesses, a local business marketing strategy will target keyword phrases that reflect local needs, and information on the site will seem targeted to local traffic rather than a generic audience. Furthermore, a local phone number and address should be listed on all prominent pages of the site, or even on every page. Display a local phone number even if a toll-free number is also available, as this is helpful for the search engines and people to determine the location of the business. Driving directions can also be helpful.

The final step is to dominate the search results for keywords related to the business. The first two steps contribute to this. There are three locations that a search engine can display a website: the general search results, the local listings, and the advertisements. The first step focuses on a high location in the local results and the second step focuses on a high rank in the general results. By taking advantage of pay-per-click opportunities, a business can advertise next to the search results as well.

About the Author

Author is a freelance writer. For more information on local business marketing, please visit http://www.local-marketing.com/.

Offline Promotions

A Great Local Business Marketing Method: Flyers

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By Liz T Jones

There is a lot of confusion surrounding advertising and marketing techniques for local businesses. Many times, when an entrepreneur thinks about ways to promote his business, he thinks about the typical ways that he sees other companies advertising around him. He knows that he sees a lot of ads on television, so he thinks that maybe he should purchase a television ad. Then he sees a beautiful full-page ad a newspaper by a prominent corporation, so he wonders if he should take out magazine and newspaper advertisements. He notices that most corporations have a memorable logo and jingle, so he may spend a lot of time trying to create a theme song for his business.

Unfortunately, these methods do not work well for a small local company. These are the methods that are employed by major corporation with tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on the promotion of their brand and products. Instead, a small local entrepreneur needs to think a bit smaller and cheaper. Perhaps one day he will be able to have a billboard in the middle of Times Square, but for now, he needs to figure something else out. One of the absolute best tactics for a local business marketing campaign is to create and distribute small flyers. Actually, there is not any fundamental different between a flyer and a huge billboard in the middle of a busy city: It’s simply a matter of scale. Let’s take a closer look at why this is such a practical advertising method.

The first reason that creating flyers is a common choice for local marketing for small businesses is that it is relatively low cost. A few stacks of computer paper and some printer ink is all it really takes to get started with an effective marketing campaign. Rather than paying a newspaper or magazine a fortune to circulate an ad, a business can simply hire a local teenager. Teenagers are often eager to work. A good pay rate is a nickel for every flyer that they distribute. They will be flying around town trying to distribute as many flyers as possible.

Another reason that distributing flyers is an effective local marketing strategy is that the distribution can be targeted with pinpoint accuracy. It might be the case that a particular neighborhood would likely contain a large number of potential customers. The flyers can be distributed in that neighborhood to the exclusion of all others. A parking lot in a grocery store is also a great place to find a lot of potential customers.

Author is a freelance writer. For more information on local business marketing, please visit http://www.local-marketing.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Local SEO, Mobile Marketing, Social Media

Location Marketing : The Latest Small Business Tool

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by Ajay Prasad

The basic concept of location based marketing has been around for years but the internet, social media websites as well as ‘smart phones’, together are set to change it forever.

Simple yet brilliant phone applications such as Foursquare and Gowalla which rely on Global Positioning Satellites (GPS) have made it possible for business to communicate with their customers online. More commonly known social networks such as Facebook, Google Maps and Yelp too are catching up and helping make social media become an integral part of real world commerce.

Social networks and the so called ‘lo-so’ networks are an all new medium for Advertising and Marketing and the quicker do business comprehend them and adapt to take their advantages the better it is for them.

How does it all work?

Everything’s digital. Gone are the days when everyone kept a phonebook and a hefty copy of the Yellowpages directories, most of us today look for services and businesses online. Say it’s your first ever evening in San Francisco and the only thing in on your mind is ‘Sushi’. What do you do? You pull out your smart phone or switch on your laptop, visit a search engine website like Google and type “Sea Food in San Francisco” or perhaps even “Sushi in San Francisco”. Trust me, Google will let you in on thousands and thousands of results and is quite capable of leaving you all confused. What do you do? You click on the new Local Search Result Only feature. This would enable the search engine to provide you with results relevant to your physical location. You can then choose from a handful of restaurants, where you may relish your Sushi.

How does Local Marketing help Businesses?

Anyone on the streets, round the corner or even a mile away can, only with a couple of clicks on their ‘smart phones’, instantly find out about the services and goods your business offers. This new possibility naturally increases the on-foot traffic to your store and also encourages impulsive buying. Being published on online business directories allow anyone in the city to find your goods and services.

Local social media marketing is a form of direct marketing; your promotional material reaches out to real potential customers who are already making an effort to find you. Your promotional material is delivered electronically and on demand. It is, in comparison, an eco-friendly form of advertising as there is no hard copy paper wastage involved.
How do Businesses use Local Marketing?

Business register themselves on local marketing feature of search engines like Yahoo, Google, Bing etc, and on Business directory websites such as yelp to gain online visibility. It’s important to fill the business profile on such websites carefully.

Some companies opt for professional search engine optimization (SEO) for their websites. The importance of (SEO) is only to rise in the near future for not only would the website require to be indexed properly so they may be found within the general internet top search engines but would soon also require to be found by physical, geographic, location as well.

Another way businesses are using social media and location based marketing is to engage with their customers. Applications like Twitter allow building an intimidate relationship with customers. They act as an online mouthpiece where a store may talk of a new product launch or an art gallery may speak of a special event.

About the Author

Ajay Prasad is founder of Global Marketing Resources LLC that runs a number of ecommerce websites under its umbrella. Ajay’s functional expertise includes website strategy, marketing management, business development, consumer research, market analysis and strategic planning. SearchLocalHQ is an Orange County Internet Solution company that aims to develop an overall Web Marketing and Local Search Marketing solution for a small local business. For more information visit: http://searchlocalhq.com/