Take Advantage of Local Search Marketing

If you did a survey of people walking down the street and asked them “How do you find a business when you need one?” Many of them are going to say they use the internet. More people are looking up services through the web than flipping through the prehistoric yellow pages. The thing is: you can take advantage of local search marketing and apply it to your small business design without being “out of date.”

If you’re familiar with Google Maps, you may already be aware that if you type “Seafood, Miami FL” into Google’s search engine, a map of the Miami area will appear with a list of restaurants or vendors that specialize in seafood. That’s what local marketing can do for you. When you put your company’s information into Google Places, you’re making it easier for people in your area to find you. You can apply this information to not only Google search engines, but the other major ones as well.

Not convinced it will help drive traffic to your site?

Approximately 20% of Google searches are associated with location. Based on reports from Google itself: The Google Place sections are viewed millions of times each day. By not putting your company contact information, website and other miscellaneous data, you’re missing out on potentially millions of people who could stumble across your website. Local search marketing or “optimization” is just as an important small business practice as the SEO you use on your website.

There are features available specifically through Google Places that can help small business improve their search-ability. You can pay for Tags: Tags come with a $25 price tag per month and promote business features your company is offering. These are currently only available in certain cities, but expanding quickly. So if you want to use Google Tags for your company and your location isn’t listed, it may be shortly.

Google also can send a photographer to your business and offer a free, professional photo shoot. You’re not guaranteed to have a session, but you browse the available locations and apply. If you’re not in one of the major US cities that offers these free photo sessions, take your own photos and upload them to Google Places by yourself.

So, when you implement local search marketing strategies to your small business design, you’re helping to increase traffic to your website by at least 20% (according to Google). Besides a good-looking company website and a well-written blog, it’s one of the simplest ideas to apply to your business to get results.

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