Every time I read and hear people talking about online marketing for businesses, they seem to approach the subject with big businesses in mind or marketing that is great for national or international audiences; in other words they seem to be so focused on marketing for the likes of John Lewis, Debenhams and Vodafone (like these are the businesses that are in need of help!)… but, what about your local dentist in Northampton? or internet marketing service milton keynes? or perhaps your plumber in Buckingham? or that great little coffee shop on the high street in your local town? These smaller businesses that depend on more locally based customers and clients will go out of business if they do not bring in MORE CUSTOMERS?
With this in mind I want to address some of the issues that face smaller businesses and how they can captalise on a growing trend in the use of the internet for searching local goods and services.
The thing is, online competition for local businesses is insanely low. If you are engaged in marketing your business online, you’re probably spending your whole day competing in ridiculously competitive markets. Right now the average town and city up and down the country has minimal competition for local search. You don’t need to be fighting with the heavy hitters in your online market place in order to position your business in front of customers or potential customers for your local area. This is because there is a huge gap in the online local market place that local businesses can exploit to get new customers coming through their doors.
Below I set out some of the easiest things that you can do to make your business more visible online for local search.
You need to understand that the internet has become the primary method of information gathering. Just think of your own behaviour. Out of the last 10 times you needed to find some information, did you pick up the Yellow Pages? dictionary? go to your local library? or did you just ask Google?
With something like two-thirds of all searches for local business information done online (TMP Directional Marketing 2008) it makes a huge amount of sense to ensure that your business is optimised for local search.
So, if you are a small business that provides goods or services to your local area, the question you need to ask yourself is ……
Are you struggling to get business from your website?
Maybe you’ve invested a lot in a website that doesn’t get any visitors?
Do you wish you could get more quality visitors and enquiries?
……if you answered yes to any of these, then ask yourself, WHY?
With so much scope and opportunity for small businesses to optimise their services for their local market, there is no rhyme or reason why online business generation can not work for you.
Simple Tricks and Tips for Small Local Businesses to get Noticed on Google
1. Get your business listed in Google’s Local Business Centre -
Being listed in Google maps and google local has quickly surpassed the importance of being listed in business directories such as the yellow pages. Make sure your business shows up when someone searches your business name and keywords related to your business.
i. Establish a business address in the city where you want your site to rank, if you are targeting a location which is not the location of your registered business address.
ii. Join a local chamber of commerce and request a link from its site.
iii. Do a search for your target town or city i.e. do a search for “town, city, county”. From the search results get links from the top pages associated with your target town, city or county.
iv. Link to your Google listing from your website using your target anchor text.
v. Include localised anchor text in your link building efforts.
vi. Include keyword terms in your business description.
2. Reviews
Google likes reviews, so encourage your customers to review your products and services publicly to boost your rankings and provide social proof value to the products and or services that you provide. This can have great results when reviews are placed in local discussion forums or on social media and networking sites.
3. News/ Press Releases
News, public announcements and press releases for a business or subject will definitely being to show up more frequently on the first page of Google’s search results. A few tips to get your business’s news results in Universal Search:
i. Make sure that you send our your press releases on a regular cycle.
ii Include your target keywords in the title of your press release and sparingly throughout its copy.
iii Use PRWeb and other top press release submission services for online syndication to other sites.
iv. Anchor text target keywords in the press release to your site and other sources.
v. Include your target keywords in your alt tags with any images submitted with your press releases.
4. Video
Online video marketing is no doubt one of the best ways to present an idea, showcase the benefits of your business, or just simply to get your message across in an entertaining way, even if it’s only to increase your business’s brand awareness.
Video results in search engines are constantly gaining in popularity and visibility, so make sure video content is optimised for your target keyword. Video is also quite possibly one of the easiest ways website owners have in penetrating difficult search terms/markets and with technological advances it is so much easier today to record, upload and publish video content to the internet than ever before.
These are but a few of the simplest and quickest tips and tricks for getting your business presence felt in your local online market.
2009 saw the start of some significant changes in how Google’s search engines organises information with the launch of Universal Search. This will carry through into 2010.
This year, you will start to see that search engine listings will no longer be about ranking for number 1. With Google’s new (launched in early 2009) Universal Search options filtering into how its search results pages are displayed, you will be seeing other types of web content beginning to appear on its search pages – white papers, images, news, product search, video, blogs, etc. What this means for businesses is that the internet market has radically changed over the last 12 months. Effectively, Google (which carries over 70% of the online search market) has flipped everyone upside down. So now the market is wide open and local search can be exploited more than ever before. Who you thought was your online competitor yesterday may no longer be your competitor.
For now the key to success online is diversity marketing. Pay particular attention to what’s happening in Google's world, learn to see through Google’s eyes and focus your business marketing in media that Google loves.
Article Directory : http://www.articlecube.com
For more hot tips on how to achieve online success for your business through diversity multi-media marketing, go and take a look at our internet marketing service milton keynes and beyond for help and advice on how local businesses can dominate their local market.
