Small businesses usually get 80% of their sales from customers located with a 70-mile radius of their main location.
This business zone has increased on average 20 miles in the last two years.
Still, local marketing, particularly on the Internet, is increasingly becoming a key tool to small business profits.
As consumers go online more frequently to look for information about local businesses, online channels such as local search have emerged as a key marketing venue.
Some pundits will argue that local advertising is affordable and effective as a channel in which to advertise.
However, there are caveats and small business marketers must be careful when moving into this area.
According to Daniel Owen is vice president of LocalConnex, This effort requires thought and a careful, step-by-step approach.
He has written that the first step in building a business’s online presence is to claim it on the local business listing sections of the major search engines.
These sections allow you to list your local business for free. Local business listings (LBLs) are available through Google Local Business Center, Yahoo Local and Local Listing Center on Bing. Each of these venues have differing requirements and guidelines should be followed carefully.
What’s in the listing is important and Owen gives as an example search engines typically display local search results if the search query includes a regional term.
To optimize your LBLs, make sure to do the following:
- Be careful and precise about the business description
- Keep the firm’s business branding consistent
- Collect customer testimonials, ratings and reviews; and
- include photos, logos and videos where applicable.
To establish an effective online presence, local businesses should take advantage of both LBLs and paid search.
Owen also urges small business marketers not to just focus your business listings on ranking. Instead, think of them as a form of social media advertising. LBLs encourage customer reviews, so be sure to respond to customer feedback about the business when it offered by clients. Use this information to improve the business image and customer relationships.
Small businesses have been moving into online advertising and one way of expanding this effort is to create listing on internet yellow pages and other local search sites.
While the search engines may disagree, it is clear that paid lhese listings help improve small business rankings for LBLs. Paid advertising can help a small business use the major search engines effectively and help capture a significant portion of the local search market.
Owen argues that while LBLs are a good place to start, there's no guarantee that a business listing will be displayed. Similarly, the range of control over a business’s local rankings is limited to standard LBL best practices. Therefore, paid search marketing is another tool for local businesses to use to establish online presences.
Paid search marketing is available on all major search engines through Google AdWords, Yahoo Sponsored, and/or SearchMSN adCenter
In paid search, local businesses can target potential customers by bidding on specific search keywords and choosing how much they're willing to pay for each ad click leading to a website visitor.
As Owen says, paid search guarantees that a business is listed at or near the top of the search results at the very moment potential customers are looking for a particular product or service.
Because costs are tied directly to an ad’s performance, paid search is an affordable and effective way to manage a local business’s online presence with greater control and accountability.
While local search marketing requires time and investment, it's an important medium to focus on as consumers continue to use online channels to search for local businesses.
Daniel Owen is vice president of LocalConnex, the local search division of New York City-based interactive advertising agency Direct Agents. Reach Daniel at daniel@directagents.com |