In this post, I will share three reasons why local search marketing can be the best form of 
internet marketing small business owners can use to attract more customers to their businesses. Local search marketing is a fast, cheap and effective way to get customers from internet marketing. It may be the internet best kept marketing secret.
What is local search marketing? “Local search marketing is the process a small business owner uses to claim, manage and promote their business on the dozens of free local search directories. Search engines use these local search sites to provide information to perspective customers looking for local products and services”.
Local Search Marketing–Changing Customer Preferences
Successful marketing comes down to one thing, giving people what they want, how they want it and when they want it. Customers and the market place determine which marketing forms work not the so called experts.
Why local search marketing? Because customers are demanding a different internet experience. People are frustrated and bored with getting 10,000 websites in response to their internet search. They don’t need all of that information. They want several options and they prefer local choices.
One of every five internet searches is looking for local business solutions. People are using the internet like they used the yellow pages in the past. They are looking for quick information about local businesses that can help solve their problems. They don’t have time to explore hundreds of websites. Given an equal playing field, buyers prefer face to face local purchases.
Search engines recognized this consumer trend. They now automatically include local businesses in the algorithms for determining what sites they present to searchers. Google has begun to place local businesses above the organic searchers. This means you will see the top seven local businesses before you see the 10,000 websites produced by organic searches. Search engines know they must give people what they want and how they want it.
What does this means to you as a small business owner? The playing field has been leveled. Your business can actually appear on the internet before potential customers who are looking the products and services you offer.
Local Search Marketing–Less Competition
What’s the biggest marketing frustration for small business owners? It’s their inability to get new customers from their internet efforts. The odds are stacked against them!
How can you compete against thousands of other websites on the world-wide web? Unless you are willing to spend a ton of money to get your business ranked on the first page of Google, who will ever find you? And what good is it, if someone in China finds you, when you deliver home decorating services in Minneapolis?
Local search marketing sites change these competitive odds in three ways. First, Google
Your competition with local search marketing
and other search engines only show the top 3-7 local sites for people seeking local services. You are not competing against 10,000; you compete only against other local businesses. This significantly improves your odds of success.
Second, let’s say you put your business on 10 of the most popular local search marketing sites. You now have increased your internet presence by 10 fold. Each of these local search sites is like having another website presence. You have just multiplied your visibility on the internet.
Third, only 5 % of the local businesses are using local search marketing sites to promote their business on the internet. This low number is bound to change in 2011. For now, those who seize this opportunity will get their business high on each local search marketing page.
What does this means to you as a small business owner? Your odds of getting your message in front of potential customers have significantly improved.
Local Search Marketing–Control the Process!
Internet marketing is difficult for the average small business owners. More often than not, they are frustrated by not knowing what to do, having the necessary expertise to get it done, or enough money and time to get internet marketing to produce the results they want.
Local search marketing changes this equation. You have has the ability to create and manage your local search marketing. It’s easy to gather the information needed to do local business profiles on sites such as Google Places, Yahoo Business Pages, or City Search. This is not “research” information. This is information you already have. Once the information is generated, it can be used over and over again on a variety of local sites.
With local search marketing, you don’t need to wait for results. When you place your business on local search marketing sites like Google Places, Bing Local Listing, Localeze, Yelp, you don’t need to wait for weeks or months to be noticed by the search engines. It happens in a matter of days. Where else can you find marketing efforts that take affect this quickly?
Each of these local search marketing sites provides monthly statistics on your business activities on the sites. You can use these statistics to make changes to your site profiles. You can manage these changes from your own computer on your own time schedule.
What does this means to you as a small business owner? You don’t need to hire expensive webmasters to create and manage these local search marketing sites. You can do this yourself. It’s within your expertise, control and within your time schedules.
Bonus Reason for Using Local Search Marketing—It’s Free
Here’s a final reason local search marketing will be hot. It will not cost you one nickel in out of pocket expenses to do local search marketing. Local search marketing sites are free sites for your business.
Conclusion
Small business owners are interested in results. Local search marketing allows a small business owner to place their business directly in front of customers who are looking for the type of products and services the small business offers. Without spending a nickel! These are the results small business owners want from their internet marketing!
Please share your comments about local search marketing in the Reply Section Below. Thank you.
