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Can your business be found by local customers?

You are here: Home / Digital Marketing / Can your business be found by local customers?

December 3, 2012 //  by Mike Allton

Reading Time: 2 minutes

It’s no longer enough to have an ad in the yellow pages. Direct mail advertising, leaflets, radio ads, billboards and television – who can afford all that? Cold calling and direct email campaigns can work, but they’re time-consuming and difficult to target.

If your business depends on local customers, it is becoming increasingly critical that your business establish an effective presence online that takes advantage of local search engines and directories and methods. 90% of Americans are now using the internet to shop for goods and services, and 65% of them are using their smart phones. Businesses who aren’t taking advantage of these facts are missing out on potential business! The good news is, it’s not expensive or time consuming to get listed locally. Here are three methods every business should implement immediately.

Local Search

Have you ever used Google to find a local business and noticed the map with one or more local businesses “pinned” to the map? That’s Google’s local search, and all three major search engines (Google, Yahoo and Bing) have that feature.

  • Google: https://plus.google.com/local
  • Yahoo: http://local.search.yahoo.com
  • Bing: http://www.bing.com/local/
Google LocalYahoo LocalBing Local
Google LocalYahoo LocalBing Local

Not only do businesses need to be listed with a profile with each of the major search engines, their profiles need to be complete, accurate, and linked together. Someone who finds you on Yahoo’s local search should be able to read a complete description of what you do, and then follow links to your website or one of your social networks for more information.

Local Power Directories

While these recommendations are specific to the Greater St. Louis Area and the State of Missouri, every city and state likely has similar directories in which businesses can create profiles.

A power directory is a directory that gets a lot of traffic every day, is recognized by Google, and allows businesses to create complete profiles that include multiple links to the business website, internal pages and social networks.

Service Noodle (http://www.ServiceNoodle.com) is a Missouri-based power directory that focuses on businesses that provide a service. Service Noodle uses the same service categories that Google defines, and allows businesses not only a complete profile, but also a dashboard for editing by the business owner, ratings and reviews, and up to 20 images that can help determine if a business is a great fit for a customer. Customers can also contact a business directly from the site using the Noodle form even if it’s after hours.

Service Noodle Directory

Missouri.com (http://www.Missouri.com) is a new website for Missouri that is going to grow to be the place to go for information about what to do or who to call in the state. While the initial focus of the site is on restaurants and bars, it does feature a Work tab that will list all Missouri-based businesses who have a profile on Service Noodle.

Missouri.com Directory

Social Media

Finally, one of the critical aspects of social media that businesses often overlook is the fact that a profile on one of the major social networks is tied to a business address. In fact, Facebook includes their own “places” functionality that users can use to search for and check in to local businesses.

A business should ensure that their complete and accurate address is included as part of their Facebook and Google+ profiles. Businesses should also consider second tier social networks like Foursquare or Yelp.

Foursquare is a social network devoted to local search results.

SEO can be extremely complicated, expensive and time-consuming – but it doesn’t have to be! Contact The Social Media Hat for a free SEO consultation and help implementing these strategies.

Have you tried any of these local search strategies for your own business? What successes have you noticed? Any issues?

Related

Category: Digital MarketingTag: Facebook, Local, SEO

About Mike Allton

Mike Allton is a Content Marketing Practitioner – a title he invented to represent his holistic approach to content marketing that leverages blogging, social media, email marketing and SEO to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert those leads into sales. He is an award-winning Blogger, Speaker, and Author, and Head of Strategic Partnerships at Agorapulse.

Mike is a Virtual Event Consultant and has partnered with Jenn Herman, Stephanie Liu, Amanda Robinson and Eric Butow to write Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing published by Entrepreneur Press.

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Mike Allton is a Virtual Event Strategist, and an award-winning blogger, speaker, and author at The Social Media Hat, where he has been educating businesses and organizations on the best use of content marketing for reaching and converting target audiences. He has spearheaded dozens of live shows and virtual events, reaching tens of thousands of potential customers on behalf of represented brands.

Since 2012, Mike has excelled at helping his community understand the nuance and best practices involved in utilizing social platforms, leveraging social media management tools, and creating 10X content. He has established a reputation for being able to explain complex tools or topics in easy to understand ways, all while bringing a necessary sense of overall brand strategy and business purpose.

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