SEM Bytes for Local Business: The Supporting Actor Steals the Show
Local Business Listings
NetSearch Direct has been shaping marketing products especially geared towards local businesses since it began. We always stuck up for the little guy in business, and we recognize that local businesses are not only cornerstones of the community but cornerstones of the marketplace too. We see you small business owners and we won’t turn our back on you.
As it happens, the biggest and best of advertisers are finally recognizing the value in promoting smaller businesses and have finally turned their attention to designing marketable products aimed specifically for local businesses and their searching customers. Enter Google’s Local Business Center. You may have seen the map display when you perform a search, and noticed a few business listings to the right of the map. This is Google’s way of geo-targeting your IP address and cross-referencing that information with businesses in your area. However, if you dive into the listings you’ll notice a seemingly random order of businesses. We’re here to tell you that list of companies is not as random as it seems and businesses are working hard to climb the rankings by category. The Google LBC, as we call it, is all about robust local business profiles and chances are, if you’re not listed, your competitor probably is. Still with bugs to work out and, as this writer knows it, many growing pains ahead, the current version of the Google LBC is an excellent start and businesses should be getting on the bandwagon.
Don’t confuse the Google LBC with those other online YellowPages-type directories. Under the Google console you have about five solid options for customization and areas for optimization that will get you climbing the ranks and sitting at the top of the list, but there are a few extra tricks to optimization than just entering keywords. Businesses can benefit from adding pictures, uploading product demo videos, and detailing specific areas of business. The Google LBC is also influenced by reviews as well as listings from other directory sites and links to your site. Like every search engine marketing effort there is an algorithm to be worked with and NetSearch Direct started working with it a long time ago. If you’re not sure if your business has a listing, contact us - the people who have been working with the Google LBC since before it was cool.
Social Media MarketingNot just for big businesses, social media marketing is an excellent way to tap into your “neighborhood”. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and even the popular photo-uploading site Flikr are all creative marketing avenues you can utilize to reach out to an audience you may have missed with your SEO and PPC campaigns. Companies utilizing these – free – websites are able to list their business, list information, and make updates alerting potential customers to sales, online specials, or last-minute bargains. Still not sold on the value of social media marketing? Consider that computer giant Dell made over $1M during the 2008 holiday season using Twitter alone. Yes, Dell is a huge corporation and this article is about local businesses – but the message is the same: Dell reached a client base that was probably going to be comparison shopping when gift-purchasing and turned those “maybe’s” into “checkout now’s”. If that’s not incentive to get you tweeting, we don’t know what is.
Why is social media marketing so popular? Social media embraces the old “word of mouth” marketing truth and places your business in front of a network of people interested in you. The social media audience is more relaxed and open to new ideas and businesses, and this is where your company can get its foot in the door. Facebook and Twitter are two of the most popular and easiest sites to get you tapping into the valuable advertising gold vein that is social media marketing. Here, local businesses can put their products and services right up front to customers without a real agenda. Social media marketing is about brand building and reinforcement, audience targeting and growth, and then sales. Think about it, a person on Twitter is going to remember ABC Company specializing in heating and cooling because they feel a connection to them already. They’ve seen your tweets about A/C maintenance, updates and specials you’re running and they’ve checked out your business profile on Facebook. When they need someone to call, they’ll remember your name.