Internet For Local Business Marketing

Did you know that a large percentage of Internet users who make purchases online prefer search engines to conventional Yellow Pages?

80% of Americans are now online. Nearly 70% of them are using search engines to look for information online.

If they can type what they're looking for into a search engine and find what they need then they don't need to go through the 100 pages of ads in the Yellow Pages.

Many people don't anymore. But that's a good thing if you're taking advantage of it!

Think about it: in the Yellow Pages, your ad-site is right there with all of your local competitors. But using search engines, you can differentiate yourself from everyone else. Given that your site is optimized, when the ideal client is looking for what you do, they find you, not your competitors.

Some of the concepts of marketing may be still apply, but how you utilize them has changed.
So why don't more small business owners figure out how to market in a local way? Here is what I am seeing so far.

They are too busy letting their business run them instead of running their business.

They have tried Internet marketing in the past and it has not worked for them.

They do not trust or believe marketing companies to do things online for them.

Let's look at each of these independently from each other.

Most small business owners have to work for a living. They are wearing so many hats that taking the time to learn how to do Internet marketing is out of the question. Their businesses are running them ragged 16 hours a day so where is the time to take on something more!

There is a pretty good chance that the sharp local business owner has tried, Google Adwords, or some form of search engine optimization with limited or poor results. They do not know why it didn't work for them, but their business did not grow enough to even cover the monthly costs of promoting it online.

Therefore they do not trust or believe it when someone has a great idea to market online for them for a fee. Can you blame them?

The problem is if you are taking the approach of just treading water and not marketing online with a full steam ahead attitude you are going to get buried. If you are in a local market with any number of competitors you may as well plan on losing market share every year.

Not only will you not grow, you are going to slip. Maybe only a little bit today, but I dread to think where you will be in 5 years.

You have 3 choices!

1. Become educated on effective Internet marketing.
2. Put someone in your company in charge of learning how to market online.
3. Outsource it to somebody to do it for you.

Putting it off any longer is a recipe for failure and you can look in the mirror 5 years for now and see why!

Strong words for sure, but then the Internet is only just getting going in local business marketing and you can get on board now or fall way behind later.

Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, what they do not realize is how challenging it is today to operate a small business in a local market.

There is no doubt to me that the number one challenge local business owners face is how to effectively advertise their business. This is harder to do in a larger market than it is a small one.

For example, small business owners in rural towns still get a pretty good return on their advertising investment in the yellow pages. One publication will cover many small towns in the region and people still use those to find a business when they need one.

As you move into larger markets Yellow Pages become less effective. For example the Denver Yellow Pages used to be extremely thick and most businesses advertised in them.

As they became more expensive businesses began to advertise in the local yellow pages for their specific market. However today these do not do the jobs they once did.

What I see local business owners doing now is promoting more by direct mail or in local newspapers. This is better than Yellow Pages that people no longer use, but still does not satisfy the challenge of reaching the masses for your business niche.

Almost everyone I know today uses the Internet to search for things on a local level. If they need a dry cleaner in San Francisco they Google search it.

For example, San Francisco Dry Cleaner with or without the quotation marks. This will bring up the most relevant results according to Google.

Depending on the category you will find sponsored results across the top and down the right-hand side. These are businesses who are using Google Adwords to advertise for these keywords.

On the left and down the middle of the page you will see results by Google maps, and then under that will be the organic results of the most popular sites according to Google.

The bottom line here is you need to be found for as many keyword phrases as people are searching for if you expect to compete in your local market.

Marketing for Retail and Service Businesses

Even if in the past months, it was very much believed that local search was an important and powerful driver for the paid search market, many things have started to change now, as the evolution of local search never ceases to amaze us.

If back then, paid search growth was starting to slow as the market matured and search was still in its early years of struggles to survive, its customer usage has grown a lot by now.

The apparent lack of local search usage and the complexity of campaign set up and management were the most important things that came in the way of the fast development of search engine marketing.

The truth of the matter is that now the problem has been solved and there are no more barriers against the growth in both consumer and local advertiser adoption.

The fact is that paid search however needs to tap the small business marketplace, in order to achieve its goals and use all its potential. The main problem standing in the way of the development of search engine marketing is, by far, the one regarding the matter of convincing the local advertisers to the search-marketing arena.

The actual state of things is fully being described by the dilemma that there is not enough local traffic to attract advertisers and not enough local advertising content to attract users. How can we solve this, that is without none of the parts to lose any advantage?

Nevertheless, the data coming from the numerous consumer surveys shows that there is a noticeable growth in the awareness and usage of local search.

It is a fact that the largest majority of the survey respondents stated that they had conducted local searches at one time or the other. This is a good thing, as it means that people know about them and about the way they should be used.

The bad part is that few people had a low percent of their total search behavior dedicated to local information. Almost have of the respondents who performed local searches wanted to buy a particular product or service.

The conclusion is that people tend to use the Internet, and particularly the search engines, more and more often, and that their aim is to find local information. This situation will not end very soon, especially because of the fact that search engines add and improve local offerings for the consumers.