Get listed on every possible directory, local search engine, hyperlocal search engine (local chamber, newspaper, or neighborhood site), and industry directory possible. In some cases this may be as many as 100 such listings. To go a step further, you may want to list on web directories, too.
Your URL matters now. Don’t throw out your current website URL to get better keywords in your URL. You get points from Google for having an website that’s been around for a while. However, if you are starting a new website, use keywords in the site (seedandspark.com) URL.
If you are still not impressed with these statistics and examples consider this. 43% of all the searches done on the Google network include a geographical identifier. That means hundreds of millions of searches each month have either a zip code, city, state or other identifier to make the results relevant to a specific geographic area. That is pretty awesome.
Imagine her delight when a lady walked into her shop with overflowing bags of great product to consign, saying ‘I found you on the internet and decided to bring my things in!’ The cool part? The lady drove almost an HOUR to get to her shop – passing many other similar stores along the way.
For many businesses advertising is one of those many things that has to be done but is not given a lot of attention. It’s understandable because often times businesses, especially small ones have so many different things to handle. The business owner can’t be an expert in everything. So they agree with whatever advertising comes along. They do what everyone else is doing. They don’t put much thought into it.
Furthermore, your online content must also appear in the top search results! All content relevant to that search adds more links back to your local business on the first search page. You and your local business are going to be viewed as the top authority on all matters regarding this search. Google loves rich, relevant & rewarding online content!!!
Forum marketing – There are many forums that are geared towards people that live locally in a certain area. You will need to take time to find these forums. To help you attract more customers, you need to get involved in them and use them.
And that’s where email marketing comes in – for minimal investment (and really, little time) you can keep in touch with your prospects and customers and let them know what it is that you can offer to them on any given week or month; which will depend on your buying cycle. Any less than monthly contact however is a waste of time.
Remember one thing that out of sight is out mind. So be visible and keep coming up innovative ideas. This will definitely help you to create a web around your potential customers. You could spin a world of your products and services around them.
Additionally, you can include videos from YouTube. It’s a simple matter to publish a video to YouTube and then use its URL to publish within your local listing.
