About a month ago, Sian Simon, a search and social media expert here at Network Solutions put together a series of posts on Solutions Are Power about how to utilize Local Search for your web presence. We got such a great response on Solutions Are Power we thought that our small business readers here at Grow Smart Business should know about it.
What is local search marketing?
Local search marketing leverages the power of major search engines such as Google®, Yahoo!® and MSN®, along with local online directories (also known as Internet yellow pages).
When a potential customer goes online and searches for a product or service within a specific geographic area, this is called a local search. Examples of local search could be “hotel in Kansas City”, “landscape design Loudoun County” or “daycare 90210”. Generally, local search is used to find information online with the intention of making an offline purchase, either over the phone or in a retail location.
When a potential customer searches for a local business, search engines will return results that match the search terms within that geographic area. Often these local results are listed ahead of general search results. Therefore, if the search engine has information about your business and the products and services you offer, you could find yourself in a prime position on page one of Google!
Below are the posts for the Local Search Marketing Series:
- Local Search – What’s it all about Alfie? Part 1 of our series on Local Search Marketing Series
- Why use local search to market your business? Part 2 of our series on Local Search Marketing
- Local Search Pros and Cons. Part 3 of our series on Local Search Marketing
- Integrating Local Search Marketing into your Business Plan. Part 4 of our series on Local Search Marketing
- Should I use an external service to manage my local search listings? Part 5 of our series on Local Search Marketing.
Each post deals with a certain aspect of using search engines to maximize your effectiveness on a local basis when people do a search for a business in a certain area.
Google+
