« Green Marketing for Contractors | Home | Drive Traffic To Your Website – What Contractors and Small Business Owners Must Know »
Local Search – It’s How Your Business Is Found
By HomeBuildR | February 1, 2010
Local Search – What is it?
There has been a recent trend with all of the major search engines, that you need to take advantage of now. That trend is local search. Going back as recently as 8 months ago, when searching for your company on the internet, a person would have to enter your company’s name and city in the search box. What if the customer knew you were a general contractor, but forgot your company’s name. The same sort of search would be made “general contractor sacramento”.
Local search has changed!
Today, search engines have gotten smarter. To find a roofer in your locality, all one would have to do is enter the term “roofer” and depending where the client was located Google will display a map with 10 options. That too has changed, Google has upped the ante to include just 7 possible choices. This has made it critical to for you to ensure your presence, otherwise you’ll get lost.
I’ve written before about local search, social media and website optimization as sorely needed tools for any business looking to get found on the internet.
Well today, I have good news! You don’t have to spend a fortune to accomplish high rankings in local search. Frankly, most company’s offering similar services are newbies in local search and charge “big bucks” for their website optimization services. That would be great, if you are looking for top rankings in a broad market. What I mean by that, is getting ranked highly for the term electrical contractor means you would have to compete with all of the contractor directories and national organizations.
What’s missing is a laser targeted placement in your local hometown, listing your company and your specialty. And come to think of it, wouldn’t it be nice if you were a dentist, let’s say, and you were listed in the top spot for “emergency tooth replacement”. We all know not many people are searching for that particular service, but when they do, they are willing to pay a premium if your comapny could be found. The same analogy could be used with a roofer, “emergency roof replacement”. This is where a targeted local search campaign can reward your company with bushels of money!
Until now, if you wanted to take the time to list your company with 40 or more website directories and yellow page sites, you would have to spend a minimum of 10 hours! I know this to be true, because this is one of the most important ways to get your company listed and ranked highly with search engines. Using this strategy alone has quadrupled or more the number of visitors to my clients’ websites. The downside has always been the time it took to get listed.
The good news is, after spending numerous hours of submitting and systematizing my work for my clients, I have been able to offer an affordable option. Starting today, for an annual fee of just $199 I can have your company listed in all of the major search engines and over 40 internet directory and mobile search sites.
So where will my company get listed?
LOCAL SEARCH / MOBILE
Yahoo! • MSN / Live.com • Google • AOL • Citysearch • YellowPages.com • SuperPages • WhitePages • Yelp • Local.com • Quebecor/canoe inc. • InfoSpace/Idearc • Ask • BlackBerry/RIM • infoUSA • Express Update • Acxiom • Dex • iBegin • Insider Pages • OpenList • Yellow Book • Yellow Page City • Yelp • Disney • Topix • VP.com • Zingy • Deep Data • AllPages • LocalMatters • BeanPool • HelloMetro • OneCallNow • Search Iniatives • Switchboard.com • Electronic Directories (Yellow Pages, Inc.)
GPS Navigation / Mapping
MapQuest • OnStar • tomtom • Lowarnce • TeleAtlas • DigiWalker • ALK • ViaMichelin • Zenrin
411
LSSI • INFONXX • V-enable • TellMe
Some list, eh?
I don’t want to turn this blog into a sales page, if you would like to do this yourself, I just provided a great list of websites to go to and sign up and submit your company. If you would like to have our company submit for you, then you’ll have to visit our client services website by clicking here!
In the meantime, I hope this helps to understanding how you can get your business found on the internet. Please feel free to leave us your comments. If you would like to speak to me personally, click the “Call Me Now” button on the right hand side of the page and I will be happy to speak with you.
Topics: Advice, Local Search, Website Traffic, google map search | 1 Comment »
February 1st, 2010 at 8:37 pm
V-Enable (mentioned above) is also one of the largest provider of local search and advertising to may local web sites and advertisers. please visit our site to find out more, advertise with us or place our ads on your local site to make money.