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.

Did you know that your business is listed on Google Maps?

Did you know that unscrupulous people can hijack you map listing and Steal your customers if you don’t protect your listing? Practically every small business is listed on Google Maps. This is great. Millions of people use Google everyday and they can now use it to search for local businesses. Google has become the digital answer to the printed yellow pages for many consumers. It’s easier, faster, and can provide more information for the consumer and it also offers the merchant a very inexpensive way to promote their business. Among other things, merchants can add photos and videos. It’s almost like getting a free full page ad in the telephone book or a free commercial on TV. Sounds great! The only problem is that it is possible for anybody to hijack your Google Map Business listing if you don’t take the necessary steps to protect it. Look How Easy it is to steal your Google Map Listing For those not familiar with Google Maps, navigate to Google. (You will need to be logged into a Google account to do this) Then pick a business type and city, for example “dog grooming + your city”. Click search and the top ten listings will appear beside a Google Map at the top of the page.  If you are one of these businesses in the top ten search results you are in a very enviable position. These are the businesses that will get the most attention from potential customers. These are the businesses that customers are going to call first or investigate further to learn more about the merchant. And since these businesses are in such an enviable position, these businesses are key targets for sabotage, hijacking, or both. Here’s how the bad guys do it

Go back to your results for the above search “dog grooming + your city”. Pick a listing toward the bottom of the list that doesn’t have an associated website and click on it. To make sure you pick an appropriate listing for this demonstration click on listing that has maps.google.com to the right of it instead of a web url. When you click on the business listing, an info page for the business will launch, if not click on more info. On this info page, right beneath the phone numbers are some links. One of the links says Edit. If you click on the Edit link a new page launches and there is a white balloon with another menu for the type of edits. They are:·          Move marker·          Edit Details·          Remove place·          Flag as inappropriate The malicious editing of any one of these details could severely harm your business. If somebody moved your map place marker customers might not be able to find you. If somebody flagged your listing as inappropriate it could turn into a real nuisance. And if somebody edited your details and changed your phone number or completely remove your business listing from the map, that could be catastrophic. Stealing Your Customers

Let’s say you have a local flower shop. You have an optimized business listing and you are in the top ten search results. Now let’s assume that there is an unscrupulous florist on page 2 of the Google Map listings and nobody is calling him. All he would have to do is click on the Edit Details of your Google Map listing and change your telephone number to his. Customers would think they are calling you, but they would be calling your competition and you would be losing business.  Or a malicious competitor could just remove your listing from the map. To do this, all they would have to do is click on Remove Place and have your listing removed from the map. One might think that nobody would do this because it would be so easy to catch the culprit. After all, if they hijack a listing, there information is now on the listing and they would be easy to catch. But this isn’t the case. Peruse the Google Maps Support Group forum and you will see that this kind of behavior is rampant. So What Can You Do to Protect Yourself

Before answering that question, another question might be why does Google allows this? I can’t really speak for Google but it is my guess that Google allows this to help the public at large. Maybe there is a school or store that is closed or has moved or changed phone numbers. A good person could edit the listing and update the information for to make the map more accurate. Google probably hopes there are more good people than bad people. Google might also permit this editing because it is relatively easy to prevent the problem. All you have to do to prevent somebody from tampering with your business listing on Google Maps is claim your business. Follow the same steps described above to edit your business listing, but instead of editing, click on Claim your Business and follow the steps.  When a business map listing has been claimed, if somebody tries to hijack it they will get a message: “This listing has been claimed in Local Business Center and can only be edited by the owner”. This should prevent most hijackings and other digital vandalism. So if you haven’t claimed your business do it now. Don’t delay. Do it before somebody else claims your business listing and prevents you from claiming it. The consequences of failing to act could be dire. Also, if you claim your business you can take the steps to optimize your Google Map listing so that it appears in the top ten Google Map search results, if it isn’t already there. More information on do this can be found at my website.

Is your Google Map Listing in the top ten search results?It could be. We can help.

Al Remetch
website: http://www.MyMapInfo.com
blog: http://www.MyMapInfo.wordpress.com

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