5 Essential Things to Know about Local Search Marketing

There are five essential things that you should know about local search marketing: It is becoming an effective marketing alternative to the yellow pages, it allows the business to specifically target local prospects, you can hire professionals to handle search marketing for your business, there are three major search engine players, and smaller local search engines can be an effective alternative.

Today’s Internet age has opened a window of possibilities for businesses and firms. More and more business enterprises and organizations are turning to the Internet and making it a part of their marketing mix. We now see multitudes of websites showcasing and promoting many products and services. Unfortunately, a lot of small business enterprises disregard local search marketing as a tool when they create websites for their products. Here are a few essential things you should know about local search marketing for local business:

It is becoming an effective marketing alternative to the yellow pages

Advertising on the yellow pages can cost a lot of money. For small businesses who want to make the most out of the advertising investments they make, researchers suggest that information seekers, prospects and shoppers are turning to the Internet instead of the more traditional material like the yellow pages. In fact, a recent study showed that in the United States more than 849 million searches were made in one month while 30 billion local searches are estimated to be made annually beginning in the year 2009. Another significant inference made was that as a result of the searches, almost 50% of the local searchers ended up visiting a local business. These prospects’ use of the Internet at a higher frequency is turning local searches into an opportunity and a viable marketing tool for small businesses.

It allows the business to specifically target local prospects

The developments in search engine marketing as well as consumer behavior have streamlined the way small businesses reach out to their local market. This focus has turned the Internet into a viable and effective means of marketing to potential customers and specific groups of people who fall into a predefined customer profile.

You can hire professionals to handle search marketing for your business

Many businessmen might be turned off at making changes to their current business systems or marketing strategies or simply have difficulty understanding the concepts and processes involved in local search engine marketing. Fortunately, you can hire specialists and professionals who can help you.

There are three major search engine players

Currently the big three in the world of search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. These three control over 70% of the market for local searches. Local search engine marketing is aimed towards improving a website’s visibility and popularity in these three. It is important to keep these three in mind when placing ads for the business, improving the business’s keyword ranking, and its link popularity.

Smaller local search engine players can be an effective alternative

There are smaller local search engines that are not as common as Google, Yahoo and MSN. However, these can be a more effective alternative to search marketing, especially if your business is playing in a highly competitive keyword field. Smaller search engines provides better rankings with much lower costs per click compared to the larger search engines.

The Internet is becoming a highly versatile tool. Business entrepreneurs and local businesses should learn to adapt and utilize this technology to reap its many benefits.