More and more people are choosing the internet as their first choice to look for local businesses. Go to Yahoo Local and type in ‘pizza’ along with your address and you’ll have all the pizza restaurants within a 10 miles radius of your address. There isn’t an offline medium that offers that kind of power and convenience.
This is why in the past year, the search engines like Yahoo, MSN, and Google have spent large amounts of money to improve their search functions for local markets. All the major yellow pages are now online to capture visitors.
Most will sell you a package of online features along with your offline ad. Online ads have a number of advantages
Most will sell you a package of online features along with your offline ad. Online ads have a number of advantages
- Generate highly qualified leads and sales from local customers.
- Boost local offline sales - an increasing number of people search the web for products and services they buy in an offline store.
- Low cost per lead compared to print Yellow Pages and Direct Mail.
- Links directly to your company website. This allows the customer to immediately come to your website for more information on your products and services.
Local search engine marketing uses the same techniques as outlined above but targeted at a specific geographic region. You will include local keywords on your website by state, city, county or by region, like the Rocky Mountain, the Pacific Northwest or New England. PPC engines like Google actually let you select regions where your ads will appear. That way you don’t have people from Texas clicking on your ads for services only available in New York.
Targeted local search will save you money and effort. You won’t have to compete with national chains or people in other regions. You’ll have lower traffic but warmer leads as people self qualify by their location.
Internet Yellow Page Directories are online versions of traditional printed yellow pages. They contain local business listings and advertising. Many yellow page listings are appearing near the top of the rankings within the organic search results at Yahoo and Google for local keyword searches. The major Internet yellow page directories provide a cost effective solution to businesses seeking to attract local customers via the Web.
Each market has its own directories but here are the major players with national coverage.
- YellowPages.com
- SuperPages.com
- Smartpages.com
- Yahoo Yellow Pages
- Switchboard.com
- AOL Yellow Pages
Thanks for sharing this. I believe to optimize your site with local search engine is more beneficial than other. I did the same.....add two more clickindia and sulekha in this category.
ReplyDeleteCustom Web Application | Web Design Melbourne
I am agree with your post. You can get maximum roi with Local search engine. Clicks india and hot search is also markable websites.
ReplyDeleteEcommerce store Melbourne | Search Engine Optimisation Melbourne