It is really important for business owners to understand the power of local and mobile marketing.
Remember search engines and people want you to be hyper relevant, hyper targeted and hyper local.
You might not think that a strong presence online is important for your business or maybe you don’t go to a search engine to find a restaurant, a plumber or an accountant, but remember you are not your audience. Millions of people use search engines every day and if you rank well you don’t exist.
Not only that, try to type a business on Google that is supposed to be local, but don’t type the city. You will see that Google will deliver only local results. The search engine assumes that if you are in a specific area and type a business that is supposed to be local, you most likely want to see local results even if you don’t type the city.
There is also the fact that many people use their smart phones not only to find businesses but to recommend them to others. Some even play games where they tell other people which businesses they visited.
You better start paying attention to this before it is too late.
Here are a few things you can do:
Make sure you have your state and city on your website title bar. Have the same on every page of your site.
List your business on Google maps, Yahoo local and Bing local. Don’t forget to add photos and videos if you have them. You want to be on the maps for local search and because mobile applications will pull info about your business from these maps.
Make sure you also list your business on Yelp and in local directories like WikiCity, Business.com, BOTW.org, InfoUSA.com, InsiderPages.com, Local.com, Kudzu.com.
Because Google now pays a lot of attention to your social graph, your social presence, it is important that your business has a presence on social networks like Facebook and Twitter and if possible have some videos on YouTube.
For the mobile marketing part, set up an account on FourSquare and list your business in the app’s directory.
Gowala is another one you want to have an account and list your business.
Creating an application for smart phones like Google phone or the Iphone is easier and less expensive than you think and can create a lot of traction for your business too.
Local search and mobile marketing will only increase in importance for businesses and even though listing the business in the above mentioned places may take a couple of hours, it will not cost a lot and will bring over time a lot of people knocking at your door.
So don’t waste time or find excuses. Just do it.
If you have questions or want someone to do it for you contact our social media agency