Small business online marketing is designed to help small businesses get found online in their local area. This type of marketing is specifically focused on targeting potential customers conducting online search using keywords that either specifically relate to a geographic location or are connected to a geographical location. With internet technology being what it is today, when a search in conducted using a search engine, the search engine being queried already knows the geographical location of the device being used to conduct the search. As a result, geographically specific search results can be returned even if the searcher doesn’t enter a keyword related to location.
Get Found Online
Why is this important to small business? Internet usage by consumers is booming and continues to grow and evolve. Today over 3 billion online searches are conducted monthly for local products and services. One out of five searches on Google is related to location. As a result the major search engines have given credence to local search results and have specifically designed a local geographical methodology to gather and display information related to local businesses on search results pages. This creates opportunity for local merchants get found online by local consumers looking for products and services in their neighborhoods.
Search Results Pages
Online search results are ranked and displayed by search engines within three categories on every page: sponsored results, local results and organic results.
Sponsored search results generally appear on the top and/or on the right of search results pages and are all fee based. Local search results appear below the sponsored results and often appear in an address format with simply the name, address and phone number listed. Sometimes these results are in conjunction with a map or other additional information. These results are generated from data stored within the search engines own database, an external database or from other online directories. The organic results appear just below local results.
Appearing on and near the top of organic search engine results pages is the objective of and good small business online marketing plan. To achieve this goal local online marketing techniques that are both effective and affordable can be implemented that help local small businesses attract new customer.
If you liked reading this article you might also like to read one or more of the articles below. Using good local online marketing techniques today is essential to helping you get found online, attract new customers, grow your business and make more money.