Search Engine Marketing Blog: piloSEO

While more and more business are beginning to realize how important it is to have an presence on the Internet and investing in SEM and SEO services. The fact is there are still many businesses out there that are still holding the false belief that an Internet presence is not important to their business model. In reality ALL businesses can benefit from SEO and as a result being findable when potential customers are looking for them or the products and services they offer.

While most national and international businesses understand the need to perform well in search engines, many smaller local businesses believe they can get by without an Internet presence. But recent trends show that more and more people are using search engines to find local businesses instead of local phone books. Chris Silver Smith at Search Engine Land wrote an interesting article that shows the use of Google to find locally based businesses going up while the use of different Yellow Pages publications dropping off. As more and more people take to the Internet this trend will increase. Couple that with the rise of mobile web platforms that allow users to easily find a business online and make a call to it with one push of a button and it seems that the old Yellow Pages are going the way of the dodo.

This means that all businesses need to expend some money and/or effort into an SEO and Local Search strategy to capture the attention of all potential customers. Even if you don’t have a website you can take advantage of services like Google Maps, Yahoo Local, and MSN Local (uses a third party vendor) as well as a number of local directories. These services allow businesses to craft their message and add a number of different ways to contact including website address, emails, phone numbers, and in the case of the local and map engines you will be able to provide customers with a map and the ability to get door to door directions. Local search is a great (and free) way to attract more customers.

Outside of the map and local engines many businesses will want to enhance their presence with SEO. Quality SEO will increase a businesses presence in the organic listings of every search engine. For a more detailed explanation of organic listings and the layout of search engine results pages visit this SEOmoz Tutorial. This requires significant knowledge and most businesses will probably need to hire an SEO professional. It is important to show up in the organic results because while the local and map functions in the search engines provide decent exposure they require specific triggers to display results. Quality SEO will help your site rank when your targeted keywords are typed into the search engine no matter if the local triggers are not met.

If you have a local business and feel like you are missing out on a lot of business it might be time to look into SEO and Local Search optimization. Many people still use the Yellow Pages but more and more are eschewing the publications and going straight to the Internet. Don’t miss out on these customers.

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