Local business marketing on the Internet has been growing by leaps and bounds. However, many business owners are either not taking advantage of this medium or being taking advantage by this medium. Let?s take a simple look at getting your local business found online and what it really takes.
Local marketing online is growing and growing fast as more and more look for their information online. And as fast as it changes it is not hard to see that many local business owners are lacking a real and solid presence and brand online. Forget the horror stories and the ?it seems to complicated? excuses and get here, before your competition does.
Have you heard the horror stories too? There are many real and honest search engine optimization companies online ready to help you, but there are truly others who are there to take advantage of you as well. This fear should not stop you from getting your business presence up and online, NO, you have to be here?you need to be here.
What To Look For When Outsourcing
Outsourcing your business presence online is a great route for you to take if you literally have no time to create content. Let me stress this. What I mean by having no time is not having at least 1 ? 2 hours a week to produce content for your blog or website each week. As you can see, this is not as time consuming as you might have thought, but for some, it is still too much time to spend.
There are many companies within the search engine marketing community looking for your dollars, just make sure they are earning it. Some of the things you should ask about what they will include are the following:
- Google Places Page
- Optimization of Google Places Page
- Blog or HTML Based Website
- Social Media Pages and Connections and Campaigns
- Content Creation (Optimized Locally)
- Video Marketing Strategies
- Local Blog and Website Directories
- Citation Platforms Set Up
- E-mail Marketing Campaign
- Press Releases and Article Marketing
- Ongoing Search Engine Optimization of Content
- Link Building and Search Engine Listings
There are new companies popping up all the time, but most should have some testimonies you can look at and other information to prove what they have done and what they do. Contact these businesses and ask about the service that has and is being provided,do your due diligence, do not be lazy or it could cost you $1000?s!
There are many things to consider before you decide to outsource your Internet presence online. Building your brand here is extremely important and the way you are branded even more. Cost versus time is the only difference between getting a slid presence locally between outsourcing and doing your own local SEO.
Do It Yourself Local Brand Building
Marketing your local business online yourself is neither complicated or too time consuming. As a matter of fact, I have personally seen business owners begin seeing traffic and converted traffic within just a few weeks. They learned the fundamentals and applied, that was it.
The list above are things that you will need to have in place and getting this set up will take longer than anything else you will ever do online. Local citation and reviews come over time, social bookmarking and other link building strategies can be automated. Social media is as quick as posting your latest blogpost and videos to your business FANPAGE..that takes only a minute.
There are simple platforms that cost much less than an SEO or website marketing pro to help you manage much of your work here. The only part you will actually need to find time to do is write a bit and make some really fun videos. No joke, it is that fun with Internet marketing.
Learning and understanding keyword research to target your market, link and list building come in time, but a short period of time it is, (sounds like YODA there?) Mastering the fundamentals of Internet marketing however is truly simple and fast. For many beginners, local SEM can be mastered in just a couple weeks to even a few days if you have some time to sit and soak in the education.
The application of the information you learn will be the most important part of this process. Once you have learned how to create content, then it is simply rinse and repeat. For many traditional bricks and mortar business owners I find that thinking up good content is the hardest part of marketing online.?Thinking outside of the box? is a learning curve itself, but I say have a little fun with your videos and written content. Add images that are fun and local in nature as well as images of your products and services. Just HAVE SOME FUN with it.
Creating written content and videos are really fun when you get used to it and besides, nobody knows your local business and service better than you. Have fun with your marketing, lighten up and even more importantly, be a part of your community offline and let it shine through ONLINE. Marketing your local business online is not a brain buster, it is simply learning the information and applying it.
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