Local Search Marketing

I teach my coaching clients that there are two types of marketing:

• Outreach marketing - where you make contact with a potential customer and try to persuade him or her that it is a) a good idea to buy the generic product that you sell and b) that he or she should buy from you - it works but it is tough.
   
• Search marketing - where your aim is to be found when a buyer is looking for potential suppliers. This time your job is to a) be found where the buyer is looking and b) to persuade him or her to buy from you.

It won't surprise you that being found by people wanting to buy is a much easier and less time intensive way of marketing your business and it's much less intrusive on your buyer because you are relevant.

Internet local search marketing should be at the heart of your marketing strategy.

Yes the Internet does mean that you can buy and sell some products and services from all around the world but many more are chosen on a local basis.

I live in Birmingham, in the middle of the UK and if I want a restaurant, a hair dresser, a builder, a boarding kennel for my dog, a tree surgeon, a dentist... then they all have to be local.

The first place I look is the Internet. It's easy and quick.

It's the same with your customers - you need to use local search marketing to make sure that your business is found when potential customers are searching for a supplier.

This does assume that you have a website - and if you don't have one yet, then get one.

The Basic Website For Local Internet Search Marketing

It doesn't have to be fancy or expensive and blogging platforms like Wordpress work well. I recommend having your own proper domain (e.g. www.paulsimister.com) and paying for hosting rather than using the free www.wordpress.com websites because it gives you much more control. I've heard too many stories about people spending time building a website and then losing it because they broke one of the unpublished rules.

If you don't want to do it yourself, the you can easily find a websie designer.

How? You can either search on the Internet, you can ask people you know to recommend one or you can look at similar sized websites you like - the web designer usually has something like "this website was designed by XYZ" at the bottom with a link.

The similar size is important as it keeps the budget sensible. There's no point looking at Amazon and thinking "I'd like a website like this".

Once you've got a website, you need traffic.

The 3 Big Sources Of Traffic For Local Search Marketing

There are three main ways to get traffic to your website:

• Registering with Google Places
• Local Search Engine Optimisation (or local SEO if you like abbreviations)
• Local Pay Per Click
  

I recommend that you use all three. Remember the idea is to be where people are looking for what you sell.

Every time a potential buyer doesn't see your website, then you miss out on a possible sale.

And every customer you miss out from the easier search marketing means that it is one more customer you need to find through your outreach marketing.

Local Internet Search Marketing Done By You or Done For You

You've got two options.

You can either spend the time learning how to implement your own local search marketing campaigns - and some of it does get a bit geeky - or you can pay someone else to manage the search marketing campaigns for you.

Both can work well. I've learnt to do it myself but I can certainly understand the attraction of a done for you service, like that offered by my friend in America Lynda Nicholson.

If you want to do your local search marketing yourself, I have given links to popular training programmes.

Google Places - How Google Helps Local Businesses Find Customers

If you do a local search for a trade or profession, then Google will bring up a map with local businesses marked on it A, B, C etc and then give you links to those businesses in its normal search listings.

Exactly how it appears can change because Google are still developing and improving it.

Getting listed is free but what you are listed for is an important choice. Sometimes it is obvious but not always so you should do some keyword research. There is also the issue of competition since Google will only list a few of the local suppliers so you need to do what's necessary to make sure your business is one of those listed.

The good news is that if you're an accountant and your potential buyer types "accountant" into the search engine, then through Google Places, you can appear as a local business. The downside is that the link will take buyers through to the home page of your website and they may not be patient enough to look for exactly what they want

My recommended do it yourself training programme is Mobile Local Fusion.

Local SEO Search Marketing

Getting listed in the organic results for Google and the other search engines means matching your website page with the words a potential buyer types in and having a page which is considered to be both relevant and an authority.

The search engine's task is to deliver the best pages to the searcher and Google and the others have developed complicated search algorithms.

To get listed, you have to play by the search engines rules and these can change.

To return to my accountant example, to get listed for accountant on the first page in the normal organic results is next to impossible. Websites will have spent many years and many hours of effort to get their position - I know because I've been on the first page of Google.co.uk for business coach for several years.

But getting listed on page one when a buyer types in "accountants birmingham" is different. Suddenly the websites that ranked nationally for accountant have disappeared because they are no longer relevant because the searcher has indicated that Birmingham is relevant.

The great thing about using local SEO to drive traffic to your website is that you can control the page the potential buyers land on - in fact to be successful, it is required to be highly relevant.

Accountants Birmingham may go to the home page of the website

Tax services Birmingham should direct traffic to a special tax page.

Income tax help Birmingham should go to another page that explains how the accountant can help with the income tax assessment.

Local SEO isn't that difficult because so few companies have done it well, partly because many website designers aren't interested in helping their clients to get more traffic to their websites.

The training programme I recommend for local SEO is Rank Mogul.

Search Marketing with Local Pay Per Click

The third important element in local search marketing is pay per click or PPC and these are the sponsored advertisements you see in Google. The advertiser pays each time someone clicks on the ad.

Since the first two forms of search marketing are free for clicks, even if you pay to have the setting up work done, you may be wondering why anyone would use PPC.

But they do - it is Pay per Click - or Google Adwords as it is more formally known - is the money making machine which has made Google such a highly valued company.

Pay per click has two huge advantages:

1. It is very quick - once you've set up your advertising campaign, you can get traffic to a website in about 30 minutes - the search engine just has to approve the advertisement.
2. It is very flexible - you get a lot of control over what phrases your advertisement appears against.

Google Places and local search engine optimisation tend to be very precise - the order of the words and any extra words can make a big difference in the search results.

Pay per click helps you to fill in the gaps.

Returning to the accountants example, pay per click gives you the chance to get local coverage when the searcher doesn't specify a precise trade or location.

e.g. "I need help with my accounts" or "where can I find a good accountant"

You can also specify words and phrases that you don't want to advertise against like "free" or "cheap". Since you're paying for the click, then these searchers may not be worth attracting.

Other Local Search Marketing Techniques

Directories may feature in local searches but in my experience their benefit is often exaggerated by the person selling the placement in the directory. If it's a free listing, then fine, get your business registered but think carefully about having to pay unless you've checked that it really does do well in the search engines.

Good SEO for a proper website will often do much better than a directory in the search engines because it's more relevant to the searcher. The directory is really just duplicating what the search engine itself does.

Search Marketing - Do It Yourself Or Outsource To An Expert?

Unless you are particularly interested and you've got time to spare, my advice is to outsource your local search marketing.

This has been touted as a big opportunity in Internet marketing circles and I'm a bit shocked at some of the fees being quoted.

You need to take the time to find someone good to work with and in particular someone who understands that they should only profit if you make money.

Getting ranked at number 1 for a search term is no good if it doesn't bring you traffic.

And getting traffic is the start and not the end.

Your visitors need to engage with the website and take the next step. that might be filling in the name and email address, it might be ringing you with an enquiry or it might be buying direct from a website, like you do with Amazon.

Comments

[Paul Simister]

I attracted a search for "How much should I pay for local marketing?"

It's difficult to say exactly because it all depends on what you mean by local marketing and what work has to be done.

I can give you a rule of thumb

You should be paying no more than 20% to 25% of the profit you expect to make from the marketing.

two things to emphasise

1 - profit not sales
2 - you should look over the expected life of the relationship with a customer

lifetime value or marginal net worth are critical concepts to understand about your marketing

http://businesscoaching.typepad.com/the_business_coaching_blo/2007/10/marginal-net-wo.html

e.g. cost to acquire customer $50
profit on first transaction $40

it looks a terrible deal but the picture changes very quickly if the average customer buys from you ten times and you make $40 each time.

Suddenly you are comparing a cost of acquisition of $50 with a lifetime value of $400 - well worth doing if you can afford the short term negative cash flow but not if cash is a big constraint.