Local
Internet Business Advertising and Marketing
If
you own a running shoes local business you can benefit from free online advertising.
Yes, you heard me correctly, you can get free advertising for your local business
on the Internet. This is primarily through local results from search engines and
from Internet Yellow Pages.
Why would search
engines like Google and Yahoo give you free
local internet advertising. Well in reality they are giving you
free listings, but in a way that is better then advertising. And the
reason they are giving local businesses free listings is so they can
profit from accompanying advertisements.
If you are a
local business you need to take advantage of this incredible opportunity. Below
are several opportunities that should not be overlooked. If you are not listed
in these locations and your competition is, when a potential customer does a search
who do you think they are going to do business with?
Google
Local Online Advertising
Being
the #1 search engine with about 50% of online search inquiries online, a listing
in Google Local can be very financially rewarding. You can create a free account
at https://www.google.com/local/add/login. First, you need to determine whether
you are already listed. You may be surprised to find that your local business
is already in Google's database through some third party listing like your regional
Yellow Pages.
If
you are listed they will display the information they have on record. Most likely
you'll want to edit the information they have on file, since it is probably very
limited. To be able to edit your local listing Google will send you a letter by
snail mail containing a PIN and activation instructions to the business address
associated with your listing.
In
addition to the Google and Yahoo there are a number of other resources that provide
fee local online advertising, these include Internet Yellow Pages. A listing is
important since these online Yellow Pages provide local search results for a number
of important web sites.
Yahoo
Local Online Advertising
Not
only can get free advertising in Yahoo Local, but you can also get a free 5 page
web site. Yahoo offers a free basic local listing at http://listings.local.yahoo.com,
and enhanced local advertising for $9.95 per month. Yahoo is the second largest
search engine providing approximately 25% of all search result.
Yahoo
Free Business Web Site
Yahoo
is aggressively going after the local online market by targeting the estimated
50% of businesses in the U.S. that do not have web sites. According to the Kelsey
group that number is in the vicinity of 10 million. Yahoo is offering a free web
site to business owners that will automatically be listed with their Yahoo Local
listings. Currently this new program is only available to U.S businesses that
have a physical presence and serve a local area.
When
it comes to advertising free is a word you seldom hear. That is why getting these
local listing for free is an opportunity you should not pass up.