Online Marketing for Local Business Introduction

If you are the owner of a local business, you are probably suffering from a drop in demand for your products or services as a result of the economic recession our country has been suffering from for the past few years. In fact statistics show that small local businesses are making 30% to 50% less than they were just a few years ago. Some of the businesses that comprise this statistic include:

- plumbers
- dentists
- locksmiths
- restaurants
- plastic surgeons

- accountants
- carpet cleaners
- contractors
- landscapers

Traditional Marketing Doesn’t Work Anymore

The fact of the matter is that the marketing techniques that were solid and reliable for local businesses to use to reach their market in the past are no longer working. This means Yellow Pages ads, newspapers and other types of hard copy advertising are simply not bringing in business. That’s because people simply don’t use them anymore.

Businesses that are still using such outdated forms of advertising are throwing away thousands and thousands of dollars on ineffective marketing every month. If you are one of those people still investing in such ads, ask 10 people where their copy of the Yellow Pages is. Most can’t tell you or will tell you that they put it in the recycling bin shortly after it arrived. What does that tell you about the money you are spending?

Consumers are looking more and more to the internet to find information about the services and products they are seeking, even locally. Therefore if businesses want to reach new customers they simply have to have a quality internet presence. And that does not mean just a lame website that a kid could have put together!

Today’s websites that rank well are well thought out, interesting, personable and informative. They utilize a variety of savvy online marketing techniques in order to stand out from their competitors. If you have a site with no keywords in it and almost no backlinks, you are missing the boat and will never get to the top of the search engine results.

Specific Marketing Strategies

There are specific marketing strategies that apply uniquely to internet marketing. If you do not use internet marketing strategies, your website will not get traffic and you will not attract new clients.

One of the stumbling blocks impeding most local businesses from implementing such strategies is that they simply have no idea what needs to be done. Online marketing is so new and such unfamiliar territory for most individuals that they don’t know where to start. They spend so much time running their business, taking care of their clients and managing their staff that they don’t have the time to learn something new.

Ask yourself a few questions:

What are long-tailed keywords?
What is keyword density?
What is Web 2.0?
How do you set up an autoresponder?
How do you change the tags on your website?
How do you create videos and audios for your website?

If you are like most business owners, you can not answer these questions. That is absolutely normal. You have spent time focusing on other aspects of your business, ones that you do indeed master. But now you need to learn more! Finally, the time has come for the average local business owner to discover exactly what needs to be done in order to effectively put an online marketing plan in place for his or her business.

Changes In Business

Today, local business owners are in a hungry market. They need more work. They need to attract more clients. They need to adapt to the changing economy. However, the market is changing, or more specifically, how to reach that market is changing. Understanding the change and meeting the challenges of it are essential to survival of businesses.

Case in point: One local business was spending $8000 per month on Yellow Pages advertising that cost more than it was bringing in. It doesn’t take long before smart business people realize that such a situation is a losing cause and needs to be fixed. So they stopped the ad. However, now they have a $8000 budget for marketing but don’t know where to put it, because they don’t know internet marketing.

But these entrepreneurs realize the Internet is the future. More than 2.6 billion local searches are performed online every month. This number grows by more than 50% each year. In fact, 80% of people search online before they make a purchase. They now prefer this type of search over Yellow Pages or newspaper. Therefore business owners need to be online in an effective way.

The Potential For Exponential Profit

Using internet marketing can easily result in an increase in sales of tens of thousands of dollars. This is amazing considering the sheer number of layoffs, crises, and more that people are facing. Their old ways of doing things are broken and they have to learn something new. Many people who thought they had retired are back working hard in business. They are the people who can use an internet marketing plan to save their business and their livelihood.

By putting online marketing strategies to work, you are not only positively impacting your own business, you are improving your local economy. More money is being spent locally. You do not have to downside or do layoffs. In fact, your business will grow, despite the economy because you are reaching those who are looking to buy from businesses like yours. And that is what effective marketing is all about!

Online marketing has the potential for exponential profit. If you are not ready for your business to double or even more, stop reading now!

Statistics You Need To Know

The following statistics give you a glimpse of how people are using the Internet in their choice of businesses to frequent.

64% of U.S. Gross Domestic Product comes from local businesses.
4.2 million local small businesses are in the $500,000 to $20,000,000 range.
Over 2.6 billion local searches are performed monthly and that number grows more than 50% each year.
98% of searchers choose a business that is on page 1 of the results they get.
41% of clicks go to the #1 ranked site in a search
12% of clicks go to the #2 ranked site in a search
8.5% of clicks go to the #3 ranked site in a search

These statistics prove the importance of prioritizing an online marketing strategy to get to the top of the search results for your keywords.

Making The Changes To Your Online Marketing Methods

In order to make the changes to your online marketing methods there are a variety of things that you should know.

First the potential to grow your business using online marketing is phenomenal, no matter what industry you are in. You just need to cultivate it.
There are 5 extremely useful internet marketing techniques that no one is doing. Learn them and put them in practice and you will outperform all your competitors quickly.
You need to achieve local online domination. It is a 4 step process. Focus on it to get the results they want.
There is a simple online marketing plan that you can follow to make sure that you get all the tasks done in order to get to the top of the search results and get more new clients to your site.
Before implementing your new marketing plan, take the time to thoroughly analyze what you are already doing, so you know where to go from here and so you can have a baseline to measure against.
Make your tasks more reasonable by breaking them down. Start with the tasks that are one-time jobs, as they provide the foundation for your marketing plan, and you will have the pleasure of checking things off your list.
Only when the one-time tasks are completed, should you begin the tasks that repeat. These are long term commitments that will require monthly, weekly or even daily attention.
You should consider seeking out subcontractors for a portion of or the entire online marketing plan, for the sake of expediency and skill. There are many who can take on select tasks to facilitate the process for you.
You will conclude the implementation of your marketing plan with an increase in your business income.