I run into clients who won’t build up their local search presence, despite that they offer a local service or sell products locally. Here is what they often say to me.
1. I need to have my website up first.
Variations on this theme; My website’s too general for me to be in local search. My website needs to be fixed up first. I’m not sure what to do first… shouldn’t I have a website first? But I don’t need a website, I get customers without one. Et cetera.
You don’t need a website to be in local search. Your website is not related to your local search listing in any way unless you link them together. Your website is a great addition to a local listing, but you can have fully functioning local internet marketing campaign without any website at all. Local business listings, even paid, aggressive campaigns wrapped around a local business listing at Yahoo Local, Google Places, Yelp or bing Local don’t require a website – although they can include a link to your existing website if you have one.
All you need is an email address in order to make an account at Google and Bing, a phone number that you can be reached at, a phone number for customers to reach you at, and a physical address. If you want to turn a passive listing into a “sponsored” (paid subscription) listing for greater visibility, you will need a credit card number.
Even at Facebook, you can target a geographical area and then route them to your Facebook page instead of a website.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a website. I’m just saying you don’t HAVE to have one to start advertising locally through local search. Regular search results consist entirely of websites, websites websites. Local search is not the same as regular search  – any business can be listed there if it is known to be operating in a particular location, whether it has a website or not.
Which brings us to the next point. On occasion, I’ve heard other web consultants say…
2. Local search is for all websites everywhere. If you’ve got a business, you need to be marketing locally.
It’s not.
Does this describe your business?
- I have a storefront which sells only to the neighborhood it is in (i.e. mom’n’pop stores, hair salons, drug stores),
- I have branches that are dedicated to specific physical zones (i.e. banks, insurance agents) or
- I offer a service only to a specific geographical area (i.e. pizza delivery, plumbers)
Unless you found your business in that list, you have no reason to be in local search results. If you have one or thousands of such locations, it does not matter. You can be in local search only as long as one of the above applies to you.
It is pointless to market yourself locally if you’re not going to be able to do anything with walk-in traffic, or if you don’t care where the people who call you are located. I’ve never seen any one of my clients with a global clientele or a national business scope benefit from being listed locally. If you don’t need to be in your local yellow pages, you don’t need to be in local search.
On the other hand, if your business is a fit with being in the local yellow pages, you definitely need to be in local search. Because local search has replaced the yellow pages completely at supplying the exact same information – only it does it better.
Let’s say I want a pizza. Am I going to flop open my yellow pages book to find the pizza section, then a pizza place’s phone number, or am I going to search for pizza place at a search engine? Which is easier and will provide a map, pizza rates and reviews, suggest the brand new pizza place down the street, and link to an online order page or a “click now to call” button?
3. I’ll get around to local marketing, but I’m super-busy right now. Meanwhile not being there isn’t doing me any harm, is it?
Most small businesses are up to their ears in things to do. You guys work hard to fill the needs of your customers on a daily basis. You haven’t got time to even think about adding something else to do. Local search marketing sounds like work, and so many other things you’ve tried just soaked up money without paying off.
So, really, how can setting it aside for later do any harm?
Actually, it can be quite harmful…
Your competition is already in local search results. Simply staying the same in a changing market can make you obsolete. You can become unknown locally simply by failing to market to locals where they actually look – in local search. Any time someone searches for anything that the search engine believes is a locally oriented search, local listings display prominently. Are you in them? No? Then a large potential customer base is going elsewhere.
You need to be in control when you do end up there. That’s right, you might already be there, or showing up any day now. Your customers – or competition – can add you to local search whether you’re there or not. Usually, they’ll do this to add a review of your business.  In fact, right now, you might have an existing listing  showing reviews, positive or negative. Or the wrong address somehow. Or your competition’s phone number on your listing (I’ve seen it happen). Wouldn’t you rather know your listing is correct and that you have the ability to respond to reviews, resolve issues as they come up? You can only do that if you’ve already claimed your business listing, at the very least.  You don’t want to arrive late to the party and find that the whole room’s been gossiping about you, do you? (I would like to take this moment to urge you to monitor your online reputation carefully. I can help set that up for you as daily alerts. )
OK, ok, so I’ve convinced you to get started. Except…
4. I don’t think I can afford the big start-up costs.
This is also heard as… My business expenses are rough right now in this super-tight economy. It’s crunch time around here and local marketing isn’t in the mix. When I can afford it, that sounds great. I’m not spending money on anything but top priority marketing.
Firstly, see above as to why this is essential, top priority, must-do marketing.
As to cost, well I’ve got news for you… Good news!
Local businesses are nearly always small-to-medium sized businesses, sometimes with little time or money for building up a large web presence. The search engines figured this out quickly, and arranged the pricing accordingly. The pricing is lower than most other online advertising options.
Sponsoring your category at Google Places costs $25.00 a month right now. Sponsoring your listing at Yahoo costs $9.95 a month. You’ve probably spent more than that on flowers for the waiting room or on getting your windows washed.
It does not cost a lot to advertise at the local level – it can be very cheap — Â or even free if you just want to be there without the bells and whistles.
Conversely…
It is costing you money to not advertise to your most motivated prospects when they are out there searching and finding. If you’re not showing up in local search, those people will find someone else.
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I, Desi Matlock, offer local marketing set-up, services and consulting. You want my help, call me. But don’t hesitate if you can’t afford my help — get started anyway. I can always clean up loose ends later, or help you expand your efforts. All you need to get started NOW with local search marketing is to just DO it! Go ahead and dive in! You can hire me afterward with the profits…