Why your Inbound Marketing should include Google Local

 

Not so long ago, in a galaxy very very near, the web was born and it was immediately thought about as a global expansion of commerce. Businesses clamored to get a website up with the thought that their business could go from the local shop to a global behemoth. The “Gold Rush” was on. Websites were built, SEO companie’s created, keywords stacked in hidden colors on pages as far as the eye could see. To the point that the local consumer could not even find local businesses to support. A search for something as simple as a “plumber” would pull up companies from all over the world, useless to the consumer needing a local company FAST! Sadly those are all true statements of how the Internet was looked at, even by this guy initially. The emphasis with the global reach of the internet was a shift of mentality away from local customers to try to grab a larger market share of this new global ‘gold rush’. This went on for years until the search engines output was essentially worthless from being drowned out with companies keyword stuffing at every available spot they could to get more traffic. Quality of visitor was not the thought, quantity was. Fast forward to present and Google Local (formerly Google Places) – in the past few newsletters we have talked about changes Google has made to help squash black hat SEO and add more credibility to the websites with genuine content to offer the world and their consumers. I for one commend Google on their efforts to thwart those who would try the easy way out of gaining visitors or shady SEO companies selling to clients visitors that were worthless to them.

I believe Google is still heading in the right direction by implementing the relatively new Google+ Local, which can determine the potential visitors geo-location and returns more local results even IF you do not type in the City and State specifically. Google Local allows you to show visitors immediately your hours, your location on a map, your service area and contact information. THIS is the NEW “Yellow Pages” we all grew up with. By allowing the visitor to target local businesses the visitor is partially “pre-qualified” before they ever see your website. THANKS GOOGLE! What this means is that instead of getting 1000 useless visitors from places all over the globe that you can’t service, you may get 10 visitors from your local area that are prescreened essentially to be within your service area and they are looking for YOU. How great is that?!

Now a days being in Google Local as a part of their Inbound Marketing plan is a must for small businesses in my opinion. If you needed a plumber quick, typing in “plumbing” in the old days would have returned millions of useless links. The focus has been coming back around full circle on focusing on the local market and standing out in the local market and within the companie’s service area. After all a roofer in Columbus Indiana is probably not going to go roof a house in California. So make sure YOUR business is listed with Google Local, if not I bet your competitor is and you may be missing out on local pre-qualified leads and not even know it. To get your site listed on Google Local you must go to Google, sign up for free and either take a phone call OR have them mail you a post card with a verification code. This insures they maintain a high quality set of links and businesses that are verified for location. 

If you are unsure how to list your business with Google Local, drop us an email TODAY!