By Susan Tucker
The power of local marketing is undeniable, but with the World Wide Web being well…worldwide, it can be hard to localize your digital efforts. Along with face-to-face interactions via event marketing or ramping up local print advertising, you should also focus on updating your local search marketing efforts, as well.
Statistics are showing that roughly 81% of consumers research online prior to making a purchase offline. Recent studies are also showing that the average consumer uses over seven different online media sources to research those products and services before buying. Not only is local search marketing necessary, it is essential to the success of your business.
To help you get started, I have created this list of local search marketing listings:
- Google Places for Business
- Bing Business Portal
- Express Update
- Neustar Localeze
- Yelp for Business Owners
- Yahoo Local
- Best of the Web Local
- Here PrimePlaces
- Hotfrog
- Yellow Pages
- Superpages
- Foursquare
- Acxiom
As with your social media marketing, email marketing and website, make sure you have unified messaging across the board and utilize your main keywords. Resize your logo to fit the proper size of your profile on each search listing and keep everything updated as things in your company change.
Did I miss anything? If so, please share in the comments below!
Susan, thank you for this awesome consolidated list! Besides Google Places, which do you think are the top 3-4 most important? Which might be better for products vs. services?
Hi Beth – thank you for your thoughtful questions! I think the top 3-4 are the most name recognized: Bing Places, Yahoo, Yellow Pages. As far as best for products vs services – Google, Yellow Pages, Superpages for services and the other for products. However, each business and industry should test and modify. It’s super important to track to figure out what works best for your company.