— Local Search for Small Business

When it comes to keeping up with technology, most small business owners I talk to are confused, skeptical and a little embarassed at how little they know or understand. And for good reason. I sit in front of my computer more hours a week than I'm willing to admit to and I can't seem to keep my head above water.

Twitter, Facebook, Linked-in, ... For most businesses there are some powerful opportunities to use the internet to attract new customers, web traffic and sales. The problem is knowing what they all do and how they can be integrated into your work-flow to actually make a difference.

OPPORTUNITY #1: LOCAL SEARCH

In the early days of internet search we realized that it was unlikely that a small local company - say an insurance company in Newton, MA was going to be able to compete with all the other small insurance companies across the country to land on the 1st page of Google, Yahoo or MSN.

Making matters worse - through the years your customers have replaced their phone book, yellow pages and newspapers with a computers, cell phones and PDAs. This has left many (or most) small businesses impossible to find.

Have you ever gone to Google, Yahoo and MSN and searched for the product or service you provide? Do this now. ..............
(note: think like you customer. Would they search for "car insurance" or "John Jones Insurance Agency")

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WHAT YOU CAN DO

In the past couple years, the search engines have changed search results to show more local listing based on the location of the search. They know where your computer is geographically and provide results that are appropriate for your local area. This is a huge opportunity for local small businesses, who should have a website SEO (Search Engine Optomization) plan in place.

Below I list a few items that are necessary to rank well with the search engines. You may need to consult with your web designer to

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7 UNIVERSAL LOCAL-SEARCH TASKS YOU CAN DO NOW

1. Register your business with Google Local Business Center and Google Maps

2. Make sure your website's back-end code has a site-map and that it is registered with Google Webmaster Tools

3. Register your website's sitemap with MSN's Live's Webmaster Toolsm

4. Your website homepage title bar should include the name of your local town(s) or sales region

5. Open a Twitter account under your company name and link it to your website (even if you never ever use it)

6. Set up a profile on LinkedIn.com and link it to your website.

7. Register your company (and website) with the top business directories - Both National and Local.

Often this is a free service. The more traffic the directory gets, the greater the potential impact on your website's search rankings.

A few directories that we recommend:

http://www.local.com
http://www.yelp.com
http://www.dmoz.org/Business
http://dir.yahoo.com
http://YellowPages.AOL.com
http://www.yellowpages.com
http://www.searchboston.com
http://www.Yellowbook.com
http://www.superpages.com
http://www.switchboard.com