Still Using Telephone Directories to Market Your Business?
In a recent informal survey of local small business owners, I was surprised to learn how many still rely on costly telephone directory listings as a primary means of marketing their business. Interestingly, when I asked them how they themselves find products and services that they are looking for, most said they did their looking online. There seems to be a disconnect between what they do and what they expect their prospects and clients to do. If you read one of my recent posts on 8 ways to green your office, you will know that I discontinued the delivery of local telephone directories to our home because I do all my searches online and have for some time.
In addition to the number of people who use their home computers to source product and service, there is a growing number of users of smart phones and products like the Ipod Touch. What business owners need to get a handle on is how these users actually find products and services online. Most business owners tell me they have a website. When I ask them how well optimized their sites are for keywords, most don’t know and don’t understand the implication. One cannot count on the fact that users will know to look up your business to find what they are looking for so it’s not enough just to have a website. Most of the time, users will do a Google search on a keyword or keyword phrase to find what they are looking for. The bottom line here is that if you are not easily found using those keywords, to those individuals, you do not exist. And, if the proliferation of these tools and the growing number of Social media users continues to rise, where does that leave your business in the coming years?
As a Social Media Specialist, I counsel my local business clients to at least have a Google local business listing. This local business listing must contain the keywords that your community will use to find your product or service. You need to think like a consumer when you are targeting these keywords. It is also important to do some keyword research to ensure that your listing will have the chance to be ranked high in the Search Engines. If you are not comfortable doing this on your own, you should enlist the help of someone who can help you.
If you are a business owner who does business online, then it is even more critical that you either understand keyword searches and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or get someone to help you ensure your sites rank high enough to be found. Most users will not leave the first page of Google to find what they are looking for. Targeting to be on the first page of Google should be your goal. Targeting to be the first listing on Page 1 of Google would be ideal. According to Market Samurai, a higher percentage of users will click on the number 1 Google listing than on any other.
Social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and WordPress (blogs) naturally rank high because the Google search engines heavily index these sites so being involved in Social Media is a good choice. Knowing which sites to be involved in based on your business model is something I work on with clients to ascertain where they will have their greatest success.
Ready to get started? I’d love your feedback. Here on my blog, you’ll get commentluv. That’s a plugin for bloggers. If you leave a comment, you can provide a link back to your own blog. How great is that?But you don’t have to be a blogger to leave a comment. I want to hear from everyone!
While physically located in Newmarket, ON where Joanne lives with her family, she is virtually yours, anywhere.
Until next time,
Joanne
