Business Marketing for Small Businesses Without a Website

If your business has a local focus, you may not think Internet marketing has much to offer you. Think again. The Internet can be a big help to small business - even if you don't sell your products online. You might not even need a website to bring new customers to your door.

More and more people are moving away from the phone book and turning to search engines when they need local goods and services. In order to take advantage of this trend, you need to make sure you are in the top search results for your area.

Both Google and Yahoo offer free listings for local businesses. When a web surfer goes hunting for "bargain books in My Town" the first results will be listings for local booksellers that have placed themselves with the search engine. The results can include contact information, location on the map, hours of operation and even payment methods accepted. Everything a potential customer needs to know to go shopping. If your business isn't listed, potential customers may never even know you exist.

Before you rush to get yourself listed however, it is worth taking a few minutes to perfect your online ad. By using one of the same tools used by big business to increase the odds that local searchers will discover your store.

Your online listing will include a description of your store. Along with the category you list yourself in, the the search engine will try to match the searcher's words with the description to help determine the most relevant result.

A tool designed for those wishing to purchase keywords in Google's adwords advertising system can help. Using the AdWords Keyword Tool, you can increase your odds of getting top placement for the highest number of searches.

The Keyword tool gives you insight into how frequently a particular word or phrase is searched on Google. This can help you phrase your offerings to increase the likelihood of getting the coveted top spot in search results. If you leave the 'Use Synonyms' box checked when doing your search, your results will include similar words and phrases to what you typed - and their relative search volume.

Once you have the perfect description for you listing, there is one more step. Get out your digital camera and take a couple snaps of your store-front. In addition to your hours, contact information, both search companies allow you to include photos in your listing. Taking advantage of this to show your store front will help visitors recognize you when they leave their keyboards and go searching for you on the road.

In addition to putting your listing in with major search companies, Locally Type has a listing of several other smaller directories to get listed with. Just make sure you have your information the way you want before you list in all of these. Otherwise making changing to all your listings may become a full time job.

Resources:
Google Local Business Center
Yahoo! Local
Locally Type Listings
Google Keyword Tool