Promote your site locally with Google local

So you say you want to advertise your local business but a full online marketing campaign is just too much investment for your small local business. What are your options? Try the Yellow Pages… Online! Now, I’m not suggesting that you call up the phone company to get listed on their website. Most yellow page sites are not even close to providing enough traffic to justify any extra expense. So what are your options you ask? Try Google local and Yahoo local to improve your SEO.

Recently, Yahoo Local has rolled out an upgrade to their local search. According to John Battelle’s Searchblog he says “Yahoo Local has rolled out an update to its business model for local merchants, and it’s looking a lot like what the Yellow Pages do, only online, self service, cheaper, and, well, what I’ve been on about for a while – a step towards the online version of what the Yellow Pages really need to become.”

For as little as $20/mo. your business can get guaranteed premium placement in search results for your local area plus reporting, listing customization and easy setup. Unlike traditional Yellow Page advertising, local online advertising provides detailed reporting data so you can know exactly how many people have seen and clicked your listing. This is a great way to figure out your ROI. You choose the categories and regions associated with your listing. And unlike standard search results, you can adjust your listing messaging any time.

What’s better than that? Getting a listing added to Google Local is now FREE as they build up this new product. This is the time to make sure that your site is listed because it’s highly unlikely that it will ever be this easy and affordable again. Do a search for your business first to make sure Google hasn’t found you already then the best way to get listed is to go to https://www.google.com/local/add/login and follow the online instructions to set up a Google account (free) and submit your listing!

Once you fill out the proper online forms, Google will send you a confirmation postcard to verify the street address. This postcard will contain a PIN that you will enter online to verify the listing information. It will take up to 6 weeks for verified listings to appear in the Google Local results so get started ASAP.

Also, just as a general “cool tool” for finding your way around our vast United spaces, check out the Google local search at http://maps.google.com/ and zoom in to your local area and switch to satellite view. Very cool.