WHY YOUR SMALL BUSINESS WILL FAIL WITHOUT SEO

Starting a local business is one avenue towards financial freedom. Most people dream of owning a business, but very few get it done. Local businesses like restaurants, bakeries, bookstores, or any other type of store or service will usually start off small, but the owner’s expectations will be huge. Many local business marketing techniques must be employed to achieve growth.

​An often overlooked local marketing technique involves the actual store and its display banners. A hair salon may have a neon sign that reads “Hair Salon” and nothing else. We all know what services are provided by hair salons, but listing these services along with prices will get more people through the door.

​One of the most effective, yet least used, local marketing methods is flyers. A good flyer will include a discount or promotion of some kind that can only be redeemed by presenting the flyer. Including a promotional end date like is a good idea and adds value to the flyer. The distribution of flyers is inexpensive and can be done just about anywhere: door to door, at the mall, on a busy sidewalk and even throwing flyers from airplanes.

​Marketing a local business means finding ways to stand out from the crowd. To draw attention and get new potential customers through the door, some business owners will go as far as hiring clowns or dress up employees in silly costumes. Large balloons are often employed and are proven to be highly effective in drawing attention.

​Of course, for the long-term, a business needs to attract customers who may not find themselves in the vicinity of the store. An ad in the local phone book is a must, but the high cost can be prohibiting. An alternative is search engine marketing. Nowadays, more people turn to the old search engines before picking up the telephone book. Someone looking for a local party store may type.” Chances are this person is looking to find a local party store. The one or few local party stores that show up are likely to pick up a new customer, today.

​There are many other ways to promote a local business. Specific trade shows and local events like fairs and flea markets can help to spread the word. Marketing is very important for any business. In fact, most businesses devote at least 30% of their budget towards marketing. In time, people are likely to stumble upon the store, with good marketing people will look for that store.

​In the past few years, we’ve never seen or heard anything new in local advertising. Most businesses have been accustomed to using yellow pages for their basic local marketing needs. Though it’s popular and has been effective ever since it has been used, it’s slowly losing its spark and will most likely be worthless in the next couple of years. With this in mind, it’s just right for you to look for other ways to advertise your business.

​As what we’ve said a while ago, yellow pages are starting to go to oblivion. This isn’t in any way trying to take away credit from the big yellow book, but trends aren’t just going in favor with them. People are more inclined to use the internet, more specifically the search engines to look for the information that they need. And with search engines upgrading their system from time to time, it’s close to reality that all the information that you need will be available in the “net.”

With these things happening on the horizon, it’s logical that we look for marketing methods that involve the internet. Luckily, this aggressive upgrading that the search engines have been doing for some time now has led to the development of a local marketing strategy. Dubbed as local search marketing, it’s expected to take over the lion’s share of what yellow pages have been doing to our businesses right now.

​In essence, it’s just like our good old yellow pages subscriptions; you get a pretty nice space on the web with all the information that every user should need to get to your shop. But of course, there are a few upgrades that you’ll appreciate such as geo-tagging which gives you an outline using a satellite image to where exactly your shop is.