You should know by not that the Internet provide business owners with low cost opportunities to create exposure for your business and dramatically boost your revenue.
The main ways people discover your business on the Internet are by using Search Engines or Social Media sites such as Facebook, blogs, forums, Twitter, Linkedin, and Youtube.
Social Media
Social networking sites are where people gather to share and discuss about different topics. Social networking sites are where you should go to build your brand, increase your exposure, and manage your reputation.
To get started, you should first create a profile and fill out the necessary information about your business. And then you should contribute to the discussion by sharing your knowledge, ideas, and insights and responding to comments and questions from others.
The main social networking sites you should participate in Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.
Search Engines
Using Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing is definitely the main method for people to look for local goods and services. Among the Search Engines, Google is the “king” right now.
There are essentially 3 ways for your business to be found on the Search Engines when someone enter a search term in the Google search box: Organic Listing, Local Listing, and Pay Per Click (PPC) Sponsored listing.
In the example below in Figure A, a searcher enters in “Chiropractor in Chicago” in the Google search box and Google returns the results from the local business listing, the organic listing, and the PPC sponsored listing.
If you want to maximize the chance of your business getting found by your prospects, then you should try to get your business appear in all 3 listings:
- Organic listing – Organic listing is free, but requires you to do some Search Engine Optimization efforts for the keywords that you want to rank for. In the example above, the keyword phrase would be “Chiropractor in Chicago.”
- Local Listing – This is also free. Google as well as the other big search engines are now featuring the local search results on the top of the search results when they detect that your are trying to search for a local product or service. If you include the zip code or city name in the search box, that’s a good indication that you are searching for a local product or service.
In order to get your business shown in the Local Listing results, you must complete your business information and profile in the Google Places, Yahoo! Local, and Microsoft live local business directories. - Pay Per Click Sponsored Listing – Getting your ads shown in the Pay Per Click sponsored area costs you money, but you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Hence, it is called Pay Per Click. The Search Engines use an auction system to determine which your position your ads get shown. So it depends on the # of businesses competing on the same keywords, the cost per click you’re willing to pay, and the quality score. Quality score is based on several factors, which include the Click Through Rate of your ads (the higher the better), the quality of your website, and how relevant are your ads and landing page to the search terms.
