Using Local Search Marketing to Bring in the Phone Calls
Well, for example, in Australia things are pretty limited. There are those folks, you know whom I am talking about, who will place you not only in a hard copy directory but also have services on line. The challenge is in what the financial cost is, BIG, but hey, they have been around a long time and have deep pockets. The other issue is that they often advertise in the search engines and you will find them there BUT if you follow the link to them, you need to do your search all over again! What a pain.
There are other commercial “local search engines” and some of these are good value but many are not comprehensive. If there are only a few thousand businesses in a local directory most users will leave given the limited amount of content.
So what you need to do is use a search engine like Google and search for “local search directory”, make sure you limit your search to the country you are in. For this article I am using Australia. The results include Yahoo local search and a number of local directories. You should check these out and see what it takes to participate in the directories that make the first page of the Google search.
Many on-line marketeers forget the key point to being found on the Internet. What is the “Action” that you want to happen once someone finds your web page or directory listing? If you can’t or don’t sell products from your web site there are only two actions you want. First, that they call you, or second, that they email you.