As local businesses start to optimize their webpages for search engines and customers alike – and learn to use the best keyword search terms their prospects use, with a consistent plan for both on-page and off-page SEO – the new “level playing field” can even tip the advantage toward the small business. YOU get the new customers!

If you do this right, and they do not, then who do you think will dominate the first pages of the search engines for the keywords your prospects are using in their searches for what YOU offer? (Even when you are offering the Fortune 500 company’s own products.)

And who will the prospects then choose to do business with?
Why you, of course!

It’s not a matter of deep pockets. The mega-bucks shelled out by Fortune 500 companies for PPC advertising is largely wasted. These companies jointly spend millions of dollars daily on 100,000 keywords. But shockingly, only about 25% of Fortune 500 keywords even rank among the top 50 natural search results. (Conductor Research, Q4 2009 Report)

Even with all the metrics available, they just don’t “get it.” The study found that more than 50% of the Fortune 500 companies had nearly zero search engine visibility!

32% had “very low” search visibility, while 14.6% had “low” keyword search visibility. A mere 25% managed to show up in the top 50 search listings for a keyword, product, or service. How bad is that! Your goal is to get several page one listings, to be highly visible for people searching your local area for what you have to offer. So with the Fortune 500, you can “eat their lunch!”

The solution for these Fortune 500 companies?

It’s the same as for anyone. They need for each of their business lines or product lines to apply sound keyword research (like we do). Then they need to use the most relevant and popular of those keywords strategically placed on-page, in the site’s metadata, and in hundreds of anchor text backlinks from social news (e.g., press releases published across the web), social media (e.g., videos published to YouTube and 25-30 more sites), social bookmarks (e.g., delicious and Digg), good content (e.g., articles published across the web), and in fresh content on their sites (e.g., blog articles) – or else they have no hope of showing up (much less dominating) competitive search terms when people type a phrase into a Google search (“organic search”).

They need the same SEO services package we offer to you (and we do most of if for you, so you can run your business). It would save them a ton of money from their current PPC advertising costs. Their listings would be more targeted to the searchers’ actual queries, and their conversions would increase, generating more sales and profits.

But even when they get good keywords for their paid search (sponsored search ads), the research shows they fail to use those in SEO campaigns. They pay thousands monthly for computer services. The geeks they hire probably know the technology well (Hey, I admire and need the skilled technical people!) – but this SEO world with its vast interrelationships of disciplines for blending online and offline marketing with sophisticated, ongoing market research and tracking, plus proprietary automation technologies to get the message out there in hundreds of places – is another universe to them. To most of their traditional marketers, too. Overwhelming.

Perhaps, too, it’s a cultural problem for them. For once, they cannot buy their way to the top, as in paid search where they just up the ante for a keyword (and pay through the nose). Why can’t they simply hire SEO experts to optimize key webpages, outsource content production (even though they would surely overpay again), and have the SEO and website traffic experts get all that optimized content out there?

See, now you know that YOU are way ahead of them… poised to profit as one of those for whom a deep recession makes fortunes. You know to seek affordable, impactful SEO help and to laser-target searchers’ buying keywords to your location, products and services. In the game of local search, the people find your local business, not them, and … YOU WIN!

Your concern is operating your actual local business, attracting buyers, and customer retention. Dominating your competitors, and doing it cost-effectively. So why is quality, consistent, local search marketing critical to your success?

We’ve discussed a little about the importance of search engine optimization for your website. That’s the base, the online representation of the substance you are marketing. You and your business! Without an optimized site, no matter what you do online, the “dots won’t connect” – at least not in the way they need to for you to dominate the search engines and be listed above your competitors or at least seen on the coveted page one of Google.

You need to go where your prospects and customers are!

They are online. They are mobile. Most are search savvy, in a hurry, and looking for something specific – Fast! Whoever pops up near the top of Google, with an interesting and directly relevant tagline, seems credible and worth checking out. Now!

Local searchers want to know where the best Italian restaurant is in this town… where to buy a specific brand of shoe locally… who’s the best local chiropractor to end this back pain… who’s the top realtor in the specific market area… where to find a cosmetic surgeon or get good cosmetic dentistry… hotels, auto dealerships, and so on.

And they are doing it through Local Search!

The most recent statistics demonstrate why local search is so vital to your future success – and show that most people searching online for something specific are BUYERS!

• 82% of local searchers follow up via in-store visit, phone call or purchase. (TMP/comScore 2009). These are qualified prospects. These are buyers.
• 73% of online activity is related to local content. (Google 2009)  People are searching online first to find you and your services – or your competitors.
• 54% of Americans have substituted the internet and local search for the phonebooks they used to use. (ComScore 2009) And you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for ad space. Most Search Engines are free to advertise on.
• 35% of all searches are local. (DM News 2009) That is, of all searches of any kind on the internet (including information, browsing, planning, dreaming), more than a third are to find a product or service locally – and those searches tend to have strong buyer intent!
• 32% of people with smart phones conduct local search. (Google) Now consider that mobile purchase intent is 3 times higher than online purchase intent, then you know how critical it is to be at the top of the list when your prospect is looking. Phones don’t display too many listings in one field, and mobile searchers like to find things fast! No patience to scroll down endless lists. (And besides, most believe that those listings near the top most be the most credible, reliable, popular.)

That’s the kind of traffic you want – targeted prospects, buyers, looking specifically for your business, products, and services. And it’s yours “free” if you have a well-coordinated, consistent SEO marketing plan (such as our affordable LocalSEO core package of services).

But you need constantly to be feeding the Google machine with those things you can control – the what, where, and when:

What? – Quality Content and Backlinks – articles, blogs, videos, audios, press releases, social bookmarks, etc., optimized and relevant.

Where? – In multiple directories, on multiple social sites and news sites, with keyword-specific anchor text links, the right tags and categories, bookmarked timely and pinged.

When? - Consistently. Google looks for freshness. If you don’t show “love” to your site, why should Google? If others are not linking back to you, then why should Google consider you important or still relevant? A consistent linking strategy is critical to maintaining top positions in the search engines.

If you keep building that wall of content and backlinks, your fortress will become formidable and rank high – and so will many of the pages that support it (all that content you’ve published all over the web!) – and it will be difficult for competitors to catch up if they jump in the online marketing game later. As fierce competition tries to take over as “King of the Hill” in the rankings, you can always be circling near the top, where you’ll be seen by your prospects – and with multiple rankings, multiple targeted keywords.

But only if you take Local Search seriously, have an SEO plan, and implement your search marketing strategies consistently. That’s our business, so you can concentrate on yours!

So often I hear, “Why do I need search engine optimization for my business? I’m a local business, the brick-and-mortar type, not an internet company. I’m not even sure just what SEO is anyway.”

Point blank, here’s why it’s important for you to optimize for the search engines.  With the billions of pages published on the World Wide Web, your own website, services and products can be buried under a mountain of webpages and never found by your prospects and customers without it.  And if you don’t optimize, just remember: Your competitors will!

Make no mistake about it.  This is not a flash in the pan, but an established and rapidly growing trend. Your prospects and customers ARE searching the internet.  In fact, according to a Nielson study,

81% of customers are going online first when seeking information about a local business.

And you want them to find YOU!  Otherwise, the shiny lures of your competitors will be dangling right in front of their faces.

Consider, too, that with over 2.6 billion local searches each month, the internet has long since passed newspaper advertising and print Yellow Pages for prospects seeking local consumer service information. And online search volume is growing by leaps and bounds. Forget advertising in print yellow pages; clearly the medium has changed. It’s now the internet, and what a massive directory it is!

So if you’re not there and positioned to dominate your competitors in the search engines, you won’t be found.  Period.  Then it won’t matter how excellent your products and services might be, how alluring your website, or how much knowledge and heart you pour out on your pages.  You won’t be seen!

Now put yourself in your customer’s shoes. You want to know about a particular subject or to find a specific product, so what do you do?  If you’re like most people, you type some words representing your question, like “cosmetic surgeon Gainesville FL” or “Nike running shoes” or “Italian restaurant Tampa Florida,” into your browser bar and look for the suggestions that display on the page.

But how does the computer know what sites and links to display?

It uses a special site with highly sophisticated search technology we call a “search engine” – such as Google, Bing, Yahoo or one of many others you may have set your computer up to use.  The engine searches the internet based on the words you type into your browser (known in the industry as “keywords”).  It keeps an index of words and phrases it finds on webpages across the internet and matches them to your query.

But what if there are thousands or millions of pages that have the words you or your prospects might be seeking? (There usually are.)  How does the search engine rank all these websites and webpages and select which ones to display, in what order, and who makes it to Page One?

Page One – That’s where YOU want to be!

The rules of the game on the internet are the same as for a walk-in local business:  it’s location, location, location!

Page One in the search engines IS the most prime internet real estate.  Page One listings appear to searchers (your prospects) to be the best and most reliable sources for what they want – like a vote of confidence.  And who doesn’t want to go for the best, the most trusted? So those listings get by far the most clicks – and that means the most website visitors -  AND the most potential customers through the front door.

Face it, though.  It’s time to roll!

Google is highly competitive, and it’s getting more so each day. There were only 10 business listings on Google’s first page, but now Google’s local maps and universal search take up three, leaving only seven spots in this untra-competitive environment. This competition will only intensify as all the businesses who don’t have a real clue today about these things start to wake up – and run hard trying to catch up.

So those businesses who establish their base now and consistently build upon it – like laying bricks, one by one – will create a wall that competitors will have difficulty matching or scaling down the road.  There’s a window of opportunity to get ahead of the pack, to cement your fortress position and continually reinforce it, making it almost unassailable.  But it’s a narrow window, and  it will soon get tougher.  Much tougher.

So how do you get ahead of your competition and stay there?  How do you convince Google and the other search engines to give your website a high ranking?  And better yet, how about multiple Page One Rankings?

Through Search Engine Optimization, or “SEO.”

Simply put, in order for your local business to survive and thrive in today’s evolving, competitive environment, your customers must be able to find you quickly, and your prospects must eye you at or near the top of the search engine listings.  So heed the American Express Card marketing slogan, which I paraphrase for SEO:  “Don’t leave your business home without it!”

• Is your website a fancy billboard on a dirt road that no one ever drives down? We can help you turn it into a customer magnet. Just ask me! #
• Why local search? 30% of all queries contain a city, state or zip code per Piper Jaffray 2008 research paper. #
• Internet passed print Yellow Pages & newspaper for prospects seeking local consumer service information. 2.6+ Billion local searches /month! #
• Did you know that 27% of all mobile searches are for local information? Will your prospects find YOU or someone else listed first? We help.. #
• Just added myself to the http://wefollow.com twitter directory under: #gainesville_florida #localseo #localsearch #search #
• Why local search? 30% of all queries contain a city, state or zip code per Piper Jaffray 2008 research paper #
• Critical for local business- Nielson study shows "81% of customers are going online first to find out more about a local business." #