Map showing Google local search results for Final Finish, a company that I currently work with. Search term is "mobile detailing woodstock ga".
With almost half of Google search results including a city or zip code, your business can’t afford to overlook local search marketing results. The majority of people today use Google, Yahoo, and other like search engines to search for businesses, services, or products in their general vicinity; and the percentage is only increasing. If your company isn’t investing any time or money into internet marketing, I would suggest you start now before your competition gets too far ahead of you!
The unfortunate part of most small businesses today is the amount of money spent on advertising. Well, I shouldn’t say the amount of money spent is unfortunate… the amount of money spent on useless advertising is unfortunate. I’ve spoken with dozens of clients about their marketing and advertising plans and costs, and the simple truth is most of them have no idea what their return on investment with each of these ventures is! They are continuously spending thousands of dollars each month on advertising when they have no idea if it’s actually working. It’s just something that they are used to doing month after month so they continue the process. Now, I’m not saying that this advertising isn’t working. If these businesses are still in operation, obviously something’s going right. But, what if you could spend a fraction of current costs on other means of advertising to get double or triple the results? Sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, that’s where the internet comes into play.
There’s different options when doing online marketing through Google for example. You have local results, Google’s Adwords (pay-per-click), and organic results. The big one here is local results! This is where most businesses are seeing a lot of return for little investment. If you’re currently using Google Adwords and it’s working for you, great! But the fact is, less and less people are paying attention to those paid ads Google puts on the top and right side of the page. The main focus now is in the middle of the page where you see the map of your city (local results). And of course under that are the organic search results.
So, back to the local results. A lot of small companies out there have no idea how to utilize this feature through Google. The best part… it’s FREE! All you need is a Google account and you’re ready to start plugging in information about your company. This is also the tricky part. If you’re listing a business for the first time, it could be months, or even never, before your listing is placed in spots A-G. This is where my services, and companies like mine, come into play. I optimize local listings to improve the time needed to be indexed, as well as the possibility of getting into one of those top 7 spots on the first page of the local results. Anyone can put their basic information in, but chances are your competitors that are showing up in the first 1-2 spots hired someone to do it for them.
All said and done, here is my challenge to you:
Look at your advertising campaigns and calculate exactly how much you’re spending on each. Then, figure out how many customers or possible leads you get from that campaign. Last, divide the advertising cost by the number of customers/leads/phone calls. For example: You spend $1,000 a month for a magazine ad. This ad brings in 25 customers for the month. $1,000 / 25 = $40.00… so $40.00 is how much you are paying for each lead generated. That can be pretty expensive for a small business.
Finally, hand over your local search marketing to me, or another similar company for a few months (only because it’ll take some time to see results), track the results, and at the end of the month, do the same cost-per-lead analysis. I can guarantee you will be amazed and probably cancel most of your other advertising…
