by US.WEB

Local companies and businesses are looking to the Internet more and more for ways to increase business. The first logical choice is advertising with local publishers such as your local newspaper. Another common way to promote your website is just getting your URL out to your local community with promotional products such as pens and t-shirts. These are all great ways to increase traffic to your website and ultimately increase your revenue. Some local companies and businesses are discovering the benefit of utilizing Google AdWords to target search engine users that are searching for local products and/or services. I know if I was searching for parking at or near JFK Airport, I would search “JFK Parking” on Google. You can pay for any Keyword you think a user might search for on Google to find your products and/or services. This form of local marketing converts extremely well and should be a part of any online marketing strategy. Although, I still haven’t told you what the most overlooked local marketing opportunity is.

When you do a search on Google you will normally see two paid Ads, which are from their AdWords network. Below those Ads are the Organic (Natural) results of the Search Engine, in this case Google. If you want to rank at the top of the Organic results you can’t pay Google to have your website placed there. The only way you can rank at the top of Google’s Organic results is by making your website the most relevant website, according to Google, when someone searches for a Keyword that is important to your business. There are two main general factors that determine what website is considered most relevant for a search term; relevant website content and your popularity on the Internet compared to your competition. You may be saying to yourself, this is starting to sound extremely complicated, why don’t I just pay Google to be in their sponsored results section and get business from search engine users that way? The answer to this question is simple; Google AdWords will cost you more money in the long run than investing in achieving Organic Search Engine Rankings and the Organic results of Google produce much more traffic and business than Google AdWords.

You now may be asking yourself, why is this so significant for Local Marketing when this is a strategy that can be used by any company marketing on the Internet? Optimizing your website to achieve top Search Engine Rankings is an area of marketing that hasn’t really caught on with local businesses. Some local businesses understand it’s importance and try some tactics they may have read online or know because they are tech savy. Nevertheless, the local companies and businesses that are trying to rank Organically in Google aren’t trying very hard and their competition can easily overcome their rankings with a little help from a highly qualified search engine optimization company.