Yes, you read that correctly, for FREE! Well, this is only partially true. I assume that you have put a great deal of effort and resources to build a great website as the core of your marketing campaign.
Now, thanks to the folks at Google, Yahoo! And MSN you can have a free local listing in their directories. All of them are really easy to set up and they provide some great benefits to your online visibility.
Mobile Visibility
Consider, for example, MSN’s business listing, which is used to power up searches on all Windows-Mobile-based-smartphones as well its MSN.com and Live.com sites. Windows Mobile gives you the opportunity to reach about 25% of the domestic smartphone consumers at no cost to you.
Recent studies have shown that the number of people searching on their smartphone devices (Blackberry, Treo, iPhone, Pocket PC, etc.) has increased significantly in the last year. Paul Burani examines the connection between the rise in mobile and local searching and concludes that this is only the beginning. As the prices of smartphones continue to drop, while they get better and better, and as the mobile phone companies include more services in their packages, internet browsing becomes more and more prevalent. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, mobile data penetration is far higher amongst the African-American and (English-speaking) Hispanic populations than it is amongst the white population, which opens up numerous possibilities for reaching out to new customers.
Local Flexibility
There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Google Maps, and their Local Business Center, revolutionized the area of the local searching. For years people had relied on the Yellow Pages or similar directories to deliver search results. However, the combination of at-your-fingertips-results with customer ratings and map and directions has literally brought people to many small and medium business’ doorsteps.
Once you get past the creepy feeling that people can
actually see a still photo of your office and the street in front of it, the
Links, Links, Links
One of the biggest benefits to local internet listings is the links they provide back to your website. While content is still king in the land of search engine optimization, having various inbound links from local directories can only help your site’s visibility and may increase traffic altogether. Unlike the more traditional paper directories, the internet local listings allow you the flexibility to target specific pages and change the link from time to time as needed.
It turns out that in the virtual world, just like in the real one, some of the best things really are free!
