Have you figured out how search engines are social?  Many search engines, like Google and Yahoo, allow people to provide company reviews.  So, if you search for your business in a local search engine, you may see a review of your business.  Give it a try.  You may not have any reviews right now, but just wait.  You will very soon.

How reviews are helpful

For the rest of this article, let’s try searching for “Hotel” and your zip code.  Read the reviews that your local hotels have online.  Many of the reviews come from the search engine, but many also come from other travel sites. When you look at these reviews, you will notice good and bad reviews.  You will also see those reviews that others found helpful.  If you find a review helpful, click “YES.”  That will make the reviews more reliable and helpful to the next person.   Reviews help you make better buying decisions.

reviews

What about bad reviews of my business

you [Read more...]

For this lesson, I have created two videos that you can watch to get a feel for how to create and edit your listing in Google Local.  For those of you that like the step by step instructions, I have included those after the videos.

This lesson will take longer than 15 minutes. Take your time.  Your investment in this setup should be less than one hour, and the benefits will be evident for years to come. Google Maps is considered authoritative, verified information. Other local and yellow pages sites use the information found within Google listings. This leads to more exposure and more business for you. [Read more...]

googlelocalyahoo_local_logomsnLocal search has been around for awhile, but surprisingly, many businesses aren’t aware of how important it can be to securing your online presence and adding value to your potential customers who use this service every day. There is literally an entire generation of people who don’t use the yellow pages*.  So how do they find you?  They go to Google and search for your business with local terms.  For instance, if you are looking for a jeweler, type in “jewelry” and your city & state, or zip code.  If you type in “web designer 55350,”  Vivid Image will come up two out of the three local listings!

A short story about local search success…

[Read more...]