When you're searching for a business in your area, do you pull out your trusty yellow pages book, scan through its many pages, and search for the listing, or do you fire up your smartphone, tablet, or laptop to find the business online? If you're using the physical phone book, you are squarely in the minority. According to Yelp, three quarters of business owners felt that yellow page phone books were no longer relevant to their customers.
How many times have you wanted to find a local restaurant to check its hours only to find that the business doesn't have a website or other reliable listing? How many times have you attempted to research attractions in a local city only to find that many companies do not have a website explaining their offerings.
If you're a small business, optimizing your website and web-presence for local search engine optimization is paramount to your success. Integrating your company with Google Places is a good place to start. After you register your business with Google, you will be sent a postcard to confirm your location, and your company listing will be available both on Google Maps and in local Google searches.
Once your company has a Google Places account, the trick is to convert searchers to customers. The more information you can provide to customers about your brand and product, the better, and the odds are good. AT&T and Nielson report that 43% of local searches completed on mobile phones lead to physical visits by the customer. By linking your website to your Google Places account, customers can easily discover your business and then find out more about your company and brand. In order to capture the mobile audience searching for your company, however, your website must be mobile optimized in order to capitalize on high walk through rates. Need help making your business local SEO and mobile ready? Contact AndPlus.