What is Local Search?
When you are looking locally for auto parts, scrap booking supplies, shoes, or even a real estate agent, you probably use the yellow pages. Search engines are now trying to take online users to offline businesses and have taken great steps to make “local search” effective, useful, and fun. Through several “local search” tools, consumers can find what
they want in their local community. Search engines have also made it very easy for you, an online merchant, to target these “local” audiences without a costly or time-consuming investment.
Why will Local Search Marketing benefit me?
Local retail store:
Through various “local search” features, a customer within a 50-mile radius of your business could search for your product’s keywords and your business listing could display as #1 in the search results. Because the customer found you through “local search,” they could place an order over the Internet, phone, or they may even come into the store.Online retailer:
In general, “local search” is a great way to get more qualified traffic. Sales, generally, is a numbers game: the more people to your site the more sales will occur. At times, local buyers purchase from local companies and if you are not marketing locally, then you are missing out on
this market.
In summary, “local search” is a great way to target local audiences. Even if you don’t have a physical business for them to purchase your products, there are many other reasons why customers will still choose to work with you, a local company.
For instance, as customers purchase from local companies, they could receive cheaper shipping, use local phone #s, visit the local business for customer service questions, etc.
If you’re looking to take the next step, this is a great place to start:
Just local search companies:
http://www.metrobot.com/
http://www.truelocal.com/
http://www.citysearch.com/
Search Engines:
http://local.yahoo.com/
http://local.ask.com/
http://local.aol.com/
http://www.newsday.com/community/directory/
Mobile phone local search engines:
http://www.google.com/mobile/loc_search.html
Paid local bid tools:
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/local/ls.php
https://adwords.google.com/support/
(Search for “regional targeting” and read the instructions therein.)
Logoworks and StoresOnline have teamed up to provide
your business
with a logo design solution that offers tremendous value.
Corporate Software Developer Praises
StoresOnline’s Software Platform
Ever since Kor Koopman, managing director and software design engineer for a South African company, was introduced to StoresOnline at an Internet Marketing Conference, he can’t stop talking about the StoresOnline software.
“Coming from an environment where I have actually developed software…it is quite a substantial package that StoresOnline has developed. I think the StoresOnline software package is absolutely fabulous,” he says.
Kor, who is married and has two children, has a master’s degree in Information Technology and is currently busy earning a doctorate in the same field. He has also managed his own business. While working as a functional design engineer and managing director for a company, he specialized in designing software that people with no computer skills could understand and use.
When he discovered StoresOnline, he was impressed with both its usability and its functionality.
“It is very easy to use—even if I look at it from the perspective of somebody who is not very technologically advanced, or people who have never used computers. For them to get onto the Internet with a business is very easy.”
Kor found out about StoresOnline while reading an advertisement in a local South African newspaper. He called StoresOnline and attended one of its workshops, where the presenters provided a live demonstration of the StoresOnline store builder in action.
Kor was so impressed with the software that he purchased three website licenses immediately and began developing a site.
Along the way Kor contacted Customer Service a few times for help.
“They were very friendly and helped me every single time I needed help,” he says. “I like [their] order tracking. It is easy for [them] to refer to [calls] that happened before.”
After using StoresOnline to build his site, Kor had a corporate webpage designer evaluate the site’s look and feel, navigation, featured items, and other elements, and then tell him what he thought. The designer responded by saying it would normally cost 150,000 Rand (around USD $25,000) to develop.
“That is just development—no customer service, autoresponder functionality, no facilities to change color, no payment processor connection,” Kor says.
Creating a product similar to StoresOnline’s software would be extremely difficult and costly, says Kor.
“From a professional person who can do software programming, HTML coding, and stuff like that, it would actually be ridiculous to try,” he says. “It would consume huge amounts of time to get set up, and then, in the future, it will take you a lot of time to get the software managed. It will also take you a lot of time to maintain your software.”
“It will be very costly to try and do it yourself. The cost difference between setting it up yourself versus purchasing [StoresOnline's package], is humungous. I think someone would be foolish to try to do it themselves.”
Alternatives comparable to StoresOnline’s software are hard to come by, says Kor.
“I don’t think you can go out there and just find something like StoresOnline,” he says. “If you purchase [alternative] software, it takes a few months to set it up, and then you don’t have any facilities in the background that will help you run your business.”
However, he says, when “you purchase the [StoresOnline] product, you set it up—it takes you a week or two weeks to get it set up—and then you start doing the marketing.”
“It gives you all the tools you need from A to Z to get [your website] going. You don’t have to worry about outsourcing; you don’t have to worry about expensive programmers—nothing like that. It’s amazing,”
Another boon for Kor is the way his Internet retail store fits his lifestyle.
“I tend to work too much; I tend to push myself to hard,” he says. “So, I decided that I needed to do something which is not physically attached to bricks and mortars. And if I want to pack up and go somewhere else, I'll do that.”
Plus, Kor’s lifestyle keeps him up into the night and waking up later in the morning.
“That is not suitable to the normal working environment,” he says. “The Internet gives me the freedom I actually need to be more relaxed and have a fuller life.”
Kor’s website can be found at
*Testimonial results are not typical and your individual results will vary.
Your success depends on having the right price, product, and marketing efforts.
