When you’re trying to promote your business through local search online, there are several different components that you can combine in order to create the overall most effective strategy. Performance in local search is going to be achieved by combining several different elements.

Building Listings and Links

When you’re trying to get your site to perform better in the local search results, you need to split your work between your own site and other sites. For example, things that you can do on other sites which can help to improve the results of your own pages include:

• Building place listings or citations that include your address, contact information, and phone number in a consistent fashion. For example the business below provides SEO services to businesses in Chicago, and this is their citation:

• Build links back from other sites to your own page. Remember that when building links, even when focussing on local search rather than simple, overall SEO performance, that the quality of the links is more important than sheer quantity
• Build content which helps to showcase the knowledge that your company has. This builds brand trust whether you’re offering a product or a service. Video content is now shared in so many ways through sharing sites, cell phones, and social media sites, that this can be one of your best ways of creating content. Search engines are also putting more emphasis on great content, increasing the importance of video all the time.

Working on Your Site

There also things that you have to concentrate on that more closely involve your own site and this creates the other half of your total marketing plan for local search results.

• Build an email list. Although these have traditionally been used for direct sales for websites, this may be an overused tactic that no longer breeds trust. Instead, think of using it as a tool for building a relationship by communicating with your customers.
• Ensure that all of your contact information is listed completely on your website, including your address and phone number.
• Work on the onsite optimization factors, targeting local keywords. This could account for up to 30% of your site’s performance in the search engines.
• Driving paid traffic to your site. Using pay per click marketing is an important part of the overall toolkit that people use to drive traffic to their site. This can be an easy way to lose money unless you do your research first however, so be sure to take the time to do your homework before delving into PPC.

Every business owner knows that, without good marketing techniques, a business can fail very quickly. For this reason, business owners need to focus on all aspects of the marketing spectrum in order to achieve the highest possible level of success. Today, we’re concentrating on local online marketing; something that many have heard of, but often don’t fully understand. Below, you will find seven helpful tips that can increase your customer base exponentially.

 1.)    It’s all about the web. If you don’t yet have a business website, you need to get one. It doesn’t have to be flashy, loaded down with content, or even storefront integrated, but it does need to be optimized for the search engines and easy to navigate. Your potential customers will be using this to find information about your business, so put yourself in your customer’s shoes and make sure that the information is available.

2.)    Website promotion IS necessary and don’t let anyone tell you different. Sure, a website is inexpensive to maintain, but if you don’t promote it, then it’s still a giant waste of your marketing dollars because it isn’t going to be doing its job. You can use SEO, PPC, social networking, E-Mail, and link building campaigns, but they must be quality. Any good internet marketing company can give you ideas on how to promote your website. Remember, you are trying to get people into your store. People are not impressed with poorly written content or links on pages that they will never see, so keep a focus on quality.

3.)    Getting listed in Google’s Places is one of the best ways to help boost your local business. Many refer to this center to find businesses in their area, read reviews written by real people, and find out general information.

4.)    Launch an E-Mail campaign. Though you do have to set up an opt-in list on your site, once it’s been established, it’s a great way to guarantee repeat business and even new business!

5.)    If you want to reach a wider client base, a great way to do that is with joint promotion. You can discuss this option with another business in your area. Contrary to what you may believe, partnering with a business similar to yours doesn’t mean that you are going to lose business. It means that you are going to increase business. Capitalize on it.

6.)    If you are not yet one of the millions that utilize the social network sites, you’d better get with the picture. The social network sites, like Twitter and Facebook, are great tools that can help you keep your customer base informed. Every new item, amazing sale, contest, joint promotion, and upcoming product should be posted for everyone to see. The best thing about social networking? If someone likes what you have to say, let’s use Facebook as an example, all of their friends will know it because it will show up on their wall. Don’t you want to know why your friends like something? Yeah, it increases business almost effortlessly.

7.)    Keep it up. Once you start bringing in hoards of customers, don’t stop there. You have to maintain that client base and you can’t maintain if you give up your efforts.

With the weight of competition on their backs, Google finds themselves constantly creating new ways to keep their spot at number one. When new features have been exhausted, what do you rely on? How about a more effective and reliable way for your clientele to find what they need.

Over half of the population today relies on what they can find online. Many of us are constantly on the go, in a rush, running late and have no time to spare on slow search engines that provide results that are the complete opposite of what we actually want to know. In an effort to provide more accurate and useful information about local business, Google decided to put an advancement on their, already effective, local businesses search; thus, Google Places was born.

Not only does Google Places allow you to pinpoint the location of a business while also obtaining all relevant information such as: what products/services the business offers, phone numbers, addresses, etc., it also provides in depth details on the extent of the services offered. Knowing exactly where a business is in relevance to where a customer may be allows for effective time management.  Being aware of what areas a business may cater to and the hours of operation allows a customer to become knowledgeable of how convenient a visit to the business may fit into their schedule.

In this busy day and age a person’s needs tend to outweigh their wants. Active individuals demand entities that allow them to execute the most convenient routes in getting what they need. Keeping up with these requests is not only a job for the internet world, but a job for the local business whose primary focus is to satisfy their healthy clientele and market their local business online.

With Google Places, certain features allow a business to engage their customers in the business world. Google Places provides the opportunity for a business to accommodate their customers by supplying them with information on their websites, specials and any events that may be taking place. Another advanced feature permits a business to provide printable coupons to prevent the customer from having to look through a newspaper or voucher book for a good deal.

Any business that is out to build their database of repeat clients is encouraged to get their company on one of the best searches out there as one of the steps in quest to rank if you’re a Chicago SEO comapny. Google Places is a recent upgrade to the once known local business search Google offered and is already a major hit among the business world. Every business must remember: Competition doesn’t sleep. So basically, if you snooze, you lose.

Try this.  Take your smart phone and scan this image with your bar code reader.  This is  called a QR Code.

After our post last week about a national courier service commercial, we received several comments about how our agents and customers enjoyed the single video.  So, just for some fun we thought we’d entertain this week with some other top videos we found on the Internet.

Courier Service goes Wrong!

Don’t Try this Courier Service Solution!

Sure, we’ll promote the competition!

Sure, our National Courier Service will even deliver Ice Cream!

Naparex Courier Service is in the process of creating it’s first television commercial for National Courier Service in the United States.  We will be launching two commercials, testing in specific markets, in the beginning of 2010. We will consider testing these commercials areas such as New York Courier Service, Chicago Courier Service or Los Angeles Messenger Service areas.

We will be using Google TV Ads to launch our commercials on the Dish Network, which allows us to highly target our audience segments.  We’re excited to try this service from Google and mix some old with new age marketing.

While discussing and brainstorming ideas, we thought we’d check out some videos and commercials from courier services in Europe.  Here is a video we loved!

Courierboard.com is offering a new resource to support the Independent Contractor Model. Courierboard.com has over 7,500 drivers with resumes to choose from. A company that uses Independent Contractor drivers can benefit from this resource because they will be able to maintain a diversified group of contractors and companies will reinforce their independent contractor status.

Independent contractor drivers can register for free on their own site, Courierboarddriver.com to create online profiles that include their resume; making it simple for them to apply for driving contracts  and to market themselves with driver available ads. Courierboard keeps an online summary of each driver’s advertising activity so that couriers can monitor that as well.

Courier companies are encouraged to reinforce their independent contractor drivers’ efforts to market and advertsie themselves; by maintaining a diverse contract base the a driver is more able to support their independent status. If you are the owner or operator of a Baltimore Courier Service, a Miami Courier Service, or any courier service in the U.S. you can benefit from this website.

A new website has been launched that will reach many people involved in the same day couriers business. http://couriersoftheworld.com is a website that was created with the intent to bring together individuals who are a part of many different aspects of the same day courier business. Members would include company owners, drivers, couriers, messengers and anyone else involved in the day to day operations of the same day courier industry. The best part is that the membership is free!

The website seeks to tailor its content for those in the same day courier business and they will find news, challenges, ideas and concerns that are relevant to those in the industry. Members will have access to discussion groups with topics that will be of interest to them and they will be aware of events happening near them. They will also benefit from social tools such as live chat and the capability to post and view videos.

Many will find that despite the distance and difference in cities and operations between the two companies they will share many of the same fears and challenges. An employee or independent contractor of a Chicago Courier Service now has the chance to offer someone who is a part of a Boston Courier Service some advice or helpful tips. This is an exciting opportunity for everyone involved in the same day courier industry or a national courier service to meet and network with others who work in the industry.