Content published by ShopBayOfQuinte.ca - 888-430-7467 in Bay Of Quinte, Ontario, Canada

Why are so many business owners not utilizing such an important tool?

Beats me!

What I can tell you is there are many solutions and in this newsletter I will break down the importance of local listings and the benefits that come along with them. As a marketer I often find myself asking questions I feel are so obvious they almost slap you dead in the face. It boggles my mind wondering how there are so many small business owners who feel they have it all figured out yet have been sitting idle in the online marketing world for years. ”I don't need this and don't need that" they tell me. It's either, "my customers have been around since my great grandfather started this company" or” I don't need to spend thousands of dollars to get found on the internet" or "If my customers want me they'll call me and I’ll give them directions". But my favorite one is when I ask, "well ok what about new customers ", they reply, “Well word of mouth has been my best form of marketing". Ok, sure, anyway, ( insert sarcasm) what business owner wants more business, that's just absurd right? It's truly nonsense lack of knowledge and fear of change that is driving these decisions. I also would like to think that if every business took 30 minutes to meet with us you could see that there is a lot better way to reach local consumers in a way that benefits everyone locally.

The point of marketing is to reach the broadest audience your budget allows increasing customer retention both new and loyal, thus increasing your R.O.I (return on investment). I guess if you live in an extremely small town with population 500 you’re good in that respect, but to assume everyone in the town knows who you are and where you're located is simply arrogance. People grow up and move on with their lives, some move to other cities, towns and even countries. ( Think for a moment of all of the New Locals and even the Base, lots of new people to our region every month.) Some people even die, yep its true! Generations fade out and things change, out with the old in with the new. Businesses change information and locations often, from a simple phone number to a whole new location. Maybe you have more than one location as well, maybe you plan to rebrand your business in the future or intend on introducing a new product or service. Point is, you must be visible on the internet and easily accessible to customers or you will lose so much business and brand awareness you can't even begin to imagine the repercussions.
Let's put things in perspective, if a customer is looking for a particular product, food or service the first thing they do is pull out their mobile phone, desktop, laptop or tablet and search. Most likely, the first place that pops up is their choice or interest. ( Or at least what the algorithm thinks is their choice) If you get really lucky, they will actually scroll down enough to see what's underneath the top three paid ad suggestions. So how do you compete in a world where everyone is fighting for the top spot or front page of Google? Well a great place to start is to make sure all of your business information is correct on every search engine, review site, directory and social site across the board. Or better yet join the local virtual marketplace.... your local community site ( community sites URLs listed below) that provides a local business profile for your business and also adds your business in our regional site ShopBayofQuinte.ca.

Not to mention listings expand your visibility and allow you to add visual content such as pictures, video etc. This helps to increase sales and exposure. It gives the consumer a clear picture of what it is you’re pitching them to purchase. Most importantly, Over 90% of consumers now use search engines to shop locally.

Advertising your business locally is huge in the sense of brand development and brand awareness. I mean, the more people exposed to your business and the more accessible you are online, the more people are likely to utilize your services or buy your product. If people can't find your website or track you down via internet, then how can you expect them to know what you're selling? So not only are directories great for website exposure, There also a great way to reach out to a specific audience and capture their attention. ShopBayofQuinte.ca also allows you to promote whatever product(s) or service(s) you are offering. You can focus on a specific community, region or you can just go for the gusto and advertise nationally or internationally.

Cheap Exposure and very cost effective. Yup, you heard that right. It is free to list your business on this local search engine, directory, social site and review site, although you can get enhanced profiles on it as well. Enhancing your profile will be a sure way to place you at the top of the search list when people are looking for your specific product(s) or service(s). Oh, did I mention that it also helps your other local businesses, non profits, sports teams and community? How you ask? Well , when someone came looking for Total Sports Quinte’s latest magazine, podcast or article. They found a Nissan Rogue at Bayview Auto, a Eddy K gown at Lily’s Bridal Boutique. By putting your services and products on one local-centric platform you are not only benefiting your business you are helping other businesses in your community!

SEO ( Search Engine Optimization) is huge and Google has changed its algorithm so much that it is getting harder each and every day to figure out what content it will pull or how to obtain solid backlinks and so on. Either way, that is a topic for a different article in itself. Listings and SEO go hand and hand. For one, they get a lot of hits and in result, help to rank highly on major search engines. You must also consider the backlinks from online directories. They have a very high quality for the simple fact they are coming from a reliable and well known source. Plus the one-way links towards your website may help with SEO as well.

Being on local business listings allows you to eliminate the need to hire a web developer for their services to update your website, or for that matter search engine spiders to crawl your web page. In conclusion, you have created an additional source that will self-deliver your business information to search engines directly via the local business listing platform. Local listings are also great for cross promoting social media platforms. What I mean by that is you can attach Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest etc. Thus allowing you to grow your brand and raise awareness. You can gain a lot of free marketing or advertising out of this utilizing post, tweets, pins etc. to promote your product(s) or service(s). Did I tell you that ever post made in ShopBayofQuinte.ca is also google indexed ? That is HUGE! Huge! And if you aren’t sure why, please set up an appointment and we will explain that to you!

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