Due to the ever evolving world of technology, people are looking to the internet to find business recommendations locally. Businesses that appear in the local search results are found on several online business listings. Submitting your business online can help with your companies search engine optimization. So don’t wait to be found! Submit your business information to get listed on some of the free directories including:

Google Places

As the number one search engine, it’s critical that your business has a local search page. In doing so, your business can be found and you can physically verify your information. Google also allows your business to stand out among the crowd. You can make the public aware of what types of products and services you offer and upload photos, videos, current offerings and more. The best part? You can get insightful information about your listing and make sure you’re making wise businesses decisions moving forward.

Bing Local

Bing Local allows your business to appear in the results when users are looking or are near your location. Bing Local gives you the opportunity to improve or update your business listing at any time. If you have more than one business location you can manage those listings as well. A thorough verification process further enables you to protect your account and authorize your changes.

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Local listing permits you to customize your business listing by selecting a basic or enhanced profile that is easy to manage. The basic option lets you display your business contact information, store hours along with your products and services and it’s free! With the enhanced feature, you will have everything the basic listing includes in addition to your business logo and tagline, photos, and a detailed business description.

Yelp

Yelp allows every business owner or manager to setup an account to post products and services, hours of operation, offerings, photos and even message their customers. Users can rate and provide comments on your business as well as forward the listing to a friend for more information. You also have access to see who your competitors might be of those viewers who viewed your listing.

Best of the Web Local

Best of the Web Local allows you to provide your business contact information including website and email as well as driving directions, photographs and payment options. BOTW Local Premium offers you more visibility and detailed information that can ultimately drive greater foot traffic to your location.

It’s important to keep in mind there are a slew of other online business listings that must be completed to really make an impact and get your business found.

Google Instant Search Case Study and Explanation

We have had  a tremendous amount of questions surrounding the topic of Google’s new instant search. Most of the questions  seem to relate to expectations that the business executive should have on the impact of traffic and conversions.

Now that we’ve actually had a week and a half to monitor some phrases that we personally rank for and check the impact of instant search on those keyword phrases, we figured it it would be best to share them with our customers and, of course, you.

I don’t really have an opinion one way or the other about instant search.  It’s almost like in some areas it will be a detriment and others a positive, so it’s almost a wash.  But read below, and I’ll explain why.

How It Used To Be

Before instant search, the default by Google was to offer suggestions in a drop-down fashion as the user would type their query into the search input box. However, no results would be displayed until the user pushed enter or click the search button.

A good example, which we are using in this case study, is the phrase “home value”. As you would type “home value,” you would indeed see suggestions drop down. They would not be that great of an influence, but may give you a few good ideas.

How Google Instant Search Changes Search As We Know It

Google automatically displays the results for the phrase "home values" when a user may be trying to search for "home value."

Now, you’ll notice that by the time you get to the letter “v” in the phrase “home value,” Google has already displayed the searches for the plural term, “home values.” so, “what’s the big deal?” You ask. The big deal, for us anyway, is that our website doesn’t rank on the first page for that  plural term. It does, however, rank for the singular term. So, if Google instant search is followed by the user 100% of the time, then we’d have just lost all of our organic traffic from Google for the term “home value.” In our case, this could literally mean hundreds of dollars every day in revenue.

In this "instant search," the user could be looking for a small business that sold home products and is then distracted by "Home Depot" all over the page along with maps, etc.

Let’s think about a small town hardware store named “Home Store.” Imagine yourself going to Google and searching for, “home store.” Once you type in the first “m,” you have Home Depot staring at you in the face along with a great shiny map. I believe, this small-town store may just lose some sales as a result of instant search.

I’m not stating an opinion one way or the other, only that it’s definitely something that needs to be thought about by the small business owner moving forward about the organic search (and paid search for that matter) marketing that is being done for an organization.

What Our Data Shows About Instant Search Surprised Me

My initial reaction when I saw that Google was automatically displaying the results for “home values,” as you were typing in the phrase “home value” was one of true despair. I assumed that having the results automatically appear for a different phrase would be so much of a distraction that people would automatically flock to them.

This is not what we found out in our data however. I go over this in great detail in the video above, but here is a synopsis.

• Google instant search was launched on September 8, 2010.
• We compared two different sets of data. Both  datasets were individuals searching Google for the phrase “home value” who landed on our page that ranks for that term.
• In the national search results, we have consistently been ranked at number three during the entire time frame of our datasets.
• We compared Wednesday, August 25, 2010 through Sunday, September 5, 2010 to Wednesday, September 8, 2010 through September 19, 2010. This gave us an accurate day by day comparison, because search volumes vary greatly during different days of the week.

The results?

18.64% increase in search traffic from Google after instant search distracted users away from our tested phrase.

We found that even though users are defaulted to search results we do not appear in, we actually saw an increase in traffic from Google of 18.64%. To be honest, I can’t logically explain it.

One of the few things is happening. Either Google is showing different instant search results to different people, and the phrase “home value” is one of them or people are disabling Google instant search. The only other explanation would be that the results are simply being ignored. Maybe the average Google user, who doesn’t live in this stuff every day like we do, is almost seeing them as advertisements and doing what they want to do anyway.

We’ll see how this affects things in the future, but as for now… I’m not nearly as worried as I was 12 days ago.

We are excited to bring you our latest (number 2) in our series of internet marketing charts.  This time, we got some advice from top industry experts:

• Danny Sullivan
• Aaron Wall
• Rand Fishkin
• Michael Gray
• Rae Hoffman
• Brian Mark

Click The Chart Below To View or Download A High Resolution PDF Below

Why We Created The Chart

As has been said by many in the industry, universal search is changing the way that internet marketers go about their campaigns. Part of the struggle that we have internally is explaining this concept to executives. Usually, we are in about 5 – 7 meetings a week discussing strategies for companies. As the topic of universal search comes up, their eyes begin to glaze and a state of confusion ensues.

This used to happen with us when we talked about link building as well. Then we introduced our Link Building Chart and began using it. Since we put that out last March, we have heard it has helped many SEOs the same way it helped us.

So, to fix this communication hole regarding universal search, we compiled a group of the smartest people in the industry on the topic of universal search. We asked them to share their expertise and quotes, and then we put it all together in an easy to read, fun PDF – a universal search chart.

Thank You!

I want to thank all of those who contributed for their participation. It was great fun chatting with you guys via email and on the phone while we were putting it all together. Oh… and thanks for not being too picky about the “cartoon drawings.”

What are your thoughts?

Is there anything we missed? Are there any tips you’d like to add? Drop them in below.

Also, I want to make sure that my team get some props as well… Ashley Lichty wrote the content and Adam Perry designed the whole thing (including the cartoons). Thanks so much guys – you rock!

Download The High Res PDF

Feel free to download the high resolution PDF (we zipped it to save ya some bandwidth) and let us know what you think.

If you have ever wanted to see what kind of competition your geo-targeted adwords campaigns have in certain market, the Google Ad Targeting Preview Tool is what you need.

I have outlined in the video how you can see where your ads are placed in certain cities around the nation as well as spy on your competition a bit.

Here’s a text recap:

1. Go to The Google Adwords Targeting Preview Tool
2. Enter your keyword into the box on the left
3. Select the state or country or territory on the top right that you want to “spy” on
4. Refine the location to as detailed as the city level

Let me know if you have questions or other applications below.

Whether or not everyone understands how it works, internet marketing produces results for its adopters. Its hard to argue against fully utilizing a medium when 80% of your target market uses it for initial research, right?

To help share our knowledge with everyone interested in doing Lancaster internet marketing, Dave Conklin of ProspectMX is taking his wealth of internet marketing know-how on the road and passing along “secrets of success” to local business owners.

In a combined effort with the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce & Industry, ProspectMX will be hosting a two-day web marketing workshop October 28 and 29 from 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

The two part workshop is divided into five categories, all of which ProspectMX utilizes to develop its custom internet marketing campaigns:

• Custom Lead Generation
• Search Engine Optimization
• Web Systems Tracking
• Lead Generation Follow Up
• Customer Loyalty Building

Get tips on how to write internet copy that sells, analyze competitors websites, and how to use FREE web tracking systems.

Unsure if the two-day internet marketing workshop is for you? Meet Dave and learn how the internet can help you create an innovative marketing strategy with a preview of the two-day workshop Thursday, October 16 from 1:30 – 2:45 p.m.

Early bird registration for the preview is $60 for non-chamber members, but attendees of the preview receive a $30 credit towards workshop registration. Day of registration for non-chamber members is $65.

Non-member pricing for the two-day workshop is $995. Discounts apply for the preview and workshop for Lancaster County Chamber members.So get out of the office, learn something new, and become a MASTER of internet marketing.

To register or for more information on the workshop and the preview session, contact Angi Fritz at by phone at 717.397.3531 ext. 172 or e-mail profdev@lcci.com