Search Trafficker

The scope of “local search marketing” extends far beyond getting a top spot in Google – yet big brands and small businesses alike are not yet taking advantage of all the opportunities to be “found” by customers online. The phrase ‘local search marketing’ extends way beyond the simple optimisation of search phrases including regional adaptations and geographical specific terms.

With the introduction of widespread hand-held devices, consumers are searching for local products and services in different ways, using various formats and multiple devices. They might look for a drycleaner from their phone, scan listings of local restaurants from their car and research plumbers from their home computer. If your online marketing doesn’t make you visible in every one of those searches, you’re losing potential customers. This is one of the potentials of local search marketing. Google maps and other mapping software is important, as local advertising using electronic methods becomes increasingly prevalent.

What needs to be addressed in how local search is changing in the United States. This will offer an insight into the U.K. marketplace as it continues to develop globally. The Search Marketing Group has many years experience in promoting a site in the local listings and could help a company in need of local search marketing.

Our packages here at SMG can make the site visible in a variety of searches, whether at home, on the move or in the car. Local search engine marketing requires the optimisation of short tail phrases along with the more specific long-tail phrase. For example ‘search marketing’ along with ‘search marketing Cumbria’. The long-tail phrase with the locality inserted has fewer searches, however there is significantly less competition and so it is easier to get into the top 10 and hence increasing traffic from that phrase.

The Search Marketing Group makes it easy for small and mid-size businesses to be found online, regardless of where and how customers are looking. Each website has different characteristics and is targeting a certain market, and so the local search marketing campaign should reflect this. We also have tested the use of search as a reliable, measurable avenue to connect directly with a buyer’s needs. The search engines should not be underestimated in this field; they recognise the increasing use of local search marketing and understand that they need to be wary of underhand marketing methods.

Regional and local search marketing are fast becoming the marketing method of choice for small and mid-sized firms; do not forget the scope of this when allocating your marketing budget at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Geographic Search Marketing

Geographical Search Marketing accurately delivers regionally targeted marketing messages to a specific niche based on location.

Hence the Geographic location has become an essential targeting variable for any campaign, across efforts as diverse as dynamic site content, search, social media, and, of course, mobile, including apps. The search aspect of this refers to local search marketing and is becoming increasingly important in the search marketing field.

Geographic Targeting in Social, Mobile, and Applications

But the real happening place for local search marketing is clearly in mobile and mobile applications; in particular, the social media applications. The hand-held market has grown expansively in the last year, and now many people browse the search engines through mapping software such as Google Maps and other such applications.

As Google emphasized this week in its Google Buzz announcement, location is an immediate and important relevance enhancer. Also, for search engine optimisation purposes, a long-tail phrase which includes the location of the business is easier to place within the search engines.

The use of location-based data remains a point of debate, and just last week Apple posted a warning in its developer forums that if they use location-based data primarily for targeting ads the app will be rejected. Likewise, the tremendous increase in smart phone adoption in the U.S. raises both opportunities and challenges. Not only are more people using smart phones, but the devices now cover more of their needs and their day with a multitude of rich, engaging applications – many GPS driven. This increase in GPS enabled phones will have an impact on local search marketing and local advertising, as many small to medium size firms will that as a route to market. This may lead to more traditional methods of marketing being abandoned in favour of local and regional search marketing.

The largest consumer advertisers have recognised the mobile shift in consumer patterns and have followed suit with extensive and growing use of social media and mobile campaign elements. Small to mid size businesses are now taking advantage of affordable, on-strategy localised marketing opportunities they didn’t have in the past.

It remains to be seen how marketers can leverage the wealth of geographic data available now and growing. The path is clear in search and media where geography is one more variable to help fine-tune a targeting strategy. Location-specific marketing strategies are no doubt going to be the future for search marketing and eventually local search marketing. Geographical search marketing will, in the future, have an increased scope and should lead to the introduction of long-tail search engine optimisation which includes the location within the search phrase. An example of this would be ‘search marketing’ being marketed as ‘search marketing Ulverston’ rather than the more competitive short-tail phrase. This is one method of local search marketing.