The Importance Of Local Business Listings

The 2010 Supreme Court ruling that removed the limit on corporations donating to political campaigns has opened the floodgates of money pouring into political campaigns to be used for advertising. Now it is even easier for companies to buy their political candidates and place them into office. Never has it been more evident that with the 2012 campaign season.

Candidates have so much more money to buy radio, television and newspaper ads that they are squeezing out the local businesses. Local businesses are now finding it very difficult to buy advertising during the prime time or are having to pay 4 times as much for the same ad the paid for in the previous year.

So what is a business owner to do to still be able to reach out to their local market?

One thing that a business owner can do is to begin looking at other forms of media to advertise their business to their local market. One very affordable alternative is to use the Internet. Internet advertising is very competitive in terms of pricing and can be much more targeted than the traditional forms of advertising. Whereas radio TV and newspaper advertise a business’ ad to everyone in the local area, the business owner is paying for coverage that will not be useful for it. The business owner has less means to be able to target their advertising whereas the Internet provides a significantly better means of targeting advertising.

What are some ways to use the Internet to advertise a business?

There are several methods of advertising on the Internet. The first way and the fastest way is to use Pay Per Click advertising. This form of advertising works by bidding for prices on ads that appear in search engine results. The more a business is willing to bid for an ad, the higher up their ad will displayed in the search engine results. So the one that is willing to pay the most per click, will be the one whose ad is on top. The benefit is that the business owner only pays when the ad is clicked on. Pay per click is very targeted and immediate because the advertiser can choose which keyword phrases their ad will show up under. This way a business owner can position their business in front of those prospects that are truly looking for their products and services.

For businesses that sell to consumers, Facebook can be a lucrative avenue of investment. It allows the business owner to use very targeted methods of advertising. A business can get into demographic targeting like never before because they can target their ads based on age, marital status, occupation, location, music preferences, and much more. As a result the ads are more expensive than using search engine Pay Per Click advertising, however it is much more targeted.

Another form of online advertising for local businesses is putting their business up on Google Places. This is great for local businesses because when someone is searching for a particular business in a specific location, a list of similar businesses come up on a map in the search engine results. It is very important for a business to show up in these results because they are used by a significant percentage of consumers. The type of business also determines how much of the target market uses these results. It doesn’t cost anything for a business to register their business in Google Places; however getting their business to appear in the top results of Google Places may take some marketing efforts.

While it may be a bit difficult for many businesses who depend on their local market to get their message out there via traditional means during the Presidential election campaign, there are other powerful, more cost effective alternatives. Using the Internet can create a large buzz about a business as well as sending a business more focused and targeted traffic.

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The Importance Of Local Business Listings

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