Your local business can use online marketing to its best advantage by using a strategy that includes sites which are very high in the search engine rankings which use maps.
Take a look at this graphic from hitwise.com. You will see the number one site for travel is mapquest.com. Yes, remember mapquest?
My strategy for local business is to visit mapquest.com for your local town. Take a look around at what the “new” mapquest offers on the page. Look at the sites they pull information from. Doesn’t it make sense that you want your business to be listed in those same places? Sure it does. This is a search engine you want to be found in.
The first thing asked is enter a business name and a city. See if yours comes up. If not, look at the top of the mapquest page, for a round button that says LOCAL, click on that. Enter your actual town and state. As you look at the categories it has opened up, the second line in the title shows where this information is being pulled from. See if any of these categories match what your business offers as a service.
If nothing else, you can create a video and add it to the TRUVEO section, making sure that you have placed info for your town and your business in the title and tags of the video. TRUVEO also picks up YouTube videos, so if you have added videos there, just make sure your town and state are listed in the name and tags and it should show up.
If you wish to add your business to AOL Local, which powers info for the CityGuide and Yellow Pages, here is what they state:
How do I add my business listing to the AOL Yellow Pages? You can submit a new AOL Yellow Pages business listing by going to our Directory Listing Information page. Any information you submit will be verified by our data provider, infoUSA. Updated data from infoUSA may take up to three months to appear on the AOL Yellow Pages site.
The website is: http://leads.infousa.com/landing/aol.html This is a free listing, so definately add it.
