Advertising on the internet is incredibly effective way to find customers who are searching specifically for the products and services your business offers. This is why many small business owners have embraced advertising on the web as a primary means of building their business.
However, when it comes to the internet – free rarely is truly free.
Websites that offer a free white paper report often require that you provide your contact information – including your phone number – as “payment” while free software programs often come with hidden spyware or adware. When it comes to the internet, consumers have become justifiably “wary” of free – with good reason.
So when you read that there’s the opportunity to claim free online business advertising for your business – you may be skeptical. You might be thinking, “What’s the catch?”
The only “catch” is that this opportunity is fresh, shiny and new. This is “cutting edge” ahead of the curve kind of information which means while this opportunity is free – it’s only free FOR NOW. Who knows what the future brings – but for today there is a unique opportunity for business owners who are savvy enough to recognize this trend and capitalize upon it to grow their business.
Hindsight is usually 20/20 – so to help you to see what is going on with this current free online business advertising opportunity – let me share with you a similar opportunity from a few years ago.
Have you heard of Google Adwords? Google Adwords allows business owners to place ads for their website which appear strategically on the first page when a visitor searches for their product or services. It allows business owners to place ads for their web site which appear ABOVE the “natural” search results.
Unlike traditional “media” advertising – when you use Google Adwords to advertise your business – you only pay when a visitor clicks on your ad. In the early days of Google Adwords – business owners could purchase these ads for as little as .05 per click. It wasn’t free but early adopters found it was a very inexpensive way to drive traffic to their web site.
While there are still some keywords that can be purchased for .05 per click – it’s not unusual for competitive keywords go for $10 – $30 per click now that Google Adwords has reached “maturity”.
When Google Adwords was shiny and new – savvy business owners were able to generate a lot of traffic for a very small investment – even on lucrative mone
Today – if you do a search for a product or service – especially if you do a search with a city or zip code – you’ll frequently see a different type of listing appear:
While you’ll see Adwords appear in this search – you also get what is known as a local search listing as well.
Local search is still in its infancy. It’s shiny and new. In the rush to populate local search listings – the search engines and other local search directories have literally populated their databases with information published in the local yellow page directories. Because this information may be inaccurate – they’ve offered business owners the opportunity to “claim” thier local listings.
Today – claiming your local listing is free and incredibly easy. It’s so easy that – a few unscrupulous characters are beginning to “claim jump” unclaimed local listings.
Once you’ve claimed your local listing – when someone clicks on the link for a business – they are taken directly to a web site. In theory – this is the web site of the business whose name appears on the listing. However, a claim jumper needs only to insert his website’s url into that field to direct visitors to his web site instead of the web site of the rightful local listing business owner.
That’s why – it’s essential that you claim your local search listings. While Google is one important place to claim your listing – there are others – some of which Google uses to populate their own listings.
For now, this amazing online business advertising opportunity is truly free. Not only is it free, but it’s incredibly effective at bringing new customers to your business. Pick up a copy of the Business Owner’s Guide to Local Search to claim your essential search listings.