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Additional Article Information: =============================== 510 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line Distribution Date and Time: 2007-01-15 16:12:00 Written By: Jay Johnson Copyright: 2007 Contact Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] For more free-reprint articles by Jay Johnson, please visit: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/d/index.shtml#Jay_Johnson ============================================= Special Notice For Publishers and Webmasters: ============================================= If you use this article on your website or in your ezine, We Want To Know About It. Use the following URL to let us know where you have used this article, and we will include a link to your website on thePhantomWriters.com: http://thephantomwriters.com/notify.php?id=4215&p=load HTML Copy-and-Paste and TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of Article Are Available at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/j/evaluating-local-search-services.shtml#get_code --------------------------------------------------------------------- Evaluating Local Search Services Copyright (c) 2007 Jay Johnson Dew Point Productions http://www.localsitesfor.com Wondering if your business should be in the Internet? Consider the following. Approximately 30% of all the searches done on the Internet were to find something local to the searcher's area. More importantly 70% of local consumers use the Internet to find products online. However, and this is where the numbers really hit home, 90% of the consumers searching for a product or service made their actual purchase offline. Internet entrepreneurs get where the trend is going and have built numerous local search portals. This is an industry that is bound to continue growing. Already the number of options can be confusing. What you definitely don't want to do is make your decision based on which service seems cheapest. After all, a service that costs just $6.00 a month, but brings you no new customers equals a much greater opportunity loss than the $72.00 a year for the service. The remainder of this article focuses on three important criteria for evaluating any potential local search service. Provides your business with more than just an address. Unlike the old world media such as phone books or printed industry guides, there is really no technical limit to the amount of information a business could list on the Internet. The only Internet limitations you see are due to "old world media" companies stuck in decade old business paradigms. Your business is much more than just a name, a product or service, an address and phone number. Any Internet business listing service should allow you to show all aspects of your business like your products and services, brand names, hours of operation, locations and directions, what makes you different than the competition, and anything else a potential local searcher might need to know about your business. Ability to change and update your listing easily and often. Business is always changing, and your listing should change with you. If you add new services, products, new payment methods, or even have holiday store hours, you should be able to update and change your business listing whenever you need to and the updates should take place instantly. Connection with your customers no matter how they search. People who search for products and services on the Internet come in all shapes and sizes - and use all kinds of different methods to try and find your service. Consider this short list of the ways people search that can effect whether or not they find you. * Use of different search engines * Use of specialty search engines or local search services * Searching by city * Searching by zip code * Searching by company name * Looking for the product or brand they want * Using different words to describe the same thing If your local listing provider only has one way to list your information, you're likely to only get one of the customer searches and that's it. Period. Make sure your local listing provider uses a variety of ways to connect with your customer and works across the industry to provide your business exposure to the largest number of customer search habits possible. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Jay Johnson, a writer at Dew Point Productions writes for http://www.localsitesfor.com --- END ARTICLE --- Get HTML or TEXT Copy-and-Paste Versions Of This Article at: http://thePhantomWriters.com/free_content/db/j/evaluating-local-search-services.shtml#get_code ..................................... 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