Aubrey's Corner

The Truth About Local Business Websites

You are finally beginning to see local business websites popping up all over the Internet. Even small businesses of 1 to 2 employees are beginning to offer websites to the public.

However not all websites that local business owners are promoting are created equal.

Here are some of the common problems I see on the websites of local businesses.

1. Hardly any of them have a lead capture for on their home page. The problem with this is visitors who come to their website will leave and there is no way to follow back up with them.

The advantage of capturing the contac t i

nformation of as many visitors as possible is huge. This is known as building an email marketing list and should be one of the best forms of advertising businesses can do on a local basis.

Can you see the advantage of having a mailing list of a thousand names you can contact for free

? Anytime you are running a promotion, or offering a new product, you can quickly send an email out to your list using an autoresponder.

This is not too technical to do and something and all small-business owners should add to their website right away!

2. Most local businesses are not promoting their website on the Internet. It is more of an afterthought and something they have been able to add to their yellow pages or local business marketing.

You do see many businesses including a website address in their newspaper or TV advertising. However most of these businesses are not using the Internet which is a shame because many of their customers are.

The importance of doing search engine optimization in numerous ways to promote a business locally cannot be overstated. What you lack as a small business owner in time you can make up for by spending money to promote yourself online.

This should include a mixture of free and paid advertising such as article marketing, social media, blogging, and pay per click advertising. By incorporating search engine optimization into your marketing you can begin to rank highly on search engines for targeted keyword phrases.

This is important to do because it can become your number one traffic source. How great would it be for you to find yourself sitting in the number one position on Google for targeted keyword phrases that describe exactly what your business does.

For example if you are an attorney in Miami, Florida wouldn’t it be great to see your website in the number one position on Google for the keyword phrase Miami Attorney?

In summary local business websites can improve themselves by just concentrating on these two tactics we have discussed in this article. Adding a capture form to your website to build an email list is important. So is using the Internet to market your business in multiple ways! http://www.localbusinessgroup.com