Esther C Kane

Local internet marketing for small businesses does not have to be extremely expensive. It does not necessarily mean you have to spend hundreds of dollars on adwords and local advertisements online. Instead, the same Internet marketing strategies used to market small business websites on the Internet on a global level, are used at the local level as well.

A few days ago I was speaking with Mickey Arledge of Mickey’s Trophy and Sign Shop. His services include trophies (of course) as well as awards, name tags and much more. He was telling me how he had a conversation with a friend who is in the same business and his friend’s business was very slow. In fact, so slow that when Mickey called his friend’s store, he wasn’t even there and hadn’t been for a few days simply because of the lack of business. (The person who answered said she was there just to “clean up the place”.)

Mickey told me that his business had not slowed down at all. He explained that it normally does slow down during the summer but not this year. Why? Because even though he’s a local store in Laurel, MS, he knew the value of Internet marketing and how it could affect his business. As a result of the search engine optimization on http://www.name-tags.net, business has been good this summer for Mickey!

If you use the Internet on a regular basis, then you know how useful it is for local internet marketing, especially for small businesses. Just as a sample, let me outline some of the ways that my family and I use the Internet for local services.

1) A normal work day for my husband begins with reviewing the traffic situation on weather.com for his ride to work. If you know anything about Atlanta, then you know that traffic is a major issue!

2) On movie nights he likes to stop at the local Kroger to pick up a movie so he checks the latest releases at http://www.moviecube.com.

3) There isn’t a day that goes by that Craigs List isn’t checked for items that we’re searching for, garage sales, etc.

4) Office Depot is only 4 miles away but with free shipping for orders over $50.00, it doesn’t make sense NOT to shop online!

5) Oops, we’re having a problem with the kitchen plumbing. Typing in “plumbing services in atlanta” – I find AtlantisPlumbing. They’re here the next day and thankfully the bill was not too much!

6) My neighbor lost her cat to cancer recently and she’s ready to love another one – so off we go on the Internet for “Atlanta Cat Adoptions” to search for another beautiful cat.

7) The hail storm 2 months ago left my neighbor’s roof across the street with some damage. A local search for “atlanta roofing contractor” brought her to Cranor Roofing. I have to tell you, they really did a great job on her roof!

Well, these are just a few (very few) ways that local internet marketing benefits small businesses. For the same money that is spent on search engine optimization for national and international exposure, local businesses can reap the rewards within their own community.