So, you have a local business that you’re wanting to market online. You’ve heard of local business article marketing, and it sounds promising. The only problem is that you just can’t wrap your head around how to get your articles to appear only on websites based in your country. After all, isn’t that the way to draw targeted customers to your local business website?
Every day I speak to local business owners who are interested in doing article marketing, and the scenario I presented above is extremely typical.
A business owner unacquainted with the way that website marketing works will usually assume that article marketing works by submitting articles to publishers who own websites with viewers in a specific city or country. Then a person who lives in the city where the business is located will see the article and click the link in the resource box leading back to the business owner’s website.
I can completely understand how this mistaken belief comes about–in the offline world that is how marketing works.
If you want to market your business offline, you need to publish an advertisement in your local newspaper or on your local radio or television station. In the offline world it would not make sense to air a commercial for your local business in a foreign country or distant city.
This is a marketing principle from the offline world, but that is not how marketing works on the internet.
In the offline world you need to go in search of your customers and follow them where they go.
On the internet the tables are turned: your customers search for you.
Your potential customers tell you outright what they want–they type what they need into Google, and then Google obliges by providing a list of websites ranked in order with the websites that have the best chance of satisfying the searcher at the top.
What is the value of being ranked #1 in Google?
A top ranking site in Google receives about 8.5 more visitors than the website in the #5 position. That means that if your website is ranked 5th and receives 8,000 unique visitors a month, then if your website jumped to the #1 spot you would be enjoying 68,000 unique visitors a month.
Could your website use that targeted exposure?
Being ranked #1 in Google is like continuously airing a commercial that plays only for your target market. Better yet, it’s like a commercial that your potential customers are directly asking to see repeatedly, at all hours of the day and night.
Now THAT is targeted traffic.
Forget about trying to get your articles published on websites that are based in your specific country. That is a very wide group of readers–not everyone in your country or city is interested in your specific business. You can do better much than that.
You really want visitors to your website who are located in your specific location AND who are also interested in the services that you offer. To achieve that goal, you need to go for a higher search engine ranking for your keyword terms that are specific to your location and your niche.
1 – Write articles on your general topic. Do not mention your location in your title or article body.
2 – In your resource box use your location specific keyword terms to form the clickable link that leads to your website.
3 – Submit your articles to publishers who publish articles on similar topics. Most article directories will have a category that is appropriate for your niche.
Do you now understand how article marketing can send very specific customers to a website, generating much more targeted interest in your business than radio, television or newspaper ever could?
Do you have any questions about how to do business article marketing for your specific local business?
Unless you have an enormous marketing and advertising budget, competing against major corporations for marketshare online is highly unlikely. However there are thousands of individuals who have successfully managed to develop small businesses online that are able to compete effectively.
In this article we’ll talk about the importance of engaging in small business email marketing and how you can effectively build your own list of loyal subscribers.
When you consider the massive advertising budgets that the major corporations shell out on a daily basis, it would seem next to impossible to compete with them for any kind of marketshare online.
However thousands of individuals have managed to build thriving businesses online and some have managed to turn those once small businesses into multimillion dollar operations.
Small business email marketing. However they did more than just collect names and addresses of their website visitors, they figured out how to turn those subscribers into loyal customers who won’t think twice about supporting their business.
Larger corporations are simply too big to spend time trying to service smaller segments of any given market, leaving the way open for opportunity to those who would be willing to search out those smaller tighter market segments and cater to their interest.
Email marketing gives small business owners a way to capitalize on this opportunity without having to spend large amounts of advertising.
The key to developing a raving fan base of loyal subscribers is to do the necessary leg work in terms of market research in order to uncover hidden pockets of profitability that are ripe for servicing.
With the right amount of market research you can effectively discover the predominant make up of your target market as well uncover their likes and dislikes regarding the products they are spending money on.
With this information you can develop simple solutions to offer your market in return for their name and email address with the opportunity to present more backend offers for higher profits.
Through your small business you can continue to educate your subscribers via email and send them related offers that can provide useful opportunities for them.
Local business owners around the globe are starting to realize that business article marketing is extremely powerful! You’ve probably heard your colleagues talking about how they’re using article marketing, or perhaps you’ve read articles about local business article marketing on the web. Maybe you’re still not sure what is involved with article marketing or if it can work for you. That is completely fine. At least you have a sneaking suspicion it can be an effective marketing tool for you, and you’re curious as to how to get started.
Let’s start at the beginning: How does local business article marketing work?
1 – You write articles on your general niche. (There is no need to mention your location in your title or article body).
2 – Then you craft a resource box that includes your location specific keyword terms. It helps to use your location specific keyword terms to form the clickable link to your website. You can do this via an HTML resource box.
You have just created what is called a “free reprint article”. You submit your article to publishers, who in turn publish the article on their websites and in their ezines. When someone sees your article online, they can republish it–the idea is to have your article republished repeatedly on a continuous basis so that it appears on as many websites as possible. Each time your article is republished, so is your resource box, which includes a link to your website. The more times your article is republished, the more links you have going into your website.
Link building is the primary purpose of article marketing.
What’s the big deal about links?
Links play a powerful role in website marketing. Not only do links build a bridge between your article and your website, but links also send a message to Google that your website deserves a higher ranking for your location specific keyword terms. For example, a bakery in London has a website. When someone types “London bakery” into Google they are provided with a list of websites. The websites are listed in order, with the ones that Google thinks have the greatest chance of satisfying the searcher’s query at the top.
If this bakery website shows up in the 175th spot in Google’s list when someone searches for “London bakery”, then that means that the website has a search engine ranking of 175 for that keyword term. (The keyword term in this instance is “London bakery”.) When you build links with article marketing, you can impact where Google lists your website in the results lists. The ideal is to be listed as the #1 search result. The #1 search result receives approximately 8.5 times more website visitors than than the 5th ranked site, which translates into a huge difference in website visitors.
It does not matter where the publisher lives. The internet is global–there are publishers all over the planet, and websites in the English language will commonly have viewers from all over the world. The location of the readers and the publishers does not matter though.
Because your main source of visitors to your website should be coming to you from the search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, etc. Your potential customer does a Google search for “London bakery” (or whatever your location and niche is), and then the goal is that that your business website will show up very high in the rankings. With consistent work your website would ideally show up in the #1 location.
This is how local business article marketing works. What is holding you back from trying it? Do you have any questions that need to be answered before you take the plunge?