'Your very own web site'

Most local businesses at one time or another will have invested in their 'very own web site'. Almost every van, sign, leaflet, business card and advert you see these days has a website address on it. This is their 'web presence' or 'web identity'. Once you have 'your very own website' you are officially 'on the internet'.

Normally a nice little site, containing your business name, address, telephone number, email address, a description of all the services on offer - A perfect web identity - an electronic leaflet on the internet, advertising your business.

The problem with these electronic leaflets is that 9 times out of 10 no-one delivers them. The website sits there waiting for someone to type in the right web address (normally retrieved from a business card or advert they already had). People pay hundreds of pounds every year for websites that just confirm their phone number to people that already had their phone number.

The second 'Internet Solution' that a lot of local businesses buy into is the online versions of local business directories.

Traditional local business advertising is often centred around placing expensive and eyecatching adverts in paper telephone directories.

Whilst directory advertising remains an important part of the off-line marketing arsenal, and you can't argue with the effectiveness of it (assuming you can afford the biggest, prettiest advert in your category) the big directories don't enjoy the monopoly on the internet that they do on the telephone table.

And yet, many businesses that have trusted their advertising to these large directories for many years, willingly part with an additional £400 a year to appear 'more prominently' among the list of telephone numbers for their chosen category.

This means, that IF your prospective customer decides to search using this specific directory, your telephone number should appear towards the top (assuming everyone else in the category hasn't also invested £400 too).

If you are currently spending any money trying to attract more customers on the internet try this test.

Go to Google (90% of all searches in the uk are on either Google.co.uk or Google.com)

then type in the nature of your business and where you are.

So if you're a plumber in Basingstoke just go to Google and type in

plumber in Basingstoke or
Basingstoke plumber

or whatever you think someone searching for a Basingstoke plumber would type in.

then scroll through the pages of google until you find the reference to your business that you are paying for.

then consider whether any prospective customer might have found and called someone else before they came across your listing.
Depressing isn't it?

Successful Internet Advertising is all about visibility. Firstly you need to be found, secondly you need to provide your potential customer with all the information they need to make them pick up their phone.

If you'd like to know more about how we achieve those goals and exactly what that could mean for your business, Join our Mailing List and we'll send you all the information you need in the lead up to our commercial launch