Generate Local Home Business Leads Online

Home Business Marketing, Online

Karen Clark presented an excellent workshop last night on how to market your home business online. Her focus was on how to generate leads from local customers or businesses as a result of your online marketing efforts. She gave us many online resources to use to bring customers to us who live in our town, and even our neighborhood. Karen has an online marketing presence that proves that she knows her stuff.  Enjoy the excerpt of the call below!

Online Lead Generation For Home Businesses

Finding business online and generating leads in your own neighborhood is definitely possible.  Home businesses who reach out to local consumers will generate new customers in their own town or neighborhood.

What can you do to reach out online to local people in your own backyard?

It used to be that a large printed book of yellow pages was what consumers consulted when they needed to find a photographer, bookkeeper or realtor. If they weren’t sure where to go for art supplies, books or pizza, they let their fingers do the walking. The majority of today’s consumers locally and globally, however, turn to online searches and internet directories to find what they are looking for. Within a few seconds they are given information about the closest service provider, restaurant or shop, along with real time customer reviews, ratings and “buzz” that influences their decision on which business to patronize.

Making sure that your business shows up in the search results is determined by whether or not you have your town, county or region listed on your website, blog, or social media profiles, as well as if you have a presence on several of the social networks online that are geared toward serving a local clientele.

Click the green button to listen to Karen.

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List Your Business Online

Some of the most popular and higher ranking sites to list your business online are:

• Yelp: http://biz.yelp.com

Yelp is the most popular business rating, feedback and referral social network and because of its popularity, when your business is listed, your listing will have a powerful presence on the web. Past customers and clients can write reviews and testimonials on your business profile, and potential new customers can find you, learn more about your business, and contact you. The community of Yelp users is expansive and social, and connections are readily exposed to their friends’ favorite businesses. Since Yelp users are directed to businesses closest to their chosen metropolitan area, local people are drawn to you and share your information with other local people. When filling out a business owner profile on Yelp, be sure to thoroughly describe yourself, your business and your company mission, and include all of the extras such as photos of your product or service in action, and any special offers or announcements.

• Merchant Circle: http://www.merchantcircle.com

This network is truly a stand-alone community geared toward connecting local independent businesses with their neighbors. Their platform allows businesses to create mini-websites, blogs, coupons and newsletters – free. Consumers for whom it is important to use local business instead of chain stores or franchises appreciate being able to depend on Merchant Circle to steer them toward truly local, responsive companies, who offer them incentives to do business with them. Emails to your local neighborhood go out on a regular basis, and your business information or coupon is included. Whether you have a website or blog already, creating a presence on Merchant Circle is another powerful way to engage with your local community.

Google, Local Business Listing

Each of the three major search engines have local business listings where you can create a complete profile that outlines your business description, location, web addresses, categories and photos. Take the time to submit your home business listing to Yahoo, Google and Bing LOCAL.

http://local.yahoo.com
http://local.google.com
http://local.bing.com

Customers can rate your service, leave a review or testimonial, and share your profile with their contacts. Creating a local account on the search engines requires verification by phone or mail and that adds credibility to each of the listings, since people know that the businesses listed are verified to be who they say they are. Since these directories are associated with each search engine, having a presence there means that your listing is bumped to the top of search results when someone in your area uses the search engine to find someone who does what you do.