Dominate Local Search Results in Your Small Town

Many small businesses in small towns don't quite grasp how much return on investment an online presence will actually provide. Because their main target customers are the kind that walk through the door, they might see a website or other online presence as something extra and unnecessary.

However, with more and more people using navigation aids such as Google Maps on their smartphones, checking Yelp or Foursquare for places to shop and eat in the neighborhood, and relying less and less looking for attractive storefronts, an online presence can help your small business attract the tourists passing through your small town.

The first thing you should do is claim your page on Google Places. This allows you to control the information provided through one of the top sources of local search. When someone searches a map on Google, Place pages are often the first thing that comes up. This can be very important if someone is in your local downtown and searches for "diner" or "hometown cooking" on their phone, as those results with the closest proximity to their GPS location will likely be the most prominent.

Secondly, you should claim your page on review sites such as Yelp. You should be proactive in asking your customers to submit a review to these websites. The most likely reviews you will receive without asking are negative, so you want to counter those with real reviews that paint you in a positive light. Don't go and create multiple accounts just to review yourself; those websites catch onto that quite easily and will likely penalize you for it.

You should also get involved in social media. Location-based services such as Facebook Places and Foursquare not only serve to market to tourists, but they can also have a positive impact with your local audience by helping you seem like a "popular" destination for many people's social circles.

Finally, you will want to keep your address and phone number formats consistent across all of your online presences, including your website. Your address and phone number is how the search engines tie your presences together as referencing a single business or location. This way, each of your presences counts as a vote of sorts and helps you to move up higher in local search results.