Posts Tagged ‘search engines’

Two Methods From One Model

Generating leads for local businesses can be a very lucrative avenue for you to think about pursuing. Almost every small business has a need for more customers and/or clients. By providing a venue to gather contact information you can become invaluable to local businesses. Imagine how thankful that new doctor or dentist in town will be after you’ve provided them with a patient base that they never could have achieved without your help and expertise.

There are a number of ways that you can go about generating those leads. One way involves having businesses pay you before you have the leads and the other will have those businesses handing you money for names, addresses, and phone numbers of clients whose names you already own and have permission to market to.

Your starting off point and the direction of your own business will be determined by your ability to gather that contact information. It can be as simple as putting up a single page website that does nothing more than educate consumers to the benefits of using a certain type of business or service. Once they’ve visited the site, ask them to express their continued interest by exchanging their contact information for the promise of a discount with the service provider which they eventually choose, no matter who that may be.

Another great way to gather information, which will also give you the opportunity to realize a greater profit, is to create the website with a keyword rich domain name, ie; chicagosbestpainter.com or bestdentistindenver.com or something similar to that. Once you’ve created the site and put an opt-in box near the top of the page to capture names, you then get the site optimized and ranked in the search engines. Once it’s ranked you have the opportunity to approach those painters in Chicago or Dentists in Denver to 1.) Sell them the leads you’ve gathered or 2.) Sell them the site that you’ve gotten ranked and offer to maintain both the site and it’s rank for $xxx/yr.

Either way you look at it there is profit to be made. Whether you take the long road or the shorter one is up to you. There is no wrong answer. Only your expertise and intuitiveness will determine the outcome of your efforts. The key is to take action. Choose a direction and begin to move that way.

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Developing A Local Business Directory Into A Thriving Web Portal

Creating local business directory that you can on sell for a lucrative profit or as the foundation to a successful Online – Offline Consultation Business requires you take a completely different angle.  The goal is to have it bringing profits on a regular basis while servicing your local community.  It must grow above the more generic type of local web directory.  These are portal type websites that flood the search engines with as many local long tail keywords to be found in the search engines.

Most local business directories are no more than link farms.  They offer little value outside of listing local businesses in their appropriate categories. Your local directory needs to be different.  It must be made attractive to entice local businesses to list with your directory at premium prices as opposed to the cheaper or free local directories.

How can you, as the local online – offline consultant provide that winning edge? You need a concept that will have local businesses seek you out opposed to a Yellow Pages(TM) utility type portal.  A first step is to create a full page description of the local business on the website. That is, from a generic A-Z category reference page – your links page – you redirect the surfer to a separate full page description which still resides within the website.

The enhanced page could well include a video interview with the local business owner to create a more personal feel.  This immediately starts to build trust and familiarity that that a casual local surfer will better identify with.

Also include a well placed link (or banner) on the page to make contact easy and intuitive. Include a strong call to action message directing the surfer to click the link (or banner) to instantly jump to the local business’ website. If the local business has not yet got an online presence, full address and operating hours details must be clearly shown.

The sky is the limit here.  Use your creativity and imagination to create a page that you would be proud to have on your own corporate website.  That way you know the owner of the local business will be profiting by displaying it.

The benefits of such a page to your local directory in the eyes of Google(TM) and the other search engines is greater exposure and higher rankings all around. Because you are providing relevant local content search returns will organically rank highly in any of the search engines.

With some basic search engine optimization for multiple appropriate keywords and phrases, as well as meta tags and some other tricks, the results for the business can be quite astounding.  This, in turn gives the local business exposure and positive results that they will be more than willing to pay a premium for the service.  It is demonstrably targeting responsive local shoppers that walk through the door from successful directory portal searches.

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