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, What if you could advertise only to
interested prospects?

You’ve probably seen the spam messages that promise “Top rankings in Google - guaranteed”. But if you are anything like me you have probably thought to yourself, "even if they can deliver, what good is it if my local business is advertised worldwide including places that we can’t realistically deliver our product? "

That is a valid question, but search engines are changing - and the way people search is also changing. Both of these changes have made search engine listings more important than ever.

People are looking for everything through search engines today. And yes, people are even looking for local businesses through global search engines, and recent changes have made this even easier and more effective.

Death of the Yellow Pages
For example, last month I wanted to buy a “memory foam” bed topper and I wanted to do some comparison shopping.

So I went online.

I didn’t search for “memory foam” – I searched for “memory foam Toronto”. I looked through all of the results and I could not find a store in Toronto that carried them – but one place in Quebec kept popping up. After a few more fruitless searches I visited the Quebec site and learned that they offer free shipping, had great prices, and they could deliver in two days. So I bought it.

Surely there are plenty of stores in Toronto that carry the product, but I could not find one. Had a Toronto company had invested in search engine marketing my search would have been worth $500 to them. I would have drove there and made the purchase that day.

It's not surprising that a recent study by MarketingSherpa.com found that 77% of online purchases originated from a search engine.

It used to be that many businesses could get a steady stream of customers simply by advertising in their local yellow pages. For some it may still be true, but I believe those days are numbered. My Yellow Pages directory went in the blue box the day it was delivered.

Global search has become local search
Many major search engines, like Google and Yahoo, now allow you to bid on search terms and only display your ads to people searching from the areas you select.

Google allows you to select the provinces or states you want your ad to be shown in, while Yahoo (run by Overture) allows you to select the radius in miles from your location where your ad will be shown.

Even without this new local display technology, simply optimizing or bidding for terms that also include the desired locations in the search does the trick very well. (eg. memory foam Toronto)

How do you do it? Two ways to the top
There are two ways to the top of the search engines and they both have their advantages and disadvantages: You can optimize your web site to get good placements in the organic results, and you can bid on terms with the intent to buy top rankings in the sponsored results.

Both methods can bring considerable traffic and both should be considered and tested for your online campaign. A third, related method is to get listed in the major online directories which alone can bring substantial traffic, and also help improve your organic results.

For more detailed information on search engine marketing, download our free e-book.

How does your site rank up?
If you would like to know how well optimized your site is, and how your site ranks in the search engines for your search terms you may consider purchasing our new SEO audit. In addition to learning how well you are doing, you will receive specific actionable advice on how to improve your results. For more information visit Agito's Search Engine Visibility Audit

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