Question 1: What are Business Listings and why do I need them?

Search Engines began integrating local searches into its organic search engine results pages a few years ago, and since then,  Maps, Google Places, Yahoo local, Bing Local and may others have flourish into premier local marketing platforms. Before businesses cared less about their local presence on these engines, thanks to the increased use of mobile Internet devices such as smartphones, tablets, GPS and so on, use of local search has skyrocketed, as has our dependence on it.

Business Listings are reviews pulled together from sites such as Yelp, Superpages, Mapquest, City Search and local data from your own site as well as business listings from other search engines to build a full profile of your business. This means that Yahoo, Bing,  and Google  pulls data from a wide variety of sources, and it’s this type of information that we will manage. At FoundLocals, we will craft your Business Listings  in order to maximize its effectiveness and its visibility to put you on the first page and beat your competitors!

Question 2: What are Natural Results?

Natural Results is simply SEO (Search Engine Optimization) marketing and is one of the most frustrating and exciting aspects of web site ownership. With search engines constantly changing, merging or closing shop, it's a constant battle to keep up with the data to maintain web sites in the top 10 of search engines!

SEO Strategy

FoundLocals utilizes the following 4-step web site marketing strategy to propel our client's web sites into the TOP 10 search engine results.

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Keyword Research

Does it really matter what keyword phrases you put on your web site pages? WITHOUT A DOUBT!

What keyword phrases are people typing insearch engines to find your business?

How much competition is there for those keyword phrases?

Keyword Research helps you to determine what keyword phrases to use and where to use them.

Website Structure

Structuring a website is the process of outlining what pages are linked to each other and how to influence the flow of the visitor through the website. It's sometimes called "website architecture". No website comes online with a complete, 100% failsafe website structure. This process is created at the beginning and then continuously tweaked throughout the life of the website.

Manual submissions to major search engines

Manual submissions to major search engines, in addition to manual submission to local search engines and to industry specific search engines. Monitoring of this manual submission process in order to avoid being "banned" from search engines due to over-submission. We are an ethical web site marketing company that ONLY uses manual search engine submissions. We DO NOT utilize automatic submission software programs which can cause your web site to be banned from search engines.

Link Analysis Of Internet Competitor's Web Sites

Identifying links that are giving your competition business. We work to get your web site listed with the same links. FoundLocals strategy also includes creating and maintaining  links in a exchange program for your web site.

Question 3: How Do Search Engines Work to Send Me New Customers?

Most internet users visit Google and Yahoo every week without giving much thought to what they really are.

Search engines catalog the entire internet and allow users to search for any terms or ‘keywords’ they want. Virtually every website on the internet is searchable by every word on that site.

Beware of companies that charge just to 'list' you in search engines for a number of keywords; listing doesn't do anything to increase your ranking. Being on page 1001 for your keywords won't get you customers.

Sites on the first few pages of search engine results are much more likely to be clicked on by users, so it's important to be highly ranked. With each search, two types of results are returned:

Natural Results: Long-term, High-Volume Growth

Larger results that appear in the main body of the page. Your position is largely determined by how many other websites link to your site; this is viewed as an indicator of importance.

• Natural listings drive more traffic - up to 80% of web users click on natural results according to Google
• Clicks are free, but raising your natural position by building links to your website requires time and expertice
• Natural Search Engine Rankings are comprehensive, building links raises your visibility in every engine; Google, Yahoo and others

Business Listings: Almost Immediate, Consistent Traffic

(also known as Google Place, Maps, Yelp and many others) are the results that appear usually along side a map and gives business information like reviews, house of operation, adress, etc.

• Business Listins are the easiest and fast way to drive traffic to a website
• You want to be on the first page and Business Listings position has a lot to do with your Natural Results of your website.
• Business Listings are not comprehensive, a business listing on Google doesn't help customers looking on Yahoo or MSN find you.

Business Listings are ideal immedate-term and Natural Results are essential long-term. To get found by all the local customers seeking your business online, you'll need both. As a web guru once said; “Business Listing is like renting a apartment and Natural Positioning is
like building a house; new construction is the best value but you'll need somewhere to live while your house is being built!”

Question 4: What is the "Local" Part of Local Internet Advertising?

Local Internet Advertising means targeting local customers using the internet. It entails optimizing your internet marketing to ensure that your business is displayed to local customers searching for your type of business, instead of customers in other states or areas.

Global internet advertising, or simply internet advertising doesn't target a specific area, so your ads and keywords are just as likely to display to a person in your state as a person in another country. This wastes effort, as one is competing with businesses all over the world for the same search terms. It also carries an added expense; campaigns cost hundreds of dollars or more each month.

Companies charge more for global internet marketing because of the larger scope. Make sure you don't pay global internet advertising costs for local internet advertising service!

Question 5: How Do I Select a Local Online Advertising Company?

After four of 'The Five Most Important Questions in Advertising', you already know the answer to this question. Your business needs a company that provides:

• Search Engine Focus: Search engines are the #1 way people find local businesses today
• Natural Results: Natural Results are the key to your long term online growth
• Business Listings: ideal immedate-term in as lettle as 2-weeks
• Local Focus: If you're not targeting your local area, you're wasting time and money
  
• Experience and Integrity: In the internet marketing industry, vague claims and bogus promises abound. Does the company explain what they do? Or are they charging you $200/month just to submit your site to Google and Yahoo once? Make sure that the company builds your rank, not just lists you.