If someone were searching for a Seafood Restaurant in their local marketplace, how would they search?
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Would people search by “Seafood Restaurant” or “Greensboro, NC Seafood Restaurant?”
The answer is both ways. For those people who search with the city included, they will find seafood restaurants in their local markets. For those not including the city in the search, the results may show locations all across the country as a national search. As people are reviewing your local place of business, it will begin to add more credibility to your local place of business and your local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will begin to improve its ranking over a period of time. People will post reviews about your business based on their experience with your company.
As a local business, if you need local traffic coming into your place of business, a Local SEO campaign can greatly enhance your presence online as people search locally for your category of business. They may use standard computer searches or various mobile searches. If they are looking for local services, they want something convenient with a good reputation to trust the company for their products or services.
As people search, most do their homework before purchasing and this is where customer reviews can greatly enhance or damage your business. People are turning to the reviews to see what others have experienced. They want to know if they can trust this company to spend their hard-earned dollars. They want to make sure people are satisfied.
You have several places for reviews:
- They are available on the search engines directly
- And they are also available on 3rd-Party Search Directories in your local profile
Having people add positive reviews each month helps your business. You want to keep the good reviews coming each and every month and this comes back to your customer service as a business. Good customer service is expensive, excellent customer service is more expensive, and poor customer service is most expensive. Depending on how customers are served in your place of business will dictate what kind of reviews you receive if people are so inclined to post a review. The good news is most people will describe their experience in detail. The bad news is they will also describe their experience in detail.
If you have one or two bad reviews out of several dozen it is expected. But a string of bad reviews can be devastating to your online presence and ruin the opportunity of getting new business.
If you have several bad reviews, there are some resolutions:
- Implement a customer service program to offer rewards or discounts for your customer base in exchange for them taking the time to place a positive review for you. This will help to counteract negative reviews and make them look smaller in scope with the overall review picture.
- Ask your customers how you can improve your service and start implementing those changes. Over time your customers will notice and start posting more positive reviews.
- Create a company culture for good customer service and put together a plan on what you want to change and offer customers.
- Train your staff on how to give good customer service.
- Remove staff members that do not buy into the new, positive customer service model.
- Turn your staff into a team by offering employee incentives for each positive review.
- Offer a special event for key clients, vendors, suppliers and media reps and ask them if they have had a good experience to share it with an online review.
- Hire a company to manage your local directory business listings. At present, there are approximately 1,200 plus search directories where your business can be listed to enhance your brand and image. You certainly want to ensure that anything negative about your business is addressed so you don’t have the negative repercussions of bad reviews. You also want to claim your local profiles so your business is not marked as permanently closed as some business owners are finding within Google.
Your Local SEO can be greatly improved with a few improvements and enhancements. Princeton Marketing offers a service for listing your company in the 1,200 plus search directories so you can claim your business profiles and manage your Local SEO efforts to bring in more revenue. Another great benefit to being listed in all of your local directories is that you will now be found in 1,200 plus directories where you previously were not listed. If you’re not being found online, you are losing business. If you are listed in certain profiles, it is imperative that you claim your profile listings and verify that all information is accurate about your business.
Princeton Marketing is a marketing agency in Greensboro, NC and we tailor Local SEO campaigns for businesses. Contact us today to find out how you can be listed in those directories.
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Aside from the price, there is also the question of quality. There could be instances wherein the raw materials are offered cheaply yet there is no quality to speak of. A B2B directory assures manufacturers that the raw material supplies listed in their directories are reputable and offers a fair sale of goods.
Local Business Marketing- I completely agree. B2B companies work with trustworthy vendors and develop relationships in order to get the best prices for clients. We also take the legwork out of finding a trustworthy vendor so that clients don’t have to.