It’s now about 20 years since the start of the popular internet. I’m using the word “popular” because technically, it first started during the Sputnik 1 project, waaay back in 1958, for use by the Soviet Union. It was only in the early 90’s that it was released for commercial interests. It’s mid 2009, and the world’s still just warming up to the internet. The growth in the number of people using it for different purposes(email, chat, P2P, browsing, VoIP, gaming, VPN and so much more) is truly astounding. Here are a few statistics for 2008 from a survey, aptly titled- The Exploding Internet, based on the usage of the internet.

1. $6.8 trillion- Value of eCommerce spending on the internet in 2008, which is roughly 15% of the world’s GDP.
2. 50%- Estimated annual growth rate of internet traffic.
3. 210 billion- Number of emails sent daily in 2008.
4. 78%- Percentage of the above figure which is SPAM, or unsolicited email!
5. 72.5%- Percentage of the American population using the internet, which translates to 220 million individuals.
6. 19%- Percentage of the Chinese population using the internet, which is 253 million people, clearly overtaking the US in terms of number of users.
7. 2012- Year in which Asian internet users will outnumber their peers in North America by 3 to 1. This includes almost 500 million Chinese users.
8. 3- Predicted position of India on the hierarchy of internet using countries by 2012.

Just an indication of what is truly the next revolution.

Source: http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2988/27062201.jpg

Lately, a lot of businesses worldwide have realised the advantages of ranking well on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. A typical company with a modest marketing budget would consider either hiring a professional SEO or starting a Pay-Per-Click campaign.

The first option (the cheaper of the two) involves a dedicated effort of at least a few weeks(or months if the keyword is competitive), after which your website’s rankings for key phrases start rising. The second option, PPC, can give you instant results and ROI, depending on your budget and the keyword competitiveness. But what do smaller business like mom and pop stores do? How would they get a piece of the pie? The answer is Local Business Listings. These are listings that show up when locally targeted keywords are searched for, and are displayed above the organic search results, like so:

Google Search Result Page

With listings so predominant, it would be a crime not to take advantage of this, especially if you can do it for FREE. All you need to do for your business to show up is-

1) Create a Google account

2) Login to Google Local Business Center

3) Fill in all the information

4) Complete the verification process

The whole process does not take more than 15 minutes to complete and your listing starts showing up within a day or two. Quite an easy way to get traffic to your website wouldn’t you say? Not really. There are literally 100’s such listings that you will compete with, especially if you are located in the city.

So how do you rise above the others? Here are a bunch of tips that can help increase your chances of ranking well on Local Listings:

1) Fill out your business listing comprehensively- Put in all the information you can about your business. All your phone numbers, images of your shop/office, videos(if you have any), payments modes accepted and any other additional specifics.

2) Correct the location marker- Once you put in your address, Google dynamically places a placemarker on the map. If the location is not precise, you can manually correct it. This is more so that people looking for your location are able to spot you precisely(Imagine if a customer turns up at the wrong location! That’s one prospective customer lost.)

3) Provide proper categories- Make sure that the categories that you list your business under are a precise as possible. Once you start typing within the box , you’ll get a list of suggested categories, which are usually the most popular ones. Entering these as products/services you offer will increase the chances of your listing showing up, since these are terms that people actually search for.

4) Include your product/service in your business title- For example, “Joe Friday’s” could be changed to “Joe Friday’s Plumbing Services”. This will highlight the service- “Plumbing Services” and will increase your click-through rate.

5) Get customers to review you- Google generates reviews from popular websites like TrueLocal, CitySearch, TripAdvisor, InsiderPages and so on. Requesting your clients to rate you based on their experiences is a good idea. This will help increase your credibility of your business and convince prospects to contact you.

6) Offer Coupons- Adding an incentive though coupons for visitors through the Local Listing will increase your enquiries and help keep your listing active. Remember- search engines love businesses that are active on the web.

Keeping these few points in mind could really prove to be a golden duck for your business, especially when click-through-rates for these listings are comparable to an exceptional PPC Campaign!