I recently met a long lost friend when we dined in a restaurant and found out that she’s the owner of that restaurant where we ate. I can’t believe that she’s been in the restaurant business for almost a decade. For a business to last that long in such a competitive market, I know her restaurant (and its three branches) must be doing well.
During our long chat, she mentioned that she even had a website for her business about two or three years ago where they accepted orders and deliveries but stopped it because it was not generating any buzz and just costing her money (and time).
Well, it’s really hard to compete with the giants in the world wide web. Small business marketing in the internet is a bit harder because the SEO optimization should focus mainly primary local search engines. Unless small and medium sized businesses know how take advantage of Google Place page and Bing Local profiles and the dynamics behind website optimization, I guess it will be better to get some help from organizations that provide support in terms of local business marketing in the internet.
The keyword there is “local.”
Web searches, Google places and maps, mobile searches and Bing local will only work for small and medium business’ websites if their sites rank high in the area where they hold their business. The farther they are away from the first item in the search list, the more missed opportunities they have in terms of gaining a sale.
I advised my friend (and other small and medium business owners) to revive or set-up her website again but consider getting help from SEO companies that focus on local search engine marketing. The world is shrinking because of the internet and if they can’t tap such wide market in the net, there will come a time when there’ll only be a little left for them.
Do you agree?