Online and mobile marketing tools have changed dramatically in the last year or two … finally allowing small businesses access to these revenue-generating miracles. Strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), local search results, video marketing, opt-in email lists, SMS (text) lists, mobile coupons and QR codes — were previously available only to larger companies, as part of their expensive marketing campaigns.
But the game has changed. Small businesses now have a huge opportunity, and in many cases, a definite advantage in achieving the coveted Page One position in the search results. Several factors have contributed to this shift.
First, Google made the decision to begin providing highly targeted local search results, and they followed through on that decision by creating over 25 million web pages for their Places project. Yahoo and Bing followed suit. This created the “local space” that now exists on the first page of search results. Without that decision, local results would still be competing for screen real estate with the national brands (a losing battle!).
Consumers have eagerly embraced the local landscape:
- 70 percent of all searches have local intent
- 80 percent of local searches result in an offline (as opposed to online) purchase
- 62 percent of local searches result in a phone call or in-person visit
Second, mobile devices are the fastest growing technology in history. Millions of smartphones are bought daily, and the internet traffic from these devices is expanding exponentially. This is a huge game-changer. Just look at these statistics:
- Global searches from mobile devices more than doubled between the third and fourth quarters of 2010.
- Google reports 50% of new internet connections globally from mobile devices.
- One third of mobile search queries have local intent
- One third of overall restaurant queries were from mobile devices in January
- 150 million smartphones on the network, a 50% increase since January 2011
These numbers are astonishing! This trend will pick up speed as 3G becomes 4G (then what?), and more consumers begin to use their phones for internet browsing and research.
If you are a business owner, this is an unprecedented opportunity to position yourself for incredible growth in the next year or two. You need to take action now: to learn, understand and implement these powerful strategies. When you do, you’ll streak past your competitors … and they’ll be left wondering what happened!
We’ll explore these strategies here in the blog. Feel free to leave a comment, or ask a question. And be sure to get your copy of our special report, The #1 Strategy Every Business Must Implement Now. Just enter your email address in the sign-up box to the right of this page.