Most Effective Ways to Be Found by Your Customers
With consumer confidence back on the rise, you want to be sure that you’re positioned to increase your sales. You offer one of the best services or products in town. You’ve assimilated the best team and they are ready to deliver world-class customer service.
You have been printing pamphlets, and handing them out. You even told everyone you know about your business. You’re on Facebook, and the feedback you’re getting from your audience is great. But still, few customers are coming in, and there are days when no customer shows up at all.
If this is you and your business right now, don’t fret, we’ve got a few tips to help you become more searchable and easily found by your customers.
● 82% of your prospects use local search engines.
● 70% of people who use Google Maps are ten times likely to visit your store.
● 92% of people select the first business that appears on local searches.
● According to Google, 70% of users view businesses with complete listings as more reputable,
● According to Statista, 154 million people use Google Maps, 25 million use Waze, 23.3 million use Apple Maps, and only 2.3 million people use Yahoo maps.
As you can see from the statistics above, more people use Google Maps than any other map. So optimizing your Google local search should be one of the first things that you should consider. You can do this by simply setting up a new Google My Business page, which is free. Or you can claim an old one if you had created one.
What’s great about having a Google listing is that you don’t need to have a website. Customers will not only find your store but check reviews and book appointments as well.
Example:
Gimme Caffeine is a new coffee shop that has just opened in Austin. Its owner, John has pulled out all the stops to make his coffee shops one of its kind in Austin. Having run several successful coffee shops in New York from the early 90s, John believed that he could do the same in Texas.
First, he made sure that his coffee has the best menu in town. That was pretty easy as he is a cook. John wants everyone who tastes his espresso, scrambled eggs, and guacamole to tell everyone about his coffee. He doesn’t believe in promoting his business online as he still believes word of mouth should be enough to promote a coffee shop.
Lionel is new in Austin. He is looking for a coffee shop or a diner where he can sit and get to meet local folks. He asks his landlord to recommend a place where he can sit down and enjoy good coffee. Lionel’s landlord recommends Gimme Caffeine. Lionel wastes no time; he picks up his mobile phone and searches “Gimme Caffeine”. He tries again — there are still no results.
Lionel ends up checking other coffee shops appearing on local searches. He goes for the first two coffee shops that are nearby. Just like that, Gimme Caffeine loses out on another potential customer.
If you don’t want to end up losing prospects to competitors, like our fictitious company, Gimme Caffeine did, we would recommend adding your business on the most popular search engines.
You can use one of these easy platforms:
1. Google My Business profile:
The easiest way to get your business on local search is by signing up on Google Maps, which is fairly easy and doesn’t take long. Just ensure all the information that you provide is as accurate as possible. Avoid using acronyms, initials, or any other names that won’t make your business searchable. We recommend that you use only the official name of your business.
Remember to add many photos as that will help to make your profile stand out. Google uses a photo-recognition tool that shows only profiles that have pictures on the first results. Besides, it will show prospects that your business still exists.
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2. Yelp:
Yelp is one of the easy-to-use platforms where you can list your business for free. To register is easy. All you need to do is enter your business information, and a call-to-action. Then Yelp will be guiding customers to your business.
One of the best things about using Yelp is that you can send a friendly email to happy customers with a link and ask them to leave a review. Once you start getting more reviews, Yelp will send more customers to your store.
3. Bing Places for Business:
Bing is another free listing. It doesn’t matter what your industry is, chances are Bing has a category for your business. What’s more, if your business has several locations Bing lets you add them all in one go.
As soon as your Bing business profile has been approved it will appear on Bing Maps every time people search for your products or services.
Example: Using the example mentioned above. After Lionel couldn’t find Gimme Caffeine coffee shop he goes to Bing Maps and types in” coffee shops” and a list of shops appears. He looks at the ones that are nearby, then decides that he will go for Huggar Coffee shop or Roast Master, which are 70% his match.
When he opens Huggar Coffee’s profile he is greeted by this:
● Lionel salivates when he sees a cover photo of a cup of coffee and croissants.
● He selects “Directions” and Bing Maps opens up immediately.
● He notices that driving to Huggar Coffee will take him 7 minutes.
● As soon as Lionel selects the “Start” button, Bing Maps begins giving him directions to the coffee shop.
● From that day, Lionel became a regular at Huggar Coffee.
4. Yahoo Maps:
Have you tried Yahoo Maps yet? If you haven’t, we recommend that you do. It is super easy to start using Yahoo Maps, plus you don’t have to be a registered user to use it. The only information Yahoo usually asks for is your address, which is mainly used to map a location.
5. Here We Go:
HERE WeGo comes in handy if you offer delivery services to customers. Businesses will get directions in both offline and online modes. You can enter a destination address, landmark, or a customer’s name, and then the tool will do the rest. Your driver can sync your deliveries, and dispatch all your orders on time.
6. Find Us Here:
No two listings are the same, so is Find Us Here, which is a unique platform. That said, Find Us Here can still benefit your business, especially if you know how to use this platform. It is one of the listings that can send customers to your storefront without fail. There are currently 13 million Find Us Here users in the US alone, this number will reach 20 million by 2023.
7. Waze:
If you are not familiar with Waze, it is one of the best maps any business owner should be using. It is also owned by Google and has more than 100 million monthly active users.
Waze uses branded pins that share the location of your business with drivers. You also get an option to promote your location to the top of the Waze search.
The above ideas are just some of the many ways maps can benefit businesses, regardless of their size. The easier prospects can find you on local searches, the greater are the changes that you will continue growing your business.
To see how your business ranks, check out our Listings Scanner. For specialized help getting your business listed on over 80 local directories, contact us now.
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