Bring your local business online: A 6 part video from Google

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Google has a series of 6 videos on the Google Webmaster YouTube channel to help local businesses build an online presence (And they are not just about Google+). If you’re a small business with a local focus you should find some tips that will help you. They are short videos, from 3 to 7 minutes each, so you only need to set aside a few minutes at a time to view each one.

Here are the topics of each video –

  1. Introduction and hot topics – About building an online presence to reach potential customers who use desktop or mobile devices.
  2. Determine your business’ value-add and online goal – Why would a customer select your business over the competition? What’s the goal of your online presence such as increasing revenue, improving customer satisfaction, decreasing costs or saving time. What actions constitute a conversion such as phone calls, emails, walk-ins etc.?
  3. Find potential customers – An overview of where your potential customers might find local businesses online including networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, review sites, and an overview of Google+ local pages (even a bit about Apple Maps) and why you may not even need a web site.
  4. Basic implementation and best practices – Such as creating a Google+ page where you can post, put up videos and photos, interact with customers, etc. Develop a presence on other channels that make the most sense for your business. Finally, consider a web site (again, not always needed anymore).
  5. Differentiate your business from the competition – Answer common questions potential customers often ask before selecting a possible vendor; Get online reviews; Demonstrate your “value ad”.
  6. Engage customers with a holistic online identity – Convey a consistent message, value-add, etc. Cross link sites when you can such as including links to your LinkedIn and Yelp profiles on your Google+ page where a client may get some of your messages and then click through to Yelp and see positives client reviews

Go to the first Video of, “Bring your local business online”
(the rest of the video are listed in right column)

Related Info

How To Get Good Online Reviews. Download the slides from a presentation I gave at the Pubcon Online Marketing Conference last month. I’ll be developing an article based on this presentation for Marketing Land so check back for it.