Lately I have seen so many local businesses popping up on Google search results, it made me think “Is a website really important for local business? after all, their customers are local and there is a constant contact with them”. I pondered over it and did some research and here is what is found.
Local businesses have a small business and most of their clients are locally based, coming from the neighbourhood. They have good ongoing business and not looking for to get more customers or sales. They feel that local people will not visit their website as there is no need to. Citing the above reasons, they feel that there is no need for a website as it will incur an additional expense. But that in completely incorrect.
You will need a website now like never before. I saw that all search engines like FourSquare, Yelp, and Google too are going local and promoting local business and providing people with more local results than ever before. If you stay in New Berns, USA and search from your home, thanks to GPS tracking etc, you will see a lot of local results showing local shops, events and activities. Along with the result, you will see a lot of reviews by local customers and a lot of special offers and easy payment options.
After doing a through research, I have found that the following reason why you just need a website for your local business.
1. You need to be found in all Search Engines
One of the primary reasons for having a website is that most of all your potential customers use the internet to search for everything under the sun. From local pharmacists, grocery, bakery, restaurants, tops, food, barbers to local doctors, nurses etc. There are more than 3.5 billion searches conducted on Google every day. They use the internet like they used to use the phone book.
More than 97 percent of consumers are search online to find a local business and if you want to be found then you need a website.
Your business needs to be found where the people are making their searches. Your
small business has to come up in local searches otherwise people will find other local competitor’s businesses rather than yours and go there.
People are always searching for reviews on products, shops, restaurants, foods etc, and read the comments meticulously so they decide to buy or not. You have to make sure that you have a good online reputation and people are talking good about your services.
If you don’t have a
website for your business, chances are that customers will run to your tech savvy competitor.
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