There is all sorts of content being published these days about "Local Search". There are huge amounts of money being thrown at local search platforms as well from the likes of Google, Yahoo, MSN, YellowPages.com, Local.com and many many more.
A recent Piper Jaffray survey showed that local search is now the second most common activity online. They created a recent document called the "User Revolution". It discusses the new advertising ecosystem and the rise of the Internet as a mass medium, and makes some pretty incredible forecasts.
Did you know that people are using the Internet now to make locally focused decisions more than anything other medium with the exception of email? I'm not sure that your local business really understands the size and frequency of the audience that is looking for you. Truthfully, most green industry businesses are missing the boat.
Has "Build it and they will come" been the thinking of your green industry business web site so far? You need a layer of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) on top of your web site if your site is going to be found by those who do not know about you.
Sure, put your URL on your letterhead, invoices, shirts, signs, vehicles etc. But reaching out to those who don't know about you is the strength of SEM. And it works.
I will take some time here in the near future to write about SEM.
Steve
All material is © Copyright 2008, Steve Cissel