Free Local Business Web Promotion

Benefits of local business listings and free web promotion are priceless. Obviously the more web exposure a business gets the higher the chances are to attract new local customers. Often you'll see a company offering submission of your business to local business listings on Google, Yahoo and MSN by experts, for a service fee. Now what they may not be exposing is that theses submissions are absolutely free! Free exposure can be gained from Google, Yahoo and MSN, by you the business owner. Sure if time is an issue feel free to pay someone to do this for you, but honestly its a free listing that Google, Yahoo and MSN all have made available for everyone to use.

What you can expect to gain from these listings?

• Free Local Business Exposure on Google Maps (Plus option to create a coupon/deal to attract new customers)


• Yahoo Local and MSN Local Listing Center Maps will also provide your business with free exposure on their maps along with options to provide specialties, photos, business hours etc...


• Web Presence, if you do not have a current website then at least you'll have exposure, the ability to gain customer trust via the "review me" section of your listing (can help with ranking) and access to other customers who may not know your location
  

As far as buying into the hype that these "experts" know how to highlight your business better than you would, I would think twice prior to signing up. Often times I find that those in the business have more of an expertise in their business than "expert" submitters. The one advantage they may have is when choosing "keywords" - but more often than not these submissions provide tools or ideas for you to choose from to submit them yourself.

In addition to getting your free listings, you should try getting exposure elsewhere on the net where user interaction is essential. Such as destination sites like Twitter, Niche Forums, Local City Groups, Neighborhood Blogs, Flickr and other locally targeted online sites. I'll get into how those services are beneficially to local businesses in a future post.

Give local business submissions a shot for yourself, if you feel overwhelmed then ask others before paying for a service which is essentially free.