83% of U.S. households now use the Internet
...as an information source when shopping locally for products and services… the Internet will soon surpass newspapers as a local shopping information resource.” Source: The Kelsey Group
So how does a local company get access to the new generation of marketing? And, in this economy, how can we afford it?
Read on for 10 tricks to market your company for free over the Internet!

Trick 1: Google Places
Google Places: Are you in Google Places? If not, your competitors are being listed before you. Google places are the local listings that appear before natural results on Google’s search engine. Find out more at: www.google.com/local/add

Trick 2: Local Search Engines
Local search engines do not get as much traffic as Google, but it is well worth getting your business into them because your listing will link back to your web site. This is one of the ways search engines like Google rank your site. One of the most popular is City Search, but there are many more. Since Seattle is the largest city in the area, try doing a search on “Seattle search engines.”

Trick 3: Where is your contact information?
Search engines are constantly trying to deliver local searches, but they will not list your site as a high priority if they do not know where you are. One way to help is to put your company’s address at the bottom of every page on your web site.
Not everyone has a retail location however. For instance, we have an office, but it is not a location for retail business. In cases like that, you can just put the city, state, and ZIP on the page. For instance, you can see how we put that information right below the navigation on each page at Intra-Designs.com.

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