Local Search Marketing Bypasses the Good Old Boy Networks

One of the challenges small business owners face is finding a foothold in the community. A new enterprise that is looking for customers may need permission from the established storeowners in town before opening up shop. All across the country there are networks of older, established community leaders who block the path for young new startup companies. The "Good Old Boys" impact on the success of new businesses by controlling whether customer loyalty and influencing the buying decisions of a community. Whether a company will survive its first year in business or not may come down to how well-connected the owner is.

Building and managing a reputation for quality service and products can take years of nurturing. But there is a way for small organizations to get around the often troublesome self-appointed local gatekeepers within the community. Using online resources to help them establish a trusted presence on the Internet, a number of small local merchants have been able to penetrate the "Good Old Boy" network. Instead of facing years of struggle to launch and build up a business, technology savvy entrepreneurs are using the Internet to bring customers to their place of business.

A local Internet presence consists of a website development, but it also counts on the search engines to deliver consumers to a brick and mortar location. Optimized maps that pinpoint the location of a business offer online consumers an easy way to attract sales to a new store or professional office. In addition to maps that can be optimized with keywords and product descriptions, a local marketing strategy delivers the social media component that was once exclusively guarded by word of mouth advertising.

People trust the opinions of others, which is how comments posted online support sales for small business owners. Although there are companies that have been around for decades that are adopting local search and social media marketing to promote their company and sell products, there a lot of startups that are finding success through the proper use of Internet marketing.

Where competition was once blocked by the network of established business owners, the Internet allows everyone to have equal access to opportunity and success. By developing a local online marketing strategy that includes website optimization, SEO link building, location mapping and social media, any small business can use the tools available to them to attract consumers to their storefront. A talented and creative marketing strategist can design local Internet marketing campaigns that allow a small business owner to build a reputation for quality through targeted online campaigns.

Whether a business operates exclusively on the Internet or it has a brick and mortar location somewhere inside a city, the Internet has leveled the field of competition by allowing everyone equal access to online marketing tools. A well developed marketing plan that targets local consumers uses social media and search engine optimization for reputation management and SEO link building to drive customers from the Internet to the stores where they can buy whatever they are searching for.