Are you looking for ways to drive more traffic to your small business blog? Taking advantage of Google Places ‘Post to your place page’ functionality is a great way to do so. Google Places is a free online tool that allows business owners to list their business on Google Maps. At the same time, if you create a local business listing on Google, your business can start ranking in local search. The are many great benefits to having your business listed on Google Places, as well as, other local search tools. Today we are going to talk about one specific benefit, the ability to drive traffic to your small business blog.
Once you’ve created a Google Places Profile for your small business, you can then begin using your profile as a way to drive traffic to your blog. First, navigate to your Google Places listing, click “Owner-verified listing” to get to your profile. Once you’re on your Google Places profile, on the right-hand side, there is a text box for you to “post to your place page”. The post to your place page area is the area that you can use to promote a new blog post.
When promoting your blog on Google Places, simply copy/paste the article title into the text box and then copy/paste the article link into the text box. One nice thing about Posting content to your Google Places Page is that Google Places allows you to input 160 characters — 20 more than Twitter. The extra 20 characters allows you to add the article link in full. By not using a URL shortener, you are adding to your inbound links, which is the single biggest factor in ranking you higher in search.
If you still have a few extra characters, you can ask people for a certain response, request they leave a comment on the blog, provide your thoughts on the article, or add a description to the article. Whatever you decide to do, definitely use those extra 20 characters to your advantage when promoting your new blog post on Google Places.
Once you’ve written your post and added your link, simply click ‘post’ to display your blog promotion on you Google Places Business listing. Now, when someone finds your Google Places Business Listing, they will see your post. If the post is relevant to them, they will click the link to read your blog.
Check out how your “Post to your place page” post looks like — follow the arrow within the image below to see what the Catalyst Marketers Google Places listing looks like.
Google Places is a great way to get qualified traffic to your small business blog, as first the person had to perform an online search using relevant terms for your small business. To make sure your Google Places listing ranks for relevant searches, you should use Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find relevant keywords to fill your Google Places Business Listing with. Optimizing your Google Places Business Listing for Search Engines is critical in driving quality traffic to your local business listing.
By optimizing your Google Places listing for search, you now know that most of the traffic that arrives to your listing is quality traffic. You can further qualify them if they then click on your link to your business blog. If that happens, that means the individual has now taken two actions to get to your blog. With that being said, my guess is that he/she will stay on your site for a while, as well as, click around on a few different pages within your site. This is exactly the kind of traffic you want on your business blog. Now get out there and start using your Google Places listing to promote your new blog articles.
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Being able to pull off an event like hosting your own local boutique fashion show is a big feat for all business owners, both large and small. With that said, a few years ago, it was almost impossible to host your own successful Fashion Show as a small business. The main reason being costs. Tools for pulling off a fashion show have been around for a while, but those tools were just so much more expensive than tools today. Free online social tools like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Google Local, and many others can help clothing boutique owners create a ton of buzz around their local Fashion Show. You can host a contest to give away free tickets to the community. You can offer discounts to live attendees on anything they purchase that night. Really, the opportunities are limitless if you get creative. 
As a business owner, you are probably starting to see the power of FourSquare for business. The more people you get to “check-in” at your local business, the better. Basically those customers who check-in at your local business on FourSquare, just helped you market your business. The cost to you, $0.
The key takeaway from this post should be that you need to start using Yelp to promote your small business because not only will Yelp users see your Yelp business listing (and hopefully positive customer reviews/ratings), but so too will local EveryBlock subscribers. Basically, for no money at all, you can attract new prospects to your business from two different online tools, Yelp & EveryBlock.
Figure out how you will build buzz within your local community. You can build publicity and awareness by promoting the event through online social tools, as well as, through in-store ads/fliers. You can host a live event and invite select customers, friends, family, media, and other local business owners. Video recording the event will be imperative, so that you can distribute it online – perhaps through YouTube or Viddler, in order to capture a larger audience. You can use the same online social tools to promote the fashion show post-event, that used to promote it pre-event. 
There are probably even more benefits to running an event like this, but you only have so much time to read this post and I only have so much time to write it…The key for small business owners to pulling this off is that the tools to do so are now available to you at a price you can afford. Online social tools can help you promote the event, share the event with the world, and converse with fans post-event. I’d imagine that you could run your own local fashion show for less than $1,000 if you get creative. Tools like YouTube and Viddler allow you to post a video from the show online. Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and your company blog will allow you to promote the event both before, during, and after. Your fashion show may be so cutting edge for your local community that it gets picked up by local news stations, which will add some great PR for you and your small retail clothing shop. 
The idea for this post actually came when I posted the following question on Twitter, “Working on new posts for the Catalyst Marketers blog, does anyone have topics they’d like me to explore?” I received the following response, which is the basis for this post, “@EnviroBooty I have heard from Social Media Magic that your profile itself should be rich in your pertinent keywords. If that’s true, just wondered why”. So thanks to 
Don’t simply stop at adding keywords to your Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, & LinkedIn profiles, use those keywords in your daily online conversations. When you respond to comments on Yelp, try to add a keyword where it makes sense (don’t go overboard). When tweeting, use your small business keywords. If you make a wall comment on your small business Facebook Fan Page, use your keywords. All of these efforts will pay off in moving all of your online business profiles up in the search ranks. 
Do you remember using that Emergency Call List when your business was going to have to stay closed on a normal working day? You know, with each new employee you bring on, and for every old employee who leaves, you update that list, print it out, and make sure everyone knows the procedure. Usually it starts at the top with the owner or manager deciding if their store will open on a day where weather or other emergency factors come into play. Once the decision is made, the owner calls the next person in line, then that person is in charge of calling the next person, and so on. 
Before the advent of using online social tools for business, there was really no way of communicating to customers that a store would be closed for the day. Granted, on days like the Philadelphia area had on Saturday, many people aren’t going out shopping in the first place. With that said, what if you’re a doctor’s office or another type of business where customers have an appointment setup on a day that’s in question? Well, you’d have to pay someone to answer the phone and unless you have a redirect system in place, that individual would probably have to go into the office. Obviously, that’s dangerous during bad weather days. Now, all of that has changed due to more and more businesses using online social tools to communicate with customers. A big key to this is also the comfort which customers have in using those same tools to communicate with businesses. 
This discussion topic really hit home as I had numerous responses within several different LinkedIn groups. 