Most small businesses underpromote themselves online, especially if you consider the multitude of free options available. This article is about how to gain more online exposure for your business or your personal brand online without spending dollars on advertisements. As this strategy relates specifically to local businesses, I've coined it "Local Footprinting."
Local Footprinting is the process of optimizing your business for your location. In other words, it's creating online evidence for: (a) your business category and relevance to keyword searches, (b) your physical business location and (c) your status as a trusted and preferred vendor in your niche.
The end result is you have more virtual real estate. More real estate leads to more traffic, which leads to more leads and more sales.
Additionally, Local Footprinting is the key to dominating Google Places and local search. Understanding this is one of your primary marketing advantages. Here's why.
As I explained in an earlier article about what to ask a consultant, search engine optimization, or SEO, is a hot topic " and a confusing one. It is rare a small business has the in-house expertise to get ranked highly in Google.
Oftentimes, high rankings are unintentional, and I believe the days of accidental ranking are quickly coming to an end as search algorithms advance and as the competition gets stiffer with more businesses getting into the game.
You can create the perception online that you are the most popular business in your niche within your city even though it might not be true (yet). You do this by increasing your Local Footprint (i.e. building your presence). And presence builds more presence. Popularity has a snowball effect.
Here are six prime "real estate plots" available to you as a local business owner. I call them real estate because if you do a Google search for your business or the keywords your business is targeting, you oftentimes will see these virtual properties occupying first page of Google's results. If you're located in these places, it's like owning every store in an entire strip mall.
Local business listings: The primary ones to be in are Google Places, Yahoo Local Listings and Bing Local Listings.
Your website's rank in the natural search engine results: In addition to ranking in the local business listings (i.e. map results), your domain can rank independently in the traditional natural search results.
Image and video directories: Videos in YouTube frequently rank in search results, especially for "How To" queries or brand identity queries.
Social media profiles: The popular choices for social media participation are Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, 
Authoritative business directories: There are literally hundreds of these, ranging from the nationally recognized, such as YellowPages.com or Yelp.com; to niche-specific ones, such as FindLaw.com; to locally focused directories, such as EverythingMidMo.com.
Local media sites: Local news site have tremendous authority and traffic. Doing something interesting that's newsworthy is great for getting cited on newspaper, radio or TV sites in your city.
Claiming your virtual real estate in these ways will create multiple inroads to your business.
Although Google likely will deliver you the most traffic, each site you get listed in boosts your inbound marketing because these sites have visitors as well.
If you're not yet sold on the idea of spending an hour or two a week on your Local Footprinting, consider this: These marketing strategies differ from traditional advertising in that once you obtain placement (i.e. secure the real estate), it is evergreen " meaning you don't have to pay for it to keep it active.
You do the work up front to get good placement and then sit back and reap the rewards.
Travis Smith is president of Lift Division, a Columbia-based search marketing company. He is author of "Lift: Discover How Your Local Business Will Grow With Google" and teaches search engine marketing at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
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