Short on time? Here’s the Bottom Line!
I have two goals for this post. First, I want to announce that I’ll be publishing my own photos on LOCAL NA8ion and I’m asking you to share your photos with us as well. More on that in a minute. Second, I’m introducing you to a technique that I’ll be writing a how-to guide on in the future (part of the connect phase of our three-phase marketing method). This technique is multi-faceted but the main point is to use web 2.0 sites and social media like Flickr to increase your search engine rankings and ultimately your sales.
I’m going to start publishing my own photos of local businesses, street scapes, city scapes, people, and commerce from my travels and from my home town here in West Palm Beach Florida. I’d love it if you would send me a picture of your business or have someone take your picture related in some way to your business (you at the front counter, you in front of your store, in your home office, etc.). Use our contact page to ask us how to submit your picture. Once we have your photo we’ll publish it on LOCAL Na8ion for everyone to see.
We use where you are is where it’s at as our slogan because the physical location of you and your customer is paramount to connecting and doing business with them. The paradox is that we use the medium of the Internet, better known for its ability to connect people and ideas all across the globe, as a conduit to meeting potential customers who live right in your town. That’s part of what makes our use of the Internet to connect with people a local nation – a nation of people in towns and cities everywhere sharing the common bond of geographic location.
I’m starting things off with this amazing picture by Jackson Myers of downtown Houston, Texas I found on Flickr, the photo sharing site that is one of my favorite online hangouts. Not only is Flickr fun if you’re a shutterbug it’s also one of the web 2.0 sites that gets lots of search engine love from Yahoo! and Google.
When you upload photos to Flickr of your own business or related products and services and tag them with relevant location and key word information such as (Florists, Akron, OH) the photos show up in image searches on places like Yahoo and Google (of course Flickr as well). They may also be included in Google’s Universal Search which can mean increased search engine rankings, exposure, and web site traffic for you from local buyers.
Sound confusing? This “connect” technique is worthy of its own post which I’ll be writing as a free how-to guide in the future so you can learn exactly how to do this for your own local business.
Great post. I’m sharing with friends in the WPB area. Would like to see follow up posts about how this increased customer traffic.
all the best,
Ann
Hi Ann,
Unfortunately Flickr has changed their tag structure to have what are called no follow tags (they didn’t do this before). This means that this technique no longer gets ‘google juice.’
But, for regular humans like us
we can still read and follow links that we find on Flickr that take people to your business web site. Same goes for other photo sharing sites like Google’s Picasa.