Has the number of new customers, patients, or clients you serve been declining? Is your repeat business starting to slide a bit?

If you answered "Yes" to one or both of those questions, you should be concerned. Even in bad economies there are always some people with money to spend. Furthermore, many people with somewhat limited funds will still find a way to buy products and services they really need.

So why aren't those people coming to you to fill their needs? Chances are you're making one or more of these common local marketing mistakes.

You don't have a website. You've been in business for years, and you've always gotten customers by advertising in local newspapers, weekly shoppers and printed phone books. That's the only place people ever look for what you sell, right? Wrong. Maybe you don't use the Internet much yourself, but chances are your customers do. In fact, when they are ready to buy, the web is the first place they may turn to find a service provider or source for products they want.

Your website looks unprofessional. If your site is poorly designed or is full of typos, potential customers may think your work will be unprofessional and look for someone else to fill their needs.

Your local contact information is missing or hidden on your website. People who are looking for products and services on the web often want to deal with someone locally. So, they add a local term in their search query. Thus, they might search for "dentist Riverhead," or "landscaper Peoria," or "computer repair Springfield." If your website doesn't have your complete address, type of business (not just your business name!) and local phone number, your competitors will get found instead of you.

You haven't submitted your local business to local.google.com. When a person searches Google for something that one might normally want to buy locally, one of Google's search results shows a map of the area with pointers to businesses that match the search criteria. For example, Business Know-How is located in Centereach, NY. I did a search for bagel store on Google and this was one of the search results on the first page.

The listing is free. If you're not there, list yourself now.

You aren't advertising on the web. Having a website is a first step to getting local business. The next step, and often equally important, is advertising on the web. In addition to the free local.google.com listing, there are other sites that offer free local listings. In most cases, the free listings show up below paid listings or with less information, however. So you'll also want to buy advertising online. The major search engines let you select specific geographic regions in which you'd like to advertise. This lets you avoid paying for clicks from parts of the country or world that your business doesn't serve.

You are only marketing your local business on the web. Yes, the web is a wonderful and often cost-effective way to market your business. But for businesses that need local customers to survive, or should be getting customers locally, networking and/or local media advertising are important. Remember, people like to do business with people they know and trust. Local visibility will work with your website to inspire familiarity with and confidence in your business.

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