The American Marketing Association & American Advertising Federation clubs in the Inland Empire invite you to a small business seminar:

Open to the public.

Getting Noticed Online with Local Search Optimization

We are about a week away from learning about local optimization. After sending our first couple emails announcing the luncheon presentation, we received a few questions about the event.

Question 1: What is Local Optimization?

It turns out that a lot of people think that local optimization is organic search engine optimization (SEO). While they are often related, the difference is important: SEO is about promoting your website, where as local optimization is about promoting your physical business location. Local optimization is about getting found in the places where customers are searching for local products and services.

Web-only businesses without a physical location will not benefit from local optimization; those who own or represent local businesses should combine SEO with local optimization for maximum exposure.

Question 2: Why is this important to my local business in 2012?

As referenced in our first email, Google is placing more emphasis on local search results in 2012. In February 2012, Google announced they made 40 changes to its search results – including a new system that finds results from a user’s city more reliably. Now Google is better able to detect queries and documents that are local to the user. Whether a person searches from a desktop, laptop or smartphone, small and local businesses need to understand local optimization.

Learn More About Local Optimization

Join us to learn more about local optimization. Together with our colleagues from the American Marketing Association, in an hour long presentation, you will learn:

1. Why and how your business should be listed on multiple sites such as Yelp, Foursquare, Angie’s List and CitySearch – not just Google.

2. Where search engines like Google get their local business data and how you can control your business information. (NOTE: This is particularly important – because if the data is wrong – your business listing will be incorrect as well.)

3. What types of tools are available to the small and local business owner to not only analyze, but improve your listings on Google Places, Bing Local, Yelp and others.

Damian Rollison, Vice President of Product and Technology of Universal Business Listing, will answer these and other related local search optimization questions.

Thursday, April 12, 2012 – 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM

The Old Spaghetti Factory

3191 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside, CA 92507

Business Casual

Corporate Member $25.00

Member Lunch $25.00

Non-Member Lunch $40.00

Student Lunch $15.00

Lunch is included with your choice of vegetarian, pasta, and chicken dishes.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Sign up here, http://aaf-inlandempire.com/ or here, http://www.ama-ie.com/.