Capitalize on Google’s New Local Directions

Google announced Wednesday, 11/7/07, their plans to offer driving directions at gasoline stations across the United States starting as early as next month.

Drivers will be able to scroll through several categories on the search module, built directly into the gas pump to find local restaurants, shopping, attractions and hospitals as selected by the gas station owner.

After the driver selects a destination the driver will receive printed directions to the destination. The receipt will also have coupons for local businesses that have purchased the ad space from the local gas station.

The key phrase in this statement is “as selected by the gas station owner”, the results will not be standard Google search results, the results will be determined by who the gas station owners cut deals with to be listed in their search results and participate in the coupon advertising campaign.

The business model enables both the station owner to receive income from selling the advertising space on the coupons and local merchants another way to promote their business. Yet one more shift away from traditional local advertising and to the internet.

This will be particularly beneficial for areas that have large amounts of tourist, business, and non-local traffic. Having lived in Florida for many years I probably appreciate this more than others, you would not believe the number of people seeking directions to one place or another.

Even if you are not in a high non-local traffic area there are still a lot of people that are looking for particular locations, products and services in your area. If every time a driver does a search at the local gas stations, which a lot will do just to pass time while pumping gas, and your coupons are printed on the results you are bound to receive additional business.

If you are a local business owner this is one more reason you need to have your business on the internet. Local search is becoming more important as the internet evolves. Think about the changes in the search engines in the past year, providing maps, directions telephone numbers and direct links for local searches. That’s powerful advertising for a local business and it’s only going to get better as the internet evolves.

As you know, competing in the marketplace today is extremely difficult. You strive daily to provide the best products, services and customer service in your market to make your business stand out from your competitors. Put that same vision into your online marketing campaigns. Develop your website into “the go to website” that blows your competitors away. With all of the website development help available today, there is no excuse not to. If you don’t, quite possibly one of your competitors will.