MerchantCircle Aggregates Local Search Listings for Small Businesses
I’ve commented before about the expansion of local search, other convergent tools for local search, and even a directory of local search directories. All in support of small businesses who are recognizing that being found on the web is now far more important than being found in the paper yellow pages.
Now, thanks to the AlwaysOn.com Media 100 “special awards for market disruption,” I’ve discovered a wonderful service, MerchantCircle.com that gives small business owners a convenient way to access (or add) local search listings on most of the important local search directories (only Google seems to be missing) including Yahoo Local, City Search, YellowPages.com, Verizon Superpages, Yelp.com, Insiderpages.com and more.
The result is the ability to manage your business’ “web identity” and online “reputation.” So, if you have a business that has local, face-to-face community contact (in other words if your business does not exist entirely on the web), then MerchantCircle is definitely worth checking out. You can monitor and update most of your localized listings and also network with other local businesses in a very state-of-the-Web 2.0-art environment.
Hey John,
Thanks for the mention. You’re right on with you assesment and it’s pretty exciting to see the growth we’ve accomplished in just under 8 months. We’re now at 85,000 businesses signed up. What’s your e-mail address so that we can keep you updated with our changes and milestones?
Thanks,
Kevin
kevin@merchantcircle.com
Thanks for dropping by, Kevin. I’ve emailed you separately. It’s amazing to me how few businesses really get the power of Internet Marketing. Keep up the good work.
Best,
Jon
Jon, the merchantcircle concept is good in theory, and the integrated functions with Google and Yahoo! Sponsored Listings are a great add-on…but i think the program misses one key point.
The efforts of search engines like Google and Yahoo! to actually propogate their own local databases means that for small businesses – it’s more important to get listed in those, than some 3rd party local listing service.
Enhanced local listings in Google and Yahoo! almost remove the need to have a website for small businesses.
Small business internet marketing has changed forever.
MerchantCircle is proud to help more than 500,000 local business acquire customers by offering an alternative to over-priced, ineffective offline marketing channels. We’ve been interviewing our merchants in all 50 states – you can read about their MerchantCircle experience here: http://www.visualcv.com/merchantcircle.
We’re committed to providing every local business a web presence, easy-to-use marekting tools and a platform for connecting with other merchants, all for free. As always, please email any questions or concerns to support@merchantcircle.com and we will respond as soon as possible.