Retail Stores and Websites Need Location

The old real estate axiom is Location, Location, Location.

In a recession, pre-recession planning may have proven more pivotal.

A firm’s reliable customers have probably cut back on spending and there is a need for new ones to keep revenues above fixed operating expenses. When revenues drop below that line, it is only a matter of how long savings last before the owner throws in the towel.

Bricks and mortar retailers depend on repeat business and growing with new customers.  Organizations make a commitment to where they have to be located and therefore what they will pay for rent. They want to be close to their target market and not let other competitors get a geographical advantage on them.  They do not want to be cut off from their market because a competitor with the relatively same goods is more convenient.

The same happens in the online business. A firm often does not know if they are competing online with a strictly online business or a bricks and mortar business with an online strategy.  What does stand out is the commitment to having the best geographical location. Whoever is ahead of you in page ranking, is more convenient for the person looking for your services.

People who know your business can find your site. You may be driving people through traditional advertising, email campaigns, or sales calls, but there are probably even more prospects looking for your business who you can’t reach with traditional advertising; using TV and radio could be an exception.

There are companies trying to dominate the new customer business by having the best location. To achieve this they have certainly accomplished the following tasks.

• They have a good keyword strategy that puts them in the niches in which they want to be found.

• They usually have built websites search engines respect and/or

• they have so many incoming links and/or

• spend so much on Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising that their site rises to the top because they bend the search engine algorithm.

That search engine algorithm will give the advantage in a low competition industry or niche to the best SEO’d sites. In a highly competitive industry or niche they will give the advantage to the site with the best construction and/or the most incoming links generating the most traffic.

Incoming links can be created by PPC driving traffic, or incoming links from sponsoring sites attracting traffic, or even social media, publishing, and directories driving traffic.

The most practical expenditure of resources is to Optimize the site organically and then create traffic, even if it costs, until the site is high in page rankings and then reduce the spend.

In a recession, the stores and the websites with the best locations probably are increasing their margins by getting more free traffic.  Profit becomes leverage in either world.