As of May 3, Yahoo Small Business customers are now free to enjoy a new feature from the company that may allow them to better manage their own organization’s perception online. According to reports, the major search engine now allows users to take advantage of free and paid versions of its marketing dashboard, which includes features such as campaign, traffic and reputation management tools.
The service also includes basic features that are easy to work with for novices. For example, the service puts reviews and ratings, recent social comments and ratings distribution data at the fingertips of business owners, who are able to see and assess this information with simple graphics.
“The number of online marketing options are growing,” Shannon Parker Hane, director of product marketing for Yahoo Small Business, said in a statement regarding the announcement. “It seems like a new company or a new way of reaching consumers emerges each day, and for small businesses who don’t have agencies or a lot of background support, this proliferation of options is pretty challenging to manage.”
And while the service may help Yahoo better compete with its rival Google and its free program Google Analytics, small business owners who want to take their local online marketing to the next level may benefit from hiring an internet advertising agency that can better provide owners with trackable results.
For example, with an internet marketing firm, small business owners can embark on custom campaigns that allow them to better serve specific users with targeted advertisements. With this kind of service behind them, they can begin driving their own analytics and taking an active role in shaping their online reputation.