In 2020, 93% of shoppers used online search results to find local businesses.
For any business today, it is imperative to outrank their competitors on the local level first before taking on the rest of the world.
In this article, we will go over the nine most effective local online marketing strategies for boosting your business in your area by making it more visible and trustworthy to the target audience.
Table of Contents
What Is Local Online Marketing?
Local online marketing is a set of tactics and methods that small businesses use to increase their online visibility.
The end goal of these steps is to display your company at the top of search results for relevant keywords. This, in turn, has the potential to increase both online and in-store traffic and conversion rates.
Assume you own a clothing store and want to increase traffic to your brick-and-mortar location. People in the neighborhood who want to buy clothes will most likely search for “clothing store near me” or “clothing store in [part of the city].”
9 Strategies to Elevate Your Business in Your Area
1. Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
Google processes over 77,500 searches every second.
When customers search for services in their neighborhood, Google gives them a list of nearby businesses that match their search query.
If you want to be successful with local search optimization, your goal is to be part of these search results.
To appear in these top local listings, you should have and thoroughly optimize your Google My Business profile. Do so by:
- Filling out your profile with all of your company's information, such as working hours, address, contact information, and a link to your website.
- Including images of your company's interior, products, and employees. Customers can learn a lot about your company from how it is displayed.
- Regularly checking and updating your Google My Business listing to make sure all the info is up to date and accurate.
2. Post on GMB and Other Platforms Related to Your Business
GMB postings can deliver a significant amount of organic and valuable traffic to your website. These GMB posts have a 7-day lifespan, which implies you should post at least once or twice a week.
You can advertise your items, a current deal, a forthcoming event, or anything else linked to your brand. If you find it difficult to share these items on social media on a regular basis, you can use a social media scheduling tool.
There are numerous solutions for this, but only a few provide a Google My Business post scheduler. RecurPost is a tool that allows you to plan Google My Business articles and create a month's worth of content in a single step. It lets you create bulk schedules and add a call to action while scheduling a post.
It also offers a social inbox, using which you can manage your GMB reviews and reply to them without leaving the platform.
3. Apply Local SEO Practices on Your Website
After you've optimized your Google My Business listing, make sure your name, address, and phone number are consistent across your website and wherever else you've included this information.
Also, placing a schema markup on your company's webpage is a standard approach to have your website listed on SERPs.
A schema markup allows businesses to better organize data such as operating hours and location. It aids Google in organizing and displaying this information and raises the likelihood of it appearing in relevant search results.
Likewise, another top SEO practice in local digital marketing is optimizing certain pages with keywords like “near me” or names of your city, area or region. This may help those pages appear in searches related to these keywords.
4. Build Custom Landing Pages
Many businesses waste their budget by not tracking conversions or developing local landing pages for their services and products. Ideally, each of your Google Ads campaigns should have a user behavior flow of clicking the ad -> going to the landing page -> converting.
When developing a landing page, keep several factors in mind:
- Use a descriptive hero image that complements your value proposition and only one clear call to action.
- To help your audience feel confident in moving forward, make sure to answer their top questions.
- Also make sure your contact number is click-to-call while also checking your landing pages every now and again to ensure their flawless functioning.
5. Devise and Manage a Reviews Strategy
47% of customers post a review of their purchase experience.
When it comes to making a purchasing choice, 72% of customers will not take any action until they've read reviews, and 15% will not trust businesses who have no reviews to present.
Reviews serve as an internet sounding board for your company. When a consumer leaves a review, it is read by others who find you through local searches.
You have no control over whether a consumer leaves a positive or negative review, but how you respond makes all the difference.
Negative reviews can provide buyers with an idea of the worst-case scenario for your company while also reinforcing a sense of honesty.
Even the best businesses will have a disgruntled client at some point, and customers may be more willing to believe 20 positive reviews if there is one negative one to balance them out.
Responding tactfully to a negative review is an opportunity to highlight the quality of your customer service and enhance customer interaction. A kind response to consumer complaints can save your company's reputation.
Google takes these reviews into consideration when reviewing your company’s authority and, based on that, may improve your business’s visibility in search results.
6. Use Web Directories
Years ago, Google algorithm would favorably rank you if you were listed on multiple online business directories and featured links to these directories on your website.
Traditional business directories are no longer as useful for SEO. Listing your company in major web directories, on the other hand, is a critical component of local search marketing.
We have already discussed the most important one, Google My Business. But there are others as well:
- Yelp - Yelp is a valuable resource for local search engine marketing. It not only helps clients find your company but also exposes them to other customers’ feedback.
- Foursquare – Foursquare is another online business directory. It’s a platform helping small businesses increase their visibility online by targeting prospective customers through a pay-per-click system.
- Bing Places - While Bing is just the first search engine of choice for 6% of internet users, it is the default search engine for all Microsoft products.
7. Promote Your Business on Social Media
Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, with hundreds of millions of active monthly users, offer numerous options for brand recognition.
Be present on all of the main social media platforms as you need to be where your audience is. Use a social media planner to post on all channels consistently. Special programs for this allow you to post to many social media platforms at once, which can be a huge time saver.
You may use it to ensure that all of your other social profiles, as well as your GMB listing, remain active. It enables you to cross-promote your content, which helps divert traffic to your website from multiple sites.
8. Blog Regularly
If developing a website for your business is the first thing you do online, creating a blog for it should be the second.
It can be a major source of organic search traffic to your site. Through your blog, you may supply users with helpful information while also building brand authority.
It is an excellent approach to demonstrate your business knowledge and generate brand recognition. Create in-depth blogs that are both educational and entertaining to read.
9. Come Up With a Customer Loyalty Scheme
Every consumer enjoys being appreciated. A customer loyalty program rewards visitors who make purchases or do other activities on your website. Printing loyalty cards and handing them out to consumers is an old-school practice. Then, using a distinctively shaped hole punch, record the number of purchases.
For example, if a customer purchases 10 coffees in your cafe, the 11th coffee is free. Alternatively, someone who visits your barbershop frequently receives a free trim. You may even go high-tech with your store promotion by deploying a loyalty app for mobile devices. Customers receive prizes for using the app.
Local Online Marketing Takeaways
Local online marketing, above all, is budget-friendly compared to other marketing tools, as it can be launched without a financial investment.
The additional costs may come in the form of paid promotions in geo services or third-party platforms that assist in promoting your business.
Online marketing for local businesses is an effective way of ensuring that your customers find your company. Implementing a robust strategy and leveraging local online marketing tips will prevent potential profit loss for your business.
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