Being a local business owner has its benefits. Most community members want to support their local businesses rather than helping out the “big players” in all kinds of industries. We’ll show you how to capitalize on being a local business and learn how it can help grow your organization.
Website for local business
Where does anyone go to search for a lawyer, restaurant, salon, plumber or literally anything else you could ever need? The internet! Make sure your business has a website that is easy to navigate and mobile-responsive. Being responsive is important because so many people are constantly on their phones and laptops, and will, therefore, look at your website from those devices.
Insider tip – keep your navigation menu short, a good rule is to have no more than 5-7 pages to make things easy to find”
Google My Business
Owning and having access to your company’s Google My Business is a MUST! You’ll need to set it up with your address, phone number, website URL, and hours of operation. Then, you can add photos that show the goods or services your business provides. Posting an update on your Google My Business weekly is a great way to build your websites ranking with Google! Having and posting on a Google My Business page is the most important tool a local business can utilize in their marketing strategy.
Insider tip – Ask your clients and customers to give you a review on your Google Page. This will help with Google rankings AND with trust with those looking at your profile.
Social Media
Social media accounts are a staple of local business marketing. It allows you to have the ability to communicate with your consumers in real-time. Using an editorial calendar to create content is a great way to organize and plan your messaging. Posts such as a limited time offer, a behind the scenes look, or celebrating a team victory all create solid engagement. Keep in mind there are a lot of different social media platforms that exist and it may not be necessary for your business to have a presence on all of them. Here’s our cheat sheet to which platforms may be best for your business!
Insider tip – People love to see people! Make sure you’re showing off the personality of your company and the people within the company to create a loyal and engaged following.
Referrals & Testimonials
People trust what their friends and family members have to say. Therefore, it can be extremely beneficial for your business to have a referral program in place to help your company grow. Having happy and satisfied clients makes it even easier to ask them to recommend you to people they know. You can take this even one step further by offering an incentive to your current clients once they refer your company! Make sure you’re asking customers to also leave you a review! Reviews are critical for many reasons – SEO, social proof, etc.
Insider tip – Google, Facebook & Yelp are great places to focus on for reviews!
Local SEO
If you’ve followed along with our guide thus far, you’ve already been working on improving your local SEO without even realizing it! Having a website with correct contact information, a properly set up Google My Business page, and receiving reviews and testimonials all work together to increase your local rankings! Make sure your on-page SEO is set up correctly from the get-go – include header tags and metatags, and make sure your images are all named properly.
Insider tip – make sure your business is included on local listing sites to continue to increase backlinks to your site.
SEM
Ready to take the next step in getting your brand out there? PPC and search engine marketing is a great way to further increase the number of people that are seeing your business’ name. Running geo-targeted Google Ads will help you to be found when someone is googling the items and services you sell.
Insider tip – including keywords such as “your industry near me” are great ways to run hyper-localized campaigns!
Are you ready to get started with your own individualized local business marketing plan? Contact us – your local digital marketing agency – today to receive a free consultation!
