Digital marketing is vital to any business. People often search online first even when they want to purchase or enlist services locally. There are several ways for you to become more visible to your local consumers.
Related: How To Build A Website With SEO In Mind
What is Local Marketing
Local marketing is aimed at people who live in the same city, town, or region as your business. It attempts to inform and draw in people who work or reside within driving distance of your products or services.
For instance, if you have a car repair garage, you would target local marketing at people who live in the area of your garage, so they can know where to bring their cars. ‘Local’ doesn’t have to mean next door, just near enough to realistically drive there. Learning about a fantastic car garage in a different city is useless information. Especially if you don’t know much about what’s available right near you, this is why local marketing is essential.
Local marketing should articulate the benefits of your goods or services to the local market and help you spend your ad dollar more efficiently.
Who Benefits Most from a Local Marketing Strategy?
So, is a local marketing strategy right for every business? Yes, most businesses can benefit from a regional approach, but some do even better. Any business locked to its geographical location is an excellent candidate for a local marketing strategy. For instance, retail stores, outlets, restaurants, car repair services, dry cleaners, salons, etc., any business that depends on foot traffic for customers.
Other businesses that can use a local marketing strategy are accountants, lawyers, real estate agents, etc. Although their services may be used online, they still need an effective regional marketing strategy.
Local Online Marketing Tips
Here are several valuable tips for creating a local online marketing strategy:
Optimize (& Localize) Your Website
Your website is the identity of your business. Your marketing brings people back to your website, which must be ready for visitors. It must not only be professional-looking and visually appealing, but it needs to be optimized for search. This means you’ll have to be willing to invest in your website.
Website Optimization
You may have optimized your website to drive more traffic, but is it optimized for local users? You’ll have to employ SEO (search engine optimization) practices like keywords for content and images. You must also be mobile-friendly. Most visitors to your website will come via mobile devices – smartphones, tablets, and laptops. If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, you will miss out on this traffic, as well as significant profits.
Mobile-friendly means that your website’s text, icons, and pages are just as easy to read, understand, and interact with as when viewed on desktop computers. Without this web design component, your website is dead in the water!
Related: Everything You Need to Know About SMB Marketing
Localized
Although websites want to provide global appeal, if your business depends on local people in your area to succeed, it also needs to have local appeal. By the look of some websites, people in their geographic area may have no idea that they are even there.
To localize your website, consider finding keywords that people in your area will be searching for that may be pertinent to the area. Also, consider adding terms like, ‘… serving the St Louis area’ or something that indicates the locale your business serves.
If you’re ready for a web design and marketing agency that understands local online marketing, we’re here for you! We’re the best in St. Louis, and we guarantee our results. Visit Emod Marketing to learn more.
Create Localized Content
You already know what it means to create content and how valuable it is to the success of your business. The term online content includes anything available online that exists as digital data like written blogs, e-books, infographics, images, videos, animations, and music. So, localized content is content created to give great value to people in your company’s local area.
You can accomplish this by searching for keywords associated with your chosen topics. Once you explore these topics on Google, you’ll see other questions pop up in the results. You can use these questions to create content that not only answers the questions generally but for your local area specifically. This will drive more traffic to your website and generate more leads.
Optimize Your Social Media Pages
When we think of contemporary marketing, we immediately think of social media. There is no denying the effectiveness and popularity of consistent posting. Let your customers know what’s happening in your business and engage with them. Optimizing your social media pages means keeping your information current, like your location, contact info, and opening hours.
Optimize Your Google My Business (GMB) for Search
Aside from your website, your business will live on your Google My Business listing. Here, potential customers can know where you are and what you do. If you verify your GMB listing, it will become visible on Google Maps and the local results portion of your results page. Included in the verification process, you’ll have to supply your business name, description, contact information, complete location, business category, a custom short name, opening hours, photos of the business, and your product or service details.
After your GMB is set up and verified, remember to post there consistently.
Encourage Reviews
Customer feedback is king when it comes to the steady improvement of your business and getting the word out about how great it is. Encourage your happy customers to say so – on social media, Google reviews, your website, and anywhere else other people will see it. Create space for their satisfied voices to be heard, and consider offering incentives like giveaways, promotions, or discounts. And don’t forget a little gift for referring a new customer.
Related: Importance of Professional Website Design for Business
Last Word
Local online marketing will do amazing things for your business. Following the above tips will get your business seen by people in your area looking for what you offer. Happy Marketing!
Are you ready to scale your business and increase your revenue? We’re here for it! We’re the top web design and marketing agency in St. Louis – you can’t go wrong with us. Visit Emod Marketing for more information.
