Published on November 2nd, 2019 | by Sidra Mehak

5 Tips on How to Improve Your Local Business Marketing

Internet has given businesses the power of marketing that they never had before. Today, you can market your business in any corner of the world with simple internet marketing strategies. However, when you approach an international audience, you have to compete with international businesses as well. At the same time, you do not necessarily need to target audiences in other countries if you are a small or medium sized business operating and serving only a specific region, city or town. That’s where you need local marketing strategies. Here are five strategies to make your business launch as an effective and impacting local business.

5 Ways to Market Your Business Locally

Claim Your Business on Google My Business

If you are not making use of this service, you are making a huge mistake. There is no other place where people search for businesses more than Google. However, you can improve the search result for your business when someone searches it on Google. How do you do that? You simply claim your business on Google’s special service for businesses, called Google My Business. What does it do to claim your business on this service? Well, you can decide how your business’ listing shows up when someone searches for your business or any similar local businesses on the search engine.

For example, when you list your business on the service and add the right details, your listing will appear with the opening and closing hours of the business. Secondly, you will also see the pictures of the business building. You can share your menu and have the reviews from the customers posted with this listing. A rating also shows up that tell search engine users instantly how people rank and perceive your business based on your services and products. You can see how all of this information is most important for the local audience.

Get Your Businesses Listed on Local Directories

People love to go to local business directories on the internet to find more info about restaurants, shops, cafes, markets, etc. They can find almost all the businesses within the area listed on these websites. The best thing is that the listing on these websites is also quite detailed. It will show your business’ website, contact numbers, and rating too. Imagine your business showing up in the directory results with hundreds of other businesses. The ranking and rating will definitely make your business stand out from the rest in a good or bad way. How it appears is totally dependent on you.

An important part of why you should register your business on local business directories is visibility and discoverability. You want to make your business as discoverable as possible not only when people search for it but also when they search for key terms closely and remotely connected to your business type.

Invest in Local SEO

If you think SEO is enough, you will have to think again. Search engine optimization makes your business discoverable on search engines for not just local but international audience as well. However, you do not always want that. First of all, you are competing with some of the world’s biggest and most well-known businesses. It is nearly impossible to beat those companies in search engine rankings because of how much people already know about them i.e. they are talked about so much on the internet that their discoverability increases without any efforts. However, you compete with only the local businesses when you go for local SEO.

When targeting local SEO, you will notice that the keywords you will have to optimize your website for will be different. If you have a business that sells burgers, you will have to use keywords that include not only the term “burger” but also the name of your town with it.

Take Advantage of Customer Reviews

There is nothing more assuring for customers than the words coming from other customers about a business. For that reason, you want the local audience to talk as much about your business as it can in a positive light. A few online websites are used the most by customers to see the ranking, rating, and reviews of the businesses. Some of these websites include Trip Advisor, Yelp, Google My Business (automatically pops up in the internet results), etc. Keep in mind that you will have to find ways encourage your customers to review your business.

You can ask them either when they are in your business premises or when they have just enjoyed your services/products. You can use mobile applications to remind your customers of reviewing you. The more positive reviews and testimonials you have, the higher the chances are that people will choose you over your competitors.

Hire a Local Marketing Agency

This one is perhaps the most important point of all. There is a lot to take care of even if you take into account only local SEO and business marketing. While creating profiles, business pages, and getting reviews might not be a difficult task, maintaining an overall positive image and constantly optimizing these services is definitely going to be difficult. That’s where you need a digital marketing agency. In fact, you have to choose specifically a local digital marketing agency. These are the agencies that understand the requirements of your local audience.

They know which keywords work best for your local target market. At the same time, they can incorporate local jargon within your content. A local digital marketing agency will also help you optimize your content based on local events, festivals, and more. That’s something you cannot expect from a marketing agency located on the other side of the world knowing nothing about local culture.

Final Thoughts

It has to be mentioned here that a central point to all your local business marketing efforts has to be social media. That’s where you connect with your audience in reference to all your marketing campaigns. Run giveaway campaigns and other contests to reward the best customers. Keep yourself active and engaged with the audience to be their go-to business.

Tags: how to, improve, local, tips

About the Author

Sidra Mehak has helped both well established and start-up digital marketing agency takes their ideas from sticky notes and whiteboards to fully develop robust manpower that serve vast specialized communities. Her expertise ranges from Tech Hiring, to CXO level Blogging. Get in touch with her for more information.