As a local business owner, you know how important it is to market yourself to potential customers in your community. Now that the Internet plays such a central role in all our lives, you need a way of connecting with your customers online. But how can you get your website noticed among all the larger national and international businesses operating in your niche? Take a look at these tips to help you stand out from the crowd and successfully market your local business online.
Local SEO
When optimising a local business, the usual rules of search engine optimisation (SEO) apply: you should try to include the keywords that your customers are searching for in the copy on your website. The key to making SEO effective for your local business is to choose your keywords with a local focus.
Competing with big businesses on high-competition keywords in your niche is unlikely to be effective. Instead, focus your attention on long-tail search terms. A simple way to do this is to add the name of the town where your business is based to popular keywords related to your line of business. For example, it is easier to get your site ranking highly for the key phrase “Mooloolaba Surfboards” than for the same keyword without the location.
Local Directories
Local directories are a great way to market your business. People searching online for products and services will often start by checking local listings and directories to find businesses in their local area. Adding your business to online directories increases your exposure in your community. However, an out-of-date listing that features an incorrect phone number, address, or business description will harm the trust that customers place in your business, so make sure you keep a track of your listings and update them frequently.
Connect via Social Media
Social media offers a unique opportunity to reach out and connect with your customers. Setting up an account on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and other popular social media platforms allows you to publish regular updates on your company’s activity. Most importantly, social media allows your customers to give you instant feedback on your products and services. You should monitor your social media accounts and regularly respond to customer comments to give the best possible impression of the customer service of your business.
Keep it Fresh
Regularly updating your local business website and social media accounts is necessary to keep attracting attention online. Keep your listings up to date and consider adding a blog to your site to keep your content fresh. Search engines rank sites with fresh content more highly than those that haven’t been updated in a while, so keep adding new keyword-rich text, images, and even video content to your local business website to keep attracting plenty of local search traffic.
Online marketing could help your local business to reach out to customers. Following these tips will help you to get started in marketing your local business online.
