Service-oriented businesses need to reach a highly specific group of clients. You don’t need to reach people who live two states away if you are running a professional service business, yet the online marketing world is a global one. So what is the solution? The key is learning to implement local search marketing tactics for small businesses to hone in your marketing efforts. This guide will teach you proven strategies you can implement to reach the right people with your online marketing.
Challenges to Small Businesses in the Online Marketing World
Today’s small businesses face a variety of challenges in reaching their target market. Sometimes, they need to narrow down their audience to a specific local demographic, particularly if they operate a brick-and-mortar business offering a service-based product. Yet in the online marketing world, they’re competing with a global marketplace of potential customers. Small business owners must narrow down their marketing to limit their competition and better reach the right people.
If you’re a small business owner looking to hone in on a local market, you know the challenges that come with this territory. Identifying your local market and ideal customer, then finding a way to reach just that target through your online marketing, is the key to building a successful marketing plan.
The Solution – Local Search Marketing
So how can you do this? First, you need to know your local community, including both your customers and your competitors. Start by identifying the exact person you want to market to. A thorough demographic analysis complete with personas that identify your best customers will help you streamline your marketing efforts. With that analysis, make sure you identify the geographic areas you’re targeting. Be specific to cities, states, and counties, depending on the size of your service area.
After identifying your target customer or client and their geographic area, find out what local trends and interests matter to them. This step will help you better target your local search marketing efforts.
Finally, take the time to see what your competition is doing in their online marketing, with a focus on your local competition. Focus on sites that are ranking well in your area, and then see how you can replicate what they’re doing and join them as high ranking.
As you focus on building your online marketing plan, take some time to implement these local search marketing tactics for small businesses to find success even more quickly.
Proven Local Search Marketing Tactics for Small Business Owners
As you work to maximize your visibility to local customers who need your services, these tactics can help:
1. Claim and Optimize Your Google Business Profile
To be found by local people who want to purchase your service, you need to use Google. Google has 85% of the market share of desktop searches and 96% of the mobile search market, so it’s your most valuable asset.
Whether you operate a law firm, veterinary office, health clinic, or home services company, you need to claim and then optimize your Google Business profile. This starts with claiming and verifying it, which requires these steps:
- Visit Google Maps and search for your address. Once it pops up, click “Add your business” under the Business Profile on the left-hand side of the page.
- Alternatively, you can click the menu hamburger icon on the top lift and click “Add your business.”
- Set up your profile using the on-screen instructions.
- Select a verification option, and follow the instructions to verify your business.
- If your business name is already listed on Google Maps, click “Claim this business” and “Manage now” to claim it as your own.
Once you have access to your Google Business profile, it’s time to optimize it. Make sure the contact information correctly aligns with your website.
Next, make your profile as attractive as possible. List as much detail as you can about your services and your service area, which tags additional local marketing terms. Then, add photos and videos to show what you offer. Finally, set it up for reviews, and then encourage happy customers to add reviews. Highly ranked businesses with optimized profiles have a much higher chance of landing the coveted Google Map Pack listing.
2. Focus on Content Marketing with a Local Flare
Content marketing is a great way to drive traffic to your small business website, and you can add this to your local marketing efforts by giving your content a local flourish. This strategy helps in two ways. First, it gives your customers a reason to visit your website to get local information. Second, it gives you another opportunity to add local keywords to your page.
Work local keywords, like your city and state, into your content where it fits naturally. Don’t overdo this, as it can make the content sound forced. Keep it natural, but be proactive to add location terms where appropriate.
Then, use local news and events to create blog posts and social media content. Tie this into your service, but highlight things people can do around your area. For instance, if you’re a law firm, you can add content about local zoning changes and regulations that might affect your clients. Any service business can add “things to do” posts that just provide value and interest to readers. Local real estate trends can be a great option for realtors and mortgage providers. Get creative, but use local content when appropriate.
3. Leverage Local SEO Strategies
When optimizing your site for the search engines, focus on local SEO tactics. For instance, you can include your name, phone number, and address on every page of your site, which allows you to add the zip code, city, and state to every page. You can add your geotarget areas to your primary keywords on every page as well. Instead of just saying “Dentist” you could say “Madison dentist” or “Dane County dentist” as your keywords.
As you optimize your site for local search, don’t forget about backlinks. Local community pages, business directories, and other local companies are all sources of high-quality backlinks that support your local SEO.
Finally, make sure your site works quickly and well on mobile devices. This means it needs to be visually appealing on a phone screen and it needs to load quickly. Local service providers get the majority of their traffic from mobile, so this is vital.
4. Utilize Local Online Advertising
Use Google and Facebook ads to create targeted advertising. These platforms allow you to advertise to people in specific geographic areas. Decide how tight you want that radius to be, and then limit your ads to people within those location parameters to make each dollar more effective.
After setting up ads, keep tabs on how they are doing. Analyze results, and adjust to make them more effective. Both Facebook and Google advertising platforms have extensive analytics you can use to make these decisions.
5. Connect with Local Branding Opportunities
Local marketing can happen through local events as well. Are you going to participate or donate to a local charitable event? Have the charity or community leader give you an online shout-out, with a backlink. Are you going to participate in community events to help with your branding? Choose those that have a strong online presence to help with your local search marketing at the same time.
In addition, you can cross-promote with businesses that complement the services you offer. For instance, if you are a real estate professional, you may have clients who need a family law attorney or a real estate attorney for their other needs. Partner with one that you can promote, and link to, and ask for reciprocal promotion from them. Your clients will benefit from having a trusted professional to work with, and you’ll benefit from the cross-promotion.
6. Track and Analyze Performance
Finally, track the key performance indicators (KPIs) for all of this marketing to see what’s working and what’s not. You can track website traffic and conversion rates to see if your efforts are bringing in more leads. You can also keep track of your local search rankings.
Google Analytics provides insight into the way clients behave when they access your site. How long do they stay, what links do they click, and how many turn into actual clients? Use this data to make informed decisions about your marketing efforts.
Get the Right Tools to Implement Local Search Marketing Tactics for Small Businesses
As you work to implement these local search marketing tactics for small businesses, make sure you have the right tools to help. One of those tools is Surefire Local. Our local search marketing platform lets you manage all of these strategies in one place. We help you create geo-tagged content and then publish it to your website while also managing your overall content marketing strategy. Our platform puts all of your online reviews and directory management tools in one place. We implement ad platforms into the program as well and even provide social media marketing tools. All of this has analytics and reporting tied to it so that you can make data-driven decisions. This all-in-one small business marketing platform saves you time and effort as you focus on creating an effective local search marketing strategy.
Are you ready to see how Surefire Local can transform your online marketing efforts? Make plans to attend a Surefire Local demo today.