As a local business owner who doesn’t sell anything online and depends on customers living in their area, it’s easy to assume you don’t need to focus too much energy on building your SEO. That’s more for online or worldwide businesses, right?
Wrong.
Even as a local business that makes profit from local trade primarily (hairdressing salons, coffee shops, electricians) rather than selling online, using SEO is still hugely important to attract more than just passing business to your store. Ideally, you need to ensure that people using the internet to find out about services in their area find your website at the top of their search. By utilizing some basic local SEO (search engine optimization) techniques, you can easily achieve this.
Below are some simple local SEO tasks that anyone can perform. By following these steps, you’ll notice a big increase in customers.
Get a Fancy Website
Sure, when you just started out with your business, you probably had a go at making a simple website yourself. As time goes on and you think more about attracting new customers, using the internet to do this is the best method. Online marketing is a hugely effective tool, but to do it well you need a professional-looking website.
It’s definitely worth hiring in a qualified coder and graphic designer to build you a custom-made, modernized website that works well on both laptop and smartphone screens. Perhaps even hire a photographer to take great photos of the inside and outside of your store to display on your landing pages. When visitors click onto your website, they’ll know you’re the real deal from the effort you’ve made with your site.
Use Google My Business
Try typing “plumbers in my area”into Google search. At the top of the results page, there will be a map of your local area and an assortment of businesses dotted around the map that you can click on, leading to their website and contact information. One of the most integral aspects of local SEO is to make sure your business shows up on this map.
To do this, you simply need to fill out a form. Search for “Google My Business” and you can start your listing. For best results, use as much detail as you can in your form. Include photos, price lists, blog posts, telephone numbers and more, as well as your address and adding a placement on the map. You can also then begin to build up a Google reviews page where customers can leave feedback for other searchers to see.
Utilize Social Media
Social media is an amazing, free way to market your business and advertise your services. Make a Facebook and Instagram account to start, then move on to Twitter and YouTube to capture every audience. Regularly post well-shot photos of your products, team, shop, workspace, and services and share comments with correct grammar and engaging tone.
This is a perfect way to promote discounts and sales. You could offer a “like and share to win” promotion in order to gain more followers and awareness. Make sure you link your website or specific website pages each time you make a social media post – it spreads your internet presence much more widely than normal posts, and means that when your posts are shared, more people will find your website and therefore your premises.
Hire a Digital Marketer
This could be on a one-off basis, or you could hire someone into your team who does this full-time. A trained digital marketer will do all the challenging SEO work for you, like keyword research, on-page optimization, distributing citations, copywriting, and more. Unless you have time to devote to becoming a skilled digital marketer yourself, hiring in an expert is a great way to get you more customers.
For more information on local SEO, check out YouTube for some excellent how-to guides, or learn from detailed articles like Mike’s local SEO guide. With just a little attention to your online presence, you could make a massive increase in revenue for your local business
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