Local Online Marketing Strategies for Small Business

For small businesses connecting with a local audience creates a better audience that reacts faster. Local Online marketing helps bring your brand in front of a larger local audience, who will patronize your business because it is local. But, as a business owner, how can you improve your local business marketing?

Let’s take a look at what local digital marketing is, and a guide to 7 online strategies in local marketing for your small businesses:

What is Local marketing?

Marketing local businesses help target audiences based in the town or region of the business. It is geared towards people who physically live within a certain radius, generally within driving distance, who will purchase the product or service in any stipulated time.

It is the combination of different methods and strategies to ramp up online visibility in a local search. This helps increase traffic and conversion rates both in-store and online.

What types of businesses benefit from local marketing?

Any business can benefit from local marketing. But some types of businesses that need local online marketing are:

  • Restaurants
  • Retail stores
  • Boutiques
  • Lawyers officers
  • Accountants
  • Salons/barber shops
  • Bookstores
  • Spas
  • Doctors offices
  • Bars

7 Strategies for Local Business Marketing

1) Optimizing and localizing your website:

The key to driving traffic is website optimization, but is your website optimized for local users? You should follow SEO practices that employ keyword research to inform your website content, and you need to guarantee your website, which offers a top-notch mobile experience.

Additionally, these are key for digital marketing strategies; your website can be localized. This means determining the key phrases and keywords that are based on local SEO. So you need to ask yourself, ‘What is the local market looking for on Google?’ One good rule of thumb is to frequently mention local communities. If you are looking to target regional audiences, then consider adding specific languages to your website, like ‘serving people in the tri-state area.’

You can improve your local SEO further by leveraging free keyword research tools like Google Trends and Google Analytics to check which local terms you should add. The more you optimize for local searches, the more local customers are going to land on your website.

2) Setting up local landing pages for all business locations:  

If your business has multiple locations, then you need to create individual pages for each location on your website to improve your local search engine marketing. These pages should include specific content about your business and should include key phrases to signal to search engines and the local audience. It should also contain terms such as ‘best’ or ‘leading’ that signifies what type of business it is.

3) Maximizing local business listings:

If you have not claimed your Google My Business listing then you are missing out on important local online advertising space. In your profile, you can include your business name, phone number, address, hours of operation, directions to your business, and a link to your website. Small businesses also add engaging photos. This free visibility option from search engines like Google and Bing ads to a brand’s local business marketing.

The first step is to claim your local business listings on search engines such as Google and Bing and to check for listings on platforms such as Yelp. Post this; you can run paid ads across multiple platforms to make sure that your business appears at the top.

4) Focus on Local SEO:

In some cases, local businesses use more technically-advanced local marketing campaigns that include leveraging the web to increase foot traffic to a physical location. Your potential customers are searching for services or products in your local area, and you want them to find your brand easily.

Local Search Engine Optimization is your best bet. Local SEO encompasses much more and involves optimizing your website to appear in prominent searches. Look for keywords that potential customers look for to find businesses like yours. Create content that attracts links from local blogs, websites, and social media platforms.

5) Engage with local audiences on social media platforms:

Social media marketing works well for local business visibility when done right. The trick is to target local audiences. When you use a platform like Instagram, you get hundreds of millions of active users monthly. This is a great platform to improve brand awareness. So, start by

  • Including your location in your social media profiles
  • Tag your location in posts to get more views from local users
  • Focus on the right platform where you know your target audience will be
  • Work with local influencers to connect with their audience base

6) Use localized email marketing:

Email marketing strategies have some of the lowest costs of any types of digital marketing available. The bulk of the cost is mainly required for obtaining relevant email addresses. Sadly, there is no app or platform, or system, where you can identify where the user is located. But there are email-gathering techniques that you can use to filter out the location. The easiest way is to have customers sign up at your physical stores. Another great way is to get people to sign up at any event you host or a booth you sponsor. This way, people sign up to receive promotional offers from you.

7) Localize paid advertising:   

Paid ads can be used to target local users across multiple search engines and social media platforms. Google, Bing, Google My Business, Facebook, Instagram, and other such digital marketing advertisers. Other than this, localized paid ads can also be used. Local radio sports, newspapers, movie theaters, and radio spots, are some of the best ways to promote branding to local customers.

Advertise Locally, but keep thinking Globally

When it comes to local digital marketing, there is a lot you can achieve with minimal costs involved. Setting up and optimizing localized websites, optimizing your social media pages, and claiming your business listings are great places to start. Post this, and start engaging with your local audience in the real world as well. After all, these are the people who will leave raving reviews online in the future.

When you run a business that relies on local engagement or you are looking to improve your local marketing listing, these seven strategies are easy and effective. So, try them out and see what happens.


FAQ

  1. What is local online marketing?

Local online marketing is the amalgamation of strategies that small businesses can use to ramp up online visibility. By following some strategies, your business can appear in the top local searches. This will drive up traffic and conversion rates for both online and walk-in stores.

  • Why is local digital marketing important?

Local digital marketing helps local small businesses reach more customers, increase revenue, and create new jobs. This helps the business grow and reach higher audiences. This also helps give an edge over other local businesses that do not have a digital footprint.

  • How can you advertise locally?

You can advertise locally by:

  1. Use locally targeted ads
  2. Set up direct emailing campaigns
  3. Sign up for local listings
  4. Master social media marketing

Sakshi Jadhav

I have fine tuned my writing skills, communication skills, research skills, computer applications skills specific to the industry, and my administrative abilities. I am highly professional and have a head for hard work and writing.

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