With the hold that the digital world has over the buying and selling process, even if you’re a brick and mortar business you can no longer ignore the need for local SEO. However, knowing how or where to start when optimizing your online marketing can be a bit difficult. Start with these foolproof digital marketing staples to boost your local search ratings today!
Local Listings
Making sure that your physical address and other important contact information appears on popular and frequently searched local listing websites is a great way to spread the word about your business.
One of the important directories that you’ll want to be sure you’re a part of would be Google’s local listings. With Google’s listing set up, people will be able to instantly have access to all the information they would need to find or contact your business by simply searching your business name or any of the keywords that you have used when doing content marketing or optimizing on-page SEO.
Online Reviews
One increasingly popular way for you to get noticed online is through review websites or platforms like Yelp or Google. Through these websites people can post about the positive experiences that they had with your business and help to sway others to want to visit to see what the hype is about.
Many of these websites also give the business a chance to respond to feedback that is left for them, giving business owners yet another chance to connect with their customers and encourage their continued patronage.
Social Media
Another, often overlooked, way for you to be able to get noticed by your local audience is by having a social media presence. By giving your business an online presence that goes beyond your website you increase your chances of gaining attention from local consumers.
Another great reason that social media is an essential tool in local search is because it allows your to be able to connect with your target audience and entice them into coming to visit your physical location with things like giveaways or specialized discounts.
Content Marketing
I’m sure you’ve heard it said time and time again, but I’ll say it once more just to be sure we’re on the same page: content is king. Content is king for a reason, too. Incorporating content marketing into your online marketing strategy is an important component if you want to increase your chances of getting found on local search.
With content marketing, you have a wealth of options of things to write about and each article you write increases the number of links that you have with area and business specific keywords out there, boosting your chance of getting found.
Another important aspect of content marketing is making sure that you’re correctly optimizing each of these pages according to best practices and placing your keywords in the right places so that you can fully maximize your chances of being found online.
On Page SEO
Above all, if you want to get found in the sea of information that is the internet, ensuring that you have given ample effort and energy to on page SEO. Much like optimization for content marketing, on page SEO helps your website to get found through the use of many different pieces working in unison to boost your page visibility, such as keywords and meta descriptions.
The world that we live in now is digital and there’s no denying that any longer. Regardless of where you start, it’s incredibly important that you are working towards establishing a better online presence if you want to be found through local search. By starting with these simple guidelines for optimizing your online presence you’ll be drowning in business sooner than you think!