When it comes to running a successful small business, being savvy in online marketing is an absolute must. Whether you’re a brand new small business or simply looking to broaden your client base in the area, local search marketing should be a prominent priority for you.
Small brick and mortar businesses benefit when they have a good grasp of local SEO. If you’re trying to market your small business to people in a certain geographic area, it’s vital to strengthen its website to help individuals searching locally find it easily. This requires use of the right image tags, title tags and meta-descriptions, just to begin. Placing specific locations in content headings can also go a long way with local SEO.
When you use local SEO properly, it can enhance your rankings for Bing maps and Google Places for Business alike. These better rankings, in turn, can help people in your region find your business with more ease. This, finally, can give you a potentially serious boost in customers — and profits.
Social media marketing also should be a major priority for your small business. Social media marketing covers a lot of territory. If you start a blog for your company on Facebook, that’s one popular strategy. By doing so, you increase search engine hits and simultaneously keep existing and potential customers in the loop. Establishing a strong social media presence isn’t limited to setting up a Facebook page, either. Social media websites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and even Instagram can all make excellent marketing tools for businesses large and small.
Working on a Google Places profile can make a a strong starting point for local marketing. Make your business’ Google Places presence as detailed as you can, complete with videos and photos. Pay close attention to any keywords you use in your Google Places profile, however. Retrain from employing keywords that don’t relate to your business name, if possible. If the keywords don’t directly pertain to your business, then it’s probably a smart idea to keep them out.
Developing a presence on all of your regional directory pages also can be helpful. Yelp (www.yelp.com) and YellowPages (www.yp.com) both are solid examples of local directory pages. Not only can these types of websites help establish your business’ official online presence, but they can also encourage customers to write reviews. Reviews are terrific for helping with local SEO.
Search diligently for newspaper websites, radio stations, television stations and city councils near you. If you ever see a regional business section on any of these kinds of sites, make sure to sign up and get your name out there. Visibility is key.
If you ever need reliable assistance in local search marketing, you can recruit the services of Softline Solutions (http://softlinesolutions.com) — marketing experts. These marketing aficionados can help your small business get on the path to local search marketing success.
