3 Things Every Local Business Should Be Working On, Online
7
3
1
0
1
As a local business owner, your lifeline is based on foot traffic to your retail location, or local leads for your services. SEO, websites, etc. were “easy” to do in the earlier part of this last decade, but have become increasingly more difficult and competitive as large brands and other businesses in your market step up to the plate to compete. This ultimately drives up the cost, time, and effectiveness of your tactics.
So, as a local business owner what do you do?
As a digital marketer, I believe there are three key things local businesses should be doing online to compete and succeed in their space.
This is more of an overview of what I think is important for every local business to be doing online with their marketing. It doesn’t cover how to do any one of the items, it really just tells you what you should start focusing on if you aren’t doing it already.
#1. Have a Website - Make it Mobile-Friendly
I don’t care if you build one on weebly, or go through a Web design company in Milwaukee, you should have a website. 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine, and 97% of American internet users use the internet to shop of which 57% characterize their behavior as shop online, purchase offline (NPD Group).
Take yourself for example, what do you do when you want to learn more about a product, service, or company? You’re probably doing a little bit of that right now by readin this blog… That’s right, you go online.
So, first things first, get a website. Make it mobile (you’re a local business, 25% of internet searches have a purely local, commercial focus (Kelsey-Bizrate)).
#2. Local SEO
Organic rankings are great. They can drive a ton of traffic, which can result in a lot of leads and, hopefully, sales. However, when you factor in mobile and local search, they aren’t always the first results chosen. So, you should be focusing on local search engine optimization and getting ranked within your local business places.
How do you do that? Well, it’s a mix of:
- Having your local business page (Google+ Local)
- Building proper citations by submitting your business to authoritative resources (such as Yellow Pages (free listings - you don’t have to buy into them), Angie’s List, City Search, etc.)
- Building citations / references to your business & address through online PR sources (Journal Sentinel article / PR release about the business, including correct address, etc.)
- Encouraging reviews on your citations sources (your Google+ Local page, Yellow Pages, City Search, Yelp, etc.)
- Encouraging ratings on your citation sources
#3. Social Media
So, you have a Facebook page? Well, what are you doing with it? Is it helping your business? Do you know what posts are working well for you, what your customers respond positively towards?
Social media can be a great channel for promoting your business, communicating and engaging with your customers, but you need to make sure you’re using it in a way that positively impacts your business; if it doesn’t, then your time and money are best spent elsewhere.
But at times, social media can be a difficult mountain to tackle. For example, there are many organizations that just don’t get how to use Twitter within their business. Twitter can be a highly effective communications and relationship building tool to use, for any business, but it’s difficult at times to determine what to say, what to share, how to connect.
If you’re in a position where you aren’t quite sure how social media should fit into your business marketing strategy, then it’s probably best to get in touch with a social media expert to educate yourself on the how’s, what’s, and why’s. Then, either hire them to help you out with it, or learn how to do it yourself.
Take Aways…
So, these are 3 important things that every local business should be working on both now, and for 2013. Most, if not all can be done affordably and easily (“easily” is a subjective term, as well as “affordably”). If you can’t do it yourself, or if you’d prefer a professional to do it, then get in touch, as we help clients big and small do this on a daily basis.
If you have any questions, thoughts, or would like to share things that you’re doing online and winning at, we’d love to hear them; please share them in the comments below.
