How To Market A Local Business

Businesses are dropping off left, right and centre, just like the highstreets. In order to strive and grow, businesses need to promote themselves online. It was easy back in the day where there was no digital era, but now everyone is moving online to hedge their bets against their competitors. Competition is higher and a little investment will do great. But sometimes, businesses don’t have the budget to use some methods. In this article, we will go through some helpful tips on how to market your business locally. 

Create and Verify Your Google My Business

This is a great free way to get your business out there. A google business Profile is what allows users to find you online and for your business to show up on Google Maps, local search results and also will give you a knowledge panel where users can see all your relevant information such as opening hours, contact details, your address, review and your social media handles. 

Once set up properly to promote your business, you will then be able to optimise your profile to show up higher in the search results. 

Build A Website

Well, you’re not going to get very far with your marketing if you don’t already have a website. Every business needs a website, no matter how old your company is or how old your clients are, it is an essential tool for your business to grow. Your website will be the first thing that customers will want to see to get a grasp of who you are, what you do and whether they feel they can trust you. Even if they find you on a social media platform, your website will be their first point of call. 

A useful website that does well will not only try to promote itself in the highest manner, but it will tell a story of who you are, what you are about and bring some personality to the customer. It is also a key way to monitor your success with promotional tactics. An example of this would be when running Google Ads you will need landing pages for customers to visit.

Implement Search Engine Optimisation

It’s one thing to have your website, but if it isn’t optimised properly, then you will find that nobody can find you and you won’t get any sales. SEO is a set of techniques that align your business with Google search algorithms. Due to the algorithm evolving constantly to use machine learning and monitor behaviours, it now will give you the most accurate results within a couple of seconds. In short, SEO is just optimising your site for your target market as this will then get you better searches, better conversions and in turn more sales or enquiries. 

SEO is not just one practice, there are many different factors and tactics to work together to get the best results. Due to the algorithm being so well developed, you can now optimise your site for local searches. For example, if you were a jeweller in London who sells used jewellery, then you may optimise your website for search terms like Vintage Engagement Rings in London. This will then target people who are in that area as well as people who search for that area for absolutely no cost apart from purchasing the website.

Create A Business Blog

So to get your site well optimised, the site will need content as if you don’t know already, content is king. It is most definitely an important factor with SEO too but due to it being so important, it deserves its own piece. A business blog is not just to promote your success, but it should be a quality blog where customers will get some use out of it. In essence, the blog is giving your users as much information as possible so they can build trust in you. This goes without saying, but it should portray your brand voice about questions you frequently get asked as well as the latest trends etc. 

Questions and terms are called keywords, and the more content you create on answering these with the relevant keywords, the better opportunity you have to be found on Google which will, in turn, bring more customers. Guest post blogs can be the following:

• How-to’s and Instructions

• Lists of Strategies such as “top 5” or “10 best” etc.

• Q&A Interviews

• Thought Leadership

• Example Templates

• Guest Posts

• Testimonials 

• Seasonal Posts

It can be difficult to determine what keywords to use when optimising your website so it is essential to do relevant keyword research before you start. There are many different platforms out there to choose from but some are better than others. Useful ones such as SEMRush, Wordstream and keyword planner are all good examples of keyword research tools.