Local search marketing is about placing your online business in the map of local searches whenever potential customers are looking for a local company such as yours. Getting into a spot on the first page of a search can be a challenge, especially if your product or service is new or not used by many consumers in your local area. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Local search marketing gives you many advantages over competitors who are trying to dominate local SEO. For example, you have less to work on promoting yourself locally, there’s more room to achieve high rankings for specific keywords, and you can work with the people who will actually buy from you instead of driving traffic to your website.
When most people think about how they’d like to shop, they might only think about going to one store, like Walmart or Home Depot, but what if you’re also looking for items like tires, pet medications, or that new dishwasher? Do you think it would be more practical to go to Walmart or Home Depot (or even a smaller chain like Wal-Mart) than Google or Yahoo? That’s where Local Search Marketing comes in. While it may not seem logical that a large brick-and-mortar store like Home Depot would dominate the Local Search Marketing niche, Walmart is the largest store in the world and has been successful with their strategy of positioning themselves as a community-based organization. That’s one of the biggest benefits to having a localized presence: customers feel that they can trust you and will be more likely to do business with you if they can easily find you by typing in your name into Google.
But having a strong Local Search Marketing strategy is not enough to get your store ranked high in Google or other local search engines. Even if you optimize for the term “pet grooming,” there are still millions of other searches that will yield the same or different results. Instead of trying to target the term “pet grooming” alone, a savvy retailer will optimize their website for the key phrases associated with that topic. An example of this strategy might be: “pet grooming in Stockton, Oregon,” or “pet grooming in California.”
Using local search marketing to build awareness for your website is just the first step. Once you have the name of your business, you need to optimize your website for Google and other business directories. This will require plenty of citations. Citations are what other customers will use to discover your business. To make sure your website receives the maximum benefit from citations, you should submit your website to Google and other business directories using the proper formats – title and H-notation (Google calls this “rich citations”), links, and so forth.
While Local Search Marketing is vital to attracting consumers, another way to boost your standing with Google and other consumers is to participate in local search marketing programs. Participating in local search marketing programs is free – there are no strings attached. Rather than submitting your website to a regional directories for free, you can join a program that will allow you to submit your site to over a dozen regional directories. These programs often require minimal fees, since participating in the program means you are meeting with a qualified professional and adding value to their business. As a result, participating in local search marketing programs is another way to build consumer awareness of your business.
One of the most effective strategies for Local Search Marketing is creating a strong Google local listing. It is vital to the success of Local Search Marketing to have a Google local listing, since consumers will often search for businesses within a particular area. Google offers many tools to help users find businesses in their area, such as their map page, their voice search option and their phone number listing options. The map page, which is a section of Google tools, is highly beneficial to consumers. A map provides directions to a businesses address, making it easy to find if the business is in the vicinity of your home.
In addition to offering consumers a way to locate a business in their immediate area, Google’s voice search feature is a tool well worth the investment. Consumers are more likely to respond to a voicemail than to a text message, which makes the inclusion of a voice feature in your website or listing highly beneficial. Consumers also tend to be more comfortable sending a voice message than they would be typing. While it is best to include a voice mail feature in all of your websites, the inclusion of a map pack can help make your listings more attractive to potential customers.
Building on your online presence through Local Search Marketing is a smart move for business owners, especially if they want to benefit from a wide range of consumers in their area. Consumers who are familiar with your online presence will make it more likely that they will visit your website or call your business. Because having an online presence is important to increasing your chances of obtaining new customers, you should consider incorporating a local search marketing strategy into your overall marketing plan. Your list of online searchers is much more likely to convert to customers if you include a voice-search feature in your website listings.