Local SEO vs Old School Advertising

If you are running a business which is operated only in a certain area, it means that you need to take a different approach how you do your marketing. What many people tend to think is that for local businesses, the best practice is to keep to the old school methods. While that might be true to some extent, the case is not such entirely. Handing out flyers and having banners has its benefits, but we live in a modern era where Internet advertising is much more important. Here’s what you should do when it comes to local SEO.

Targeting Customers

Depending on the community you operate in, you probably know what kind of customers you want to attract. In fact, the smaller the region, the clearer the picture of the demographics. What you should know is that having a brick and mortar business can give you a lot of information about what you should do online. By analyzing the people coming into your shop, you can establish patterns. You, out of all people know your customers best, and establishing connection can help you decide what group to target.

Online Presence

Having at least some presence on social media is a must. Having a website is the second thing. If you have a website, then local SEO is a thing you must do. Below, we give you the best tips when it comes to local SEO.

Google My Business

As the biggest search engine, Google wants to give users accurate information. So when people are looking for a local business, what they usually are looking for is an address or a telephone number. Google introduced the My Business pages for that purpose. What you need to do is register for free and fill in all of the information of your business/shop. Google will verify the business by either phone or a letter. After that is done, your business will be shown on the right hand side in the search results.

Review Sites

When looking at a new business, please tend to turn to reviews from other users before making the final decision. Additionally, if you have good reviews, Google will definitely take that into consideration, directly influencing your local SEO efforts in the right direction. Make sure you put yourself out there by registering on review sites and listings.

Social Media

We already spoke how social media can boost SEO – local SEO in this case. Your customers are definitely out there on social media platforms. All you need to do is find them and engage with them. Having a strong social media presence is not only beneficial from a local SEO aspect; it is also very important when it comes to building trust. Additionally, using paid advertising on platforms such as Facebook can be a great idea to reach out to new customers. You don’t have to do anything over the top – having a small budget can make a great change since it is a PPC advertising – you only pay when somebody clicks on the ad.

Local SEO has proven to be very beneficial for small businesses who operate in certain areas only. The steps you need to take in your local SEO strategy are not different that regular SEO by far – the main difference is the targeting of the customers. With local SEO, that criteria is narrowed down and it makes things simple even for SEO beginners.

  04/04/2018     2,197 Views