What is Local Online Marketing?

For many businesses big and small, their success is largely dependent on garnering a local audience. Local marketing is a type of digital marketing that utilizes strategies that target regional audiences that are in the vicinity of your business. Local online marketing is especially great for businesses with a physical location, such as a hair salon or a restaurant. Having an effective local marketing strategy will help get your brand in front of a broader local audience that will possibly purchase your goods and/or services in the near future. Below are 5 top tips from marketing experts on how to successfully implement local marketing into their overall digital marketing plan.

1. Local Search Engine Optimization and Website Design

Local search engine optimization is an extremely effective digital marketing tool to reach more potential customers. Local website optimization is the key to driving traffic to your page. A great way to do this is with key words and key phrases. Frequently mentioning your community and nearby communities is a solid strategy. For example, if your business serves the tri-state area, using the phrase “serving the tri-state area” on your website would improve local SEO insights.

You can further improve your local SEO insights by taking advantage of free keyword research tools like Google Analytics, Google Trends, Google My Business, and Google Search Console to help you determine what local terms you should incorporate. The better you optimize your website’s design and content, the more likely that local customers will land on your website.

2. Create Localized Content

A lot of businesses don’t create their own content because it’s time consuming. The unfortunate truth is that this choice could be hurting your business because content creation is an extremely valuable asset for your local online marketing campaign. There are many different forms of content to choose from, including videos, blogs, and even ebooks. The point of this content is to provide relevant and sought-after knowledge to your audience.

To start creating content, you first have to figure out the topics you want to focus on. Doing keyword research with the tools mentioned previously can help you with this. You can then search your topic on Google and see what the search results show. This will provide you with popular questions that consumers want answered about this topic, which you can then use to create your content.

3. Use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads to Reach Local Customers

Pay-per-click advertisements are a reliable way to gain more leads and get more people interested in your business. Research has shown that pay-per-click advertisement leads are 50% more likely to convert into customers than organic visitors. To start off, you first want to come up with keywords. Just like with search engine optimization, keywords for pay-per-click advertising will cause your advertisement to appear in search results when that keyword is searched. To ensure proper localization, you need to make sure that the keywords you choose are the most relevant to your local community.

Once you have keywords, you will be able to bid for your advertisement’s placement. You will then sex your maximum bid, which designates how much money you are willing to spend each time a person clicks on your advertisement. Both your maximum bid and quality score will ultimately determine your advertisement’s placement. Google prefers quality over a higher maximum bid because Google wants to prioritize high quality advertisements. Once you have your advertisement’s placement, you can launch your PPC campaign.

4. Manage Customer Reviews

Managing your reviews is crucial to your local business, as potential customers rely on reviews to help them decide if they should give you their money or if they should take their business elsewhere. Oftentimes, people will look at reviews online to determine whether or not they want to choose your business. When people see a lot of positive reviews, they are more likely to choose your business. Conversely, if people see a lot of negative reviews, they may not want to choose your business. In order for your reviews to work for you and not against you, your business must make review management a part of its local online marketing plan.

5. Use Social Media Marketing

Social media has become a large part of our everyday lives and is one of the best ways to reach new customers for little-to-no cost. Social media marketing is a great way to not only obtain new leads, but nurture leads that already exist. Today’s consumers value personalized experiences, so being able to engage with their favorite brands and businesses will definitely help with customer retention and customer acquisition.

There are many free ways to organically gain potential customers through social media, like through status updates, posts, photos, and videos. You can also choose to go the paid route and run advertisements on various social media platforms. Most social media platforms have their own paid advertising programs that you can use to reach new potential customers that haven’t discovered your local business yet. Paying for social media advertisements allows you to target your audience better, as you can set up specific audience parameters to make sure you’re targeting the most relevant people.

There are so many ways to enhance your business’ current digital marketing plan and one of the best strategies is localization. Localized digital marketing is a rapidly growing field that all types of businesses are taking advantage of in order to find success. So, what are you waiting for? Start localizing now!