There is a myriad of ways to advertise your business locally. These include billboards, radio adverts, newspaper adverts, television adverts and sometimes putting signs up. However, with the proliferation of the internet and the explosion in ownership of smartphones, most of these stated ways of advertising are simply not good enough.
First of all, you are not sure that the customer was reached. Secondly, the customer reached might not be a potential one and further might be too far out for them to actually visit your business. All in all traditional methods of advertising have been proven to be very inefficient in this day and age. To promote your business locally it is important to advertise online as this is where most potential clients look for initial engagement with a business.
Develop SEO Friendly Content
This means that the content that is developed in your adverts have to be both accessible and done properly. Using proper SEO techniques is important to ensure that local searches highlight your business first or second on the results. This is by ensuring that the search parameters used are proper.
The key to this is to advertise with Google Ads (Adwords) and get the breakdown for adverts you have put up as a business. Using PPC advertising to reach your target audience is a very good breakdown of the demographics and location of the searches. It is important to use this information to ensure anyone who Google’s business finds it.
Encouraging Customers to Leave Reviews Online
Having proper business practices and fantastic customer care can be parlayed into positive reviews online. It is extremely important to ensure that you run your business correctly and cater to the customer and their needs.
The proliferation of social media makes it extremely important to ensure that bad publicity is avoided at all costs. Any bad publicity will lead to customers leaving bad reviews warranted or not. Therefore jealously guard your reputation. Encouraging customers to leave reviews online will help boost traffic as potential clients want to have a connection with a trusted business.
Woman is working at workshop. Concept of small business.
Open Social Media Accounts
It is important to have social media accounts on most of the major platforms depending on the demographics of your clientele. It is very important to ensure that the pages on your social media are regularly updated and any queries quickly answered and sorted out. Most clients use their social media to carry out searches and having a presence there is very important.
Therefore, a good description of the business and what you can do for them to satisfy their need is important. A website, telephone number, address, email, physical address and working hours also need to be displayed. This will help the potential client locate the business after an inquiry.
Look to drive Online Traffic
Once your business is online, look to drive online traffic by developing content. This can be done by looking to create content for your website and driving traffic there. This can be achieved by leveraging social media and creating quirky, humorous or factual posts. Looking to leverage the hottest topics of the day and use them to push your business.
Look for Content
Don’t rest on your laurels once clients have come in. Keep looking and making fresh content that ensures traffic is maintained to the various platforms namely the website and social media accounts. It is extremely important however to ensure the content remains tasteful and professional.
Hire a Digital Marketing Agency
To promote your business locally and ensure that a potential customer is reached and they know of your business it is important to advertise online. Digital marketing agencies are key in this endeavor.
It is important for your business to be the first result or thereabout when a potential customer decides to Google my business. Those were various ways to improve local search for your small business so you can dominate local search.
Patrick Watt is a content writer, writing in several areas, primarily in business growth, value creation, M&A, and finance. Other interests also include content marketing and self-development. Say hi to Patrick on Twitter @patrickwattpat
