Small businesses often find themselves a bit intimidated by the prospect of placing their businesses online. In recent years, this should no longer be such a concern as a Search Engine Optimization Company is always available to make it easy.
The purpose of this type of marketing is especially a necessity if you want local customers to find your business. Local SEO marketing can be a great asset, and does not have to cost a lot either.
The Need for Visible Online Marketing
With a reasonably small budget, you would be able to get the people living in your area to notice your business. Most people would search for what they need via a search engine (according to the 2009 Marketingcharts.com report). It is therefore quite necessary for your business to have a presence on the Internet.
More and more people are looking to the World Wide Web in order to find local businesses. It becomes vital for your business to be visible if you wish to gain more customers as well as grow your business.
How to make your Business Visible
Many cities are divided into suburbs, and the chances that people from other parts of the city would drive past your store could be zero. You do, however have a product that every household need. This is where it becomes vital that you make your business known to locals who might need your product. Here are a few ways in which you could do this:
1. First of all, you need to get your website into the Internet stream. This can be done by submitting your website to a search engine. There is not secret that Google is the world’s major search engine. This is the first port of call for most people. The next one in line is Bing. You might also want to find out if your country does not have a local search engine such Yandex. This is a local search engine for Russia.
2. The most important parts of a website are:
- Its metadata, which should comply with the Google requirements
- Your SEO agency should make sure that your website optimization should have page titles as well as Meta descriptions. This means that you need to add up to two keywords as well as the name of your business to your web page titles.
3. Once your website is ready, you are able to upload it to the Internet. You are now also ready to start tracking your traffic once you have exposed it in this way. In order for you to do this, you are able to make free use of Google Analytics. If you set this up correctly and thoroughly, you are able to collect all data that you need. This include:
- The number of visits
- How long they stay on a page or on your site
- Giving you insight into their location an especially
- The route they took to get to your website
4. Social media has taken a front row seat in the marketing of your SEO Agency. This is where Google+ plays an especially huge role. It makes it easier for your website to be found as it is directly connected to Google and it therefore absorbs most of your activity on Google. Adding your business to Google+ Local is therefore a great idea.
5. Added to Google+ are the other social media sites that would assist greatly in growing your business profile. This is one of the best ways to spread the message about your website. In doing this there is the benefit of being able to get a business URL from:
- Twitter for business
- LinkedIn for business (LinkedIn is especially business oriented and will take your business to a lot of old colleagues as well.)
- Facebook for business
- Foursquare for business
The best part about these social media is that they are free.
6. As a business, you are in a position to budget for an online marketing campaign as well. This is easy through the means of Google AdWords. You are able to create you own ads, and you pay only if people do click on these. If there are no clicks on the ads, you do not need to pay for it. You are given the freedom to set your Local SEO marketing campaign by setting the Ad extensions to contain your local information and details.
7. An excellent idea is to add your business, and especially your website, to local lists as well as local directories. This is a free service, and you are able to give your business greater exposure to existing as well as potential customers. There are a few of these listings that you might consider:
- www.smilelocal.com
- www.scoot.co.uk
- www.yelp.com
- www.hotfrog.co.uk
- local.yahoo.com
- www.qykpe.co.uk
- www.bingforbusiness.com
- www.yell.com
8. There are also many different local social communities, which are often called forums. You should join some of these forums in order for your business website to get more exposure. This can only happen if your business participates and add to the value of your relevant forum. The important thing to remember is not to spam these forums.
9. These are all the aspects with which your SEO Company can assist you. The same applies to getting your site mobile accessibility. Many people have the means to purchase smart phones and thus would be able to have more and more access to your website. Your website should therefore be optimized for this purpose too. It is easy for someone looking for a product to use a mobile instead of a desktop.
10. Your business would also increase in its present if your website has a number of social sharing buttons.
11. An important factor is also the fact that Google and Bing have Webmaster tools that you could utilize. These tools are very helpful in terms of sorting out and fixing your website problems. This is especially in terms of local searches. These are specialized services and your SEO agency would be able to assist you with this too.
12. The Internet is visual and it would serve your website well if you provide some images to illustrate your business. It would be even better if these were your own images.
13. On of the other ways in which you are able to make your website gain popularity is to allow for reviews. You could ask people to write reviews especially when you are listed in any of the local directories or listings. These often allow for reviews.
14. In recent years blogs have also made a difference in the way you are able to expose your website. People tend to read the articles on these blogs. The links that are provided here are often a way in which a potential customer is exposed to your site.
15. It is very important to be consistent in the way you present your business. Whatever information you provide needs to be the same every time, especially the name of your business, contact details and most of all your website link.
The means of online marketing mentioned do not have to cost a lot. Your SEO agency would be able to give you guidelines, but the marketing techniques here will add to the savings on especially your local marketing.
