Jul
19
7 Easy Ways To Increase Digital Presence For Local Businesses
Staying ahead of the competition with the use of digital marketing can be a challenge especially for small local businesses. Since local businesses tend to be smaller in size it can be difficult to know where to begin and the value they will obtain from spending the time and effort building a digital presence. However, with the majority of customers are using the web find companies and products, determining the best way to reach these digital customers is very important. The truth is that digital marketing for small local businesses can be very inexpensive (often times free) and can a much higher customer return and retention.
With that, here are seven easy tools to leverage when expanding your business to the digital audience and how they can help you as you grow your business.
A fresh, clean and updated website
Typically the first impression of your company is your website. The design, the navigation flow, and clearly stating your products and services is vitally important. You do not need a lot of pages, usually 4-5 pages are the average number of pages for small businesses. Clearly defining your business and most importantly how to find the location of your business or calling you for a service.
If you haven’t updated your website in the past few years it usually shows, so taking the time to update often helps increase potential new customers.
Local search engine optimization
Optimizing your website for local search is one of the most important components for your website. For example, if you only serve certain towns, county’s or state(s), make sure you add this to your website. If someone is searching for a daycare provider in a certain town or neighboring town, you want your website to appear in the search results. The key items to remember when optimizing your website for local search is clearly defining your products/services for those searching. If you are a local contractor be sure to include what services you provide as a contractor and how these services will help the customers. As these are the terms customers are searching for as it pertains to your business. So remember think about ‘what and how do I want customers to find me when searching’.
Addition of images and correct labeling
Images may seem like a minor addition but the more images you have saved on your website and other sites helps in search. Especially when people are searching via images. Ensure all your images are saved with your company name and/or the product/service the image represents. For example, if you are a hair salon and have pictures of various hair styles, save an image as Your-Hair-Salon-Name-updo.jpg.
Google and Bing for Business
This is a quick and free way to add more visibility to your small business. If you only could do one thing to increase your digital presence, this is the one I would recommend.
- Google for Business – Allows your business to be easily found in organic search results and local business search results. You can also add images (don’t forget to save them as I noted previously), business hours, phone number, description of your business and a few additional details all to make it easier for your business to be found.
- Bing Places for Business - Very similar to Google for Business. Claim or add your business so that customers can easily find you. With Bing you have the same features and functional as with Google Business. Just a different search engine.
Social Media
Social media can be difficult especially when you are a small business. As you really need to take the time each day to monitor, reply and post to various social media platform. As you are beginning with social media, start small. I do not recommend creating an account with every single social platform available. I suggest selecting the best platform where your customers are most active. For example, Facebook, might be a good start. Create a Facebook page, invite likes, add an icon and link from your website, post often, at least 5 times a week. This is just another way for customers to find you and learn more about your business.
Directory Listings
Make sure your business is located on YellowPages, Yelp, Trip Advisor, Angies List and other industry specific directory site that are appropriate for your business. This is just another way to stand out from the competition. You can claim your listing and add links back to your website, hours, contact information and a description of your business.
Cross-promotion of offers on partner websites
If you have any affiliates or partners that you work with, ask if they’d be open to adding a link to your website or adding your business information to their site. You can also ask if they’d be interested in writing a blog post about you.These are some quick ways for your small local business to grab the attention of your local digital customers. Even if you apply just one or two of these tips it will make quite a difference to the way your customer finds and perceive you.
