Marketing your business online gives you the opportunity to reach anyone with an internet connection, but for many businesses they are looking to reach only those within a geographical area. These types of ‘local’ business include things like:
- Hairdressers and beauty salons
- Bars
- Restaurants
- Trades
- Cinemas
- Leisure facilities
- Car service centre
And many more…
In fact, any business where people aren’t willing to travel outside of the local area or people visiting a specific area and are looking for local facilities are included. So if you have a local salon in Hertfordshire, then it’s important to make it clear on your website that you service that particular area of the country.
How does local SEO work
Local SEO is about getting your website found in a specific geographical location. There are two sides to this equation, people searching for geographical phrases such as restaurant in Chelmsford, or people within a certain location searching e.g. restaurants Google is getting better at working out where you physically are and so you may see local businesses appearing in the search results more and more, even if you haven’t typed in a geographical term.
In the example below, I have simply typed in “restaurants”, Google knows that I am near Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire and so has displayed restaurants that are situated in the area. If I was in a different town then the list of results would be different again.
With this in mind below are our top tips for ‘getting’ found locally.
- Business listings
Either set up or claim your business listing. Google, Bing and Apple all create map listings and in the case of Google you also have the opportunity to add a business page and Google + listing.
- Local Citations and Social
Set up a Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn page and list your business in any local directories. This will help the search engines cross reference your business information and can help improve your search results as well as giving you the opportunity of reaching a larger audience.
- Website contact details
Ensure you have your company address on the footer of your website and that you have a contact page also listing your address, phone number and email address.
- Content optimisation
Talk on your website about the area you cover, if you have a blog add posts referencing relevant events in your local area. If you cover several places have a page for each one (just make sure the content is different on each of the pages)
- Pay for it
A local PPC/Adwords campaign can help you reach people locally, Google Adwords is very good at allowing you to drill down to a specific area. If you are a B to C company, then you might also consider Facebook advertising which is still relatively cheap and also allows you be very specific in your targeting.
- Engage, share and ask
Ask your customer to leave you a review on your Google listing or Facebook page. Engage with people on social media and ask your customers, suppliers and connections to share your content with their networks.
- Keep in touch
As well as social media, you might want to think about email marketing, it’s a great way to keep in touch with your customers and let them know what is happening in your industry, any local events that may interest them, any offers you might currently have on.
- Do a bit of everything consistently
This might sound like a lot to take on all at once, why not break it down into little tasks and set aside even half an hour every week to get started. Consistently making small changes will over time, create a big impact!
So if you are based in Hertfordshire, or anywhere else for that matter and are servicing a local community, get in touch today to discuss how you can get the best from your online marketing.