It’s easy to overlook the benefits of digital marketing when you run a local business. You might feel like spending your budget on traditional marketing strategies is the best way to appeal to the customers in your area. However, it’s crucial that you remember we live in a digital world, even for local businesses. It’s becoming increasingly important that you focus on your CT internet marketing for your local business than other avenues. With help from GeoReach, you can get assistance with your digital marketing strategies. If you’re having trouble getting started, we have a few tips to help.
Improve local SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is essential to ensuring that your website is found on search engines. SEO works by putting specific keywords in appropriate places on your website to indicate to search engines that it’s something your business is all about. For instance, a company that does screen printing for t-shirts would want “screen printing” peppered throughout their website with other terms associated with that service. This way, when customers search for “screen printing” in their city, the website shows up. You can do this with any business, products, and services your business provides.
SEO involves much more than simply plugging keywords into your website. You can learn more about what else goes into SEO below.
Establish and build a Google My Business listing
Google is the most commonly used search engine in the world. Others come and go, but Google currently has the strongest hold on the masses. You can ensure you’re doing the right things to improve your website’s SEO by setting up a Google My Business listing. Your GMB listing helps Google curate an accurate depiction of an area on its maps, so the search engine will reward your business for having a GMB listing if one of your competitors doesn’t. A GMB listing is also the best way to get your online listing into the local search results section of a search results page.
Encourage customers to leave reviews
Search engines give preferential treatment to companies and websites that provide useful information and are reliable sources. You can show search engines that you’re trustworthy by gathering customer reviews. It can be awkward asking customers to leave a review for you if they had a good experience, but many understand the benefits your company gets from reviews, so they’re willing to do it.
Create interesting content
Good, useful content is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your website. It also shows search engines that you have a website that’s continually in use and provides added SEO value. Some ways you can make content for your website include writing blogs and producing short videos about your company, products, and services. You can always repurpose content from one medium to the other, so you’re not trying to come up with different topics all the time.
Build a good website
We understand “good” is a relative term, but your website says a lot about how credible you are as a business. Many customers will click away if they feel that your website is going to be difficult to navigate. Furthermore, it’s not uncommon for scam websites to be put together quickly using cheap and outdated tools. If you haven’t made any changes to your website since 2002, it’s time to upgrade because you could be costing yourself local search traffic.
Build a social media presence
Most small businesses don’t have the time to build a strong social media following across three, four, or five social media platforms. They do, however, have time to build a following across one or two platforms, especially if they’re working with Facebook and Instagram. Choose one or two platforms that work for you and put effort into growing your following. Trying to work with three or more gets to be too time-consuming, and you won’t put in the amount of effort you need to build each.
Schedule a call for more
If you’d like more CT internet marketing tips for local businesses, get in touch with us at GeoReach. We’re experts at improving your local digital marketing efforts and would love to help your company. Schedule a call with our team by calling 203-816-1574 or sending an email using our contact form.