26 Dec Improve Your Local Online Presence
How do you stand out in a sea of competitors? Even in your own local city, you may have dozens of competitors. In order to gain your market share needed to grow your business, your company has to boldly stand apart from your many competitors.
But how do you choose from the plethora of marketing services and products to properly promote your business?
Not all strategies are worthy for your business. Many simply do NOT work and will waste your marketing dollars. Below are a few simple ways to make sure your business gets the attention it needs to attract new customers.
8 Ways to Improve Your Local Business Presence
- Make sure your website is up to par. That means your site needs to be search engine friendly so Google will rank your site higher. If it’s not, your competitors’ sites will show above yours. We offer web design designed to not only look great, but more importantly rank high to get you more business.
- Register your business with Google My Business. This enables your company to show up in the local searches. Click here to see what I’m talking about.
- Post interesting and relevant content often on social media. Stick with the most prominent platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Make sure your accounts are business accounts. Take the time to write a captivating bio for each social media site and upload good quality profile and header pictures.
- Blog regularly. Writing useful articles is time-consuming, and because of that, many of your competitors aren’t do it. This is a great way to show prospects that you have the expertise to handle their accounts. Educate your clients with the knowledge you have learned.
- Make sure all major local directory sites are updated with your correct business information. Local directory sites include Google Business, Bing Places, Yext (Yahoo), Yelp, and other popular directories. If you are local to the Emerald Coast of Florida, make sure to sign up for a premium listing on Emerald Coast HUB. The more consistent your contact info is across directory sites, the more credibility Google gives your site.
- Utilize video and upload to popular video platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. Including a product specific video on your site can increase conversion as much as 80%. Make it easy for people to consume your content. Your videos don’t have to be professionally done. A simple point and shoot with your phone camera is often sufficient.
- Include your website link on all marketing collateral. Whether paper printed items such as business cards or brochures or promotional items such as pens and coffee mugs, be sure to lead potential customers to your website.
- Start an email newsletter. Regularly, but not too much, send out useful email newsletters to your local clients. Be sure your content is educational and has a purpose for your recipients. It might be possible you need to segment your email lists and send different content to the various segments. For instance, maybe half of your customers are men and the other half are women. Obviously, with this scenario, you can curate content that speaks different to men and women.
Many of these tips are easy enough to do, but a few them should be left to professionals, such as the website design and development. The other tips included don’t take special knowledge, but they do require consistency. Blogging, social media posts, and email newsletters are long-term strategies which is a time commitment.
