Why Is It Important To Get Started With Local Online Marketing

As a small business owner, have you ever used online marketing to promote your business locally? You may have possibly placed an ad or two in the local newspaper or yellow pages and most likely did not get as much traffic as expected! That’s because old school marketing has a limited potential to generate leads compared to digital marketing.

The reality is that, since larger crowds of people are connected to the internet nowadays, local small businesses get more exposure to those crowds, rather than just being listed on a few local business directories that are collecting dust on someone’s shelf.

As local online searches for services and products are on the rise on the daily, there’s no doubt that digital marketing is definitely the most effective way to promote small businesses and generate more local leads.

Let’s Discover The Benefits And Understand The Importance Of Online Marketing

Many dedicated small business owners are overwhelmed and struggle to run their business efficiently. They often have to wear multiple hats in an attempt to manage business properly. On a given day you find them act as customer support, human resources department, head accountant, local technician and the CEO … Which generally leaves not time to do any kind of marketing.

Here are some major reasons why small business owners need to seriously consider online marketing as a tool to scale their companies. A “Hubspot” study states the following:

• About 75% of consumers/buyers performing online searches prefer to visit a business closer to their home (within 5 miles).
• 30% of most mobile searches are based on proximity to the consumer’s home.
• 50% of mobile users searching online for local businesses do visit the business within 24 hours.

The numbers are facts – even business owners agreed. About 83% of them believe that online marketing (digital marketing) pays as it results in not only an increase in local leads and revenue, but also in local reviews which improves the business reputation and help with conversion rates. Though there’s nothing wrong with offline marketing, many business opportunities will be lost by not seriously considering an online marketing strategy and allocating the proper funds to implement it.

A Functional Website Is The Starting Point

If you are ready to start online marketing but are confused on where to start, focusing on your business website should be the starting point. An updated with design and usability trend website is every business gateway to the digital world. Your business website should be designed and architected with the idea that it will be your company’s ambassador or your best salesman that will give your company the best image and representation online. So design has to be attractive, information layout and flow should be organized in a way to make the site navigation extremely easy for visitors, input forms should be secured to protect users info, loading time should be fast and call to actions should be obvious.

Not only the company website should provide the best user experience to visitors, but they also have to be optimized for the search engines. Major search engines like Google and others, make the digital space where you want your company website to be exposed for potential clients. And so search engines have guidelines to follow in order to guarantee a fast and accurate indexation of the website. Making the website easy to crawl for the search engines, facilitates their crawling and indexing process, hence increases your chances for higher organic rankings in the search results.

Content is always a king! Make sure business website pages content is optimized to best relevancy to your industry. Content relevancy is a major factor that search engines consider as a createra in their ranking algorithms.

Another very important characteristic of a successful business website is the cross device compatibility. The website should be responsive and easy to navigate across all devices, including; desktop & laptop computers, smartphones and tablets and occasionally smart TV’s.

And last but not least, optimizing the website for high conversions. Be cause after all what’s a website for if not to convert visitors to customers! Clear call to actions and a clean page layout will take care of that.

To sum up regardless of the type of online marketing method you’d choose to start with, be it; SEO, paid advertising or social media, your business website has to be on point according to guidelines advised above.

Standardize Your Online Listings

A must do when getting started with online marketing, is to standardize all your local NAP listings. – Name, Address, Phone number. It’s imperative to have your business name and details appear the same way across all online business directories and social media platforms, as it is on your website.

You can also claim your pages on review sites and online directories to edit the listing if someone else you previously listed the business for you. If you are unable to edit, contact the webmaster of the listing site, and request a correction. This way, all information about your business online will be standardized.

Mobile Searches And Local Online Marketing

Getting started with local online marketing, you need to optimize your site for mobile users. Over and over, it’s been proven and recorded that local mobile searchers are continuously increasing and that a large majority of consumers access websites on their mobile devices.

Sites that are not mobile friendly are being penalized and deranked by Google. Still, lots of small businesses haven’t responded to mobile search as a way of getting customers.

Voice Searches

The use of voice searching is becoming more common and effective. In 2018, about 58% of mobile users actually used voice command searching to find a local business according to studies. With virtual assistants like Alexa, Siri, and other smart phones applications, mobile users can use voice search at any time. If at any time you’ve said “OK Google”, “Hey Siri”, or ‘Hello Google’, then you’ve done a voice search.

Note that voice searches allow for longer and specific keywords/commands than the usual text searches. Users can ask questions or commands like:

• Where is the nearest dentist located?
• I need a plumber in Clifton NJ
• Dentist near me
• What are the opening times for this business (business name)?

You can use your most important keywords and turn them to questions thereby optimizing in more detail for voice searches. Also, use longer keywords in your frequently asked questions (FAQ) page, web content, and blog posts.

Online Marketing Is A Must For Ever Small Businesses

Not using digital marketing to promote your business locally, is equivalent to refusing to get more business at your door. Although it can be overwhelming and confusing when starting to explore online marketing, it’s definitely worth it. Using all the tips stated in this article is a sure and quick way to give your online marketing a boost, and open a door to many opportunities you were otherwise going to miss out on.

Contact us today, to get professional assistance and advice to get your business online.