Improving the visibility of your business all about putting your business on the map in local searches when customers are searching for a business like yours.
Running a business is hard work.
You might have a steady flow of loyal existing customers, but you always need to make sure we have a stream of new people.
Keeping your website up to date can be hard work, too. And your SEO might need a serious update — or maybe you’ve never done much with it at all, thinking it was too difficult or too expensive.
Because of this, we’ve put together several optimization strategies that we are currently helping our clients with.
All these methods are geared towards helping you rank as high as possible with Local Listings so that you can generate more sales for your business.
- Optimize Your Website
The two most valuable things you need to do for your local business is to create a reasonable amount of high quality content for your website and do the basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
SEO optimization is the process of making your website’s page more attractive to search engines and users.
Search engine robots will rank highly
optimized content higher on a search engine page than
non-optimized content.
You should aim for quality over quantity, providing comprehensive information to your site visitors.
Search engines prefer sites that are regularly updated, this means that you can’t just create a bunch of pages and then let them sit for months at a time, hoping that your site traffic will improve.
On the other hand, if you are happy with the content on those pages, there’s no need to change them just for SEO purposes.
Instead, consider starting a blog. Even if you only post once a week, this will show search engines that your site is being maintained and updated regularly.
- Claim or Create your GMB Profile
Today’s consumers want precision and they are used to immediate results, so the time you shell out to list your company on Google Maps is modest in comparison with the results you’ll get.
It’s very important to be found on Google and Google Maps.
If you are not there, your business will struggle to compete with other businesses in your industry, especially with those that are easily discoverable and do have a significant presence in Google Maps.
And to be found on Google maps, you need to either
claim or create a new GMB Profile for your business.
Not appearing on Google Maps will mean that you don’t exist to a lot of buyers, therefore, you need to pay special attention to Google tools if you want to increase your sales and revenue.
- Staying on top of your Reviews
If you are contemplating purchasing a certain product,
would you rather trust the claims made by the manufacturer/seller or the experiences of people who have bought the product?
It’s likely that you’d be more influenced by the opinions of your fellow consumers.
It’s important to consider that your customers would also have this same mindset when they’re planning to buy something from you.
When they see that a large percentage of people who have bought the product are raving about it, it could compel them to make the purchase too.
Many small businesses shun bad reviews or delete for fear of getting a bad image, but consumers can see right through that.
Small businesses should embrace reviews, even if they are good or bad.
Good reviews can help boost your rankings with search engines as well as bring in more potential clients.
But at the same time bad reviews are also useful because businesses can take points from these to further improve their services and product effectiveness.
The more people talk about your company, the more popular you get.
- Being Relevant on Social Media
The best way to use social networking sites to improve your SEO rankings is to use them to interact with your customers.
Tweet, post, and like other content on social sites that make sense for your business.
Creating clear, good content that relates to your business and getting people excited about your product or helping solve their problems is the best way to turn browsing internet users into loyal customers.
Your job is to educate people about your business by delivering its advantages and give reasons why these social media users should become your customers.
You can definitely do this by sharing captivating stories, videos, images, downloadable guides, about your business.
Here’s why you should include social media optimization in your marketing plan:
- It will help customers to find your brand
- It’s an easy way to build and grow your customer base
- It improves your ranking in search engines
- It will build up connections with your target audience
- It promotes your brand authority in a niche market
