Promoting your local business online

If you own a local business, you want to dominate the local search results of your niche

But how do we make your profile pop up in those local search results? and what aspects should you focus on? Here’s how to maximize your conversion rate and sales.

Local SEO is for local businesses

When we prepare your profile or your ad to rank for local search results, we want people in a specific neighborhood to see it and visit your website. In most cases, this is not to sell directly through your website. Instead, your website probably invites people to come to your store, to your practice or to hire you for your skills. Websites focusing on a local audience are different from those focusing on a national or global audience. In most cases, when visitors are interested in your services, you’ll have a face-to-face interaction with them. Your competitors are the other local entrepreneurs in your specific niche. Perhaps you actually know your competitors.

Keyword research

Keyword research can be hard. But since you, as a local entrepreneur, regularly meet with your audience, you have a big advantage. Ask them about their search behavior! Ask your favorite customers what they were searching for when they first visited your website. Or what they would be searching for if they’d be looking for your type of business. That’s valuable information. Don’t stop there, though! Think about other search terms as well (as you might be missing out on an audience).

Which local queries do your audience use when searching for your type of business? You should get inside the heads of your audience and figure out what they’re searching for. For most local search queries, people will actually use the name of the town or village when searching for something. For instance, they’ll type in [hairdresser Westmount] or [therapist downtown Montreal]. But even if people do not use a local term in their search query, Google will probably recognize their query as a local search intent, and will give search results based on your location.

Write ‘local’ headlines

Whether it’s in the wording of your profile or your online promotion, advertorial or native advertising, we make sure that the content is optimized for local SEO. We want to do that because Google will know we’re focusing on a local audience, but we also want to do that because our audience will recognize you as a local business. Users are searching for that hairdresser nearby, the bakery around the corner, or that carpenter that will come to their house. They’ll click on those results that indicate that they are situated in their proximity. That’s important for local search. We make sure your snippet is clear about where your business is, and that the title of your posts and pages is clear about that.

Make an awesome first impression

Once we’ve convinced people to click on your profile in the search results, we convince them to visit your website and to not click away. A high bounce rate will eventually result in lower rankings, so we want to make an awesome first impression. Whether you’re a therapist, a doctor, a hairdresser or a carpenter, you basically have to sell yourself. People want to know who they are dealing with. A good picture is key in making a strong first impression. Your profile, as well as your website, should reflect your business. If you have a practice or a physical shop, make sure to publish some high quality optimized photos of your business and perhaps your employee. Videos are also a great way to present your business to the audience.

Write about your business

To rank in the local search results, we publish content related to your local business. An advertorial is a great content strategy that applies also for local SEO. Write about what your clients ask you when they’re shoping for your service you offer. If you’re a carpenter, your content should be about your past projects. If you’re a dentist, it should talk about the most common problems concerning teeth. This includes comments about your customers too! If people are exceptionally satisfied, they can leave a review on your profile or website. Writing about local events is also a great content strategy for local SEO. In any local SEO content strategy, we make sure that your blog posts relate to our local community. And of course, we optimize your post for the keywords you came up with in your keyword research.

Facebook

Facebook should definitely be part of your local content strategy. People connect with others from all over the world but are most prone to connect with people in close proximity. We interact most with people we also see in real life. If you have a local business, you can benefit from this. Make sure to keep your local audience informed with lots of Facebook posts. If you can write about your customers (of course check with them first!) that’ll increase chances your audience will share and engage with your posts.