Local Marketing Dos and Dont’s

 
As a new business owner sometimes it can be difficult to know where to begin when specific points or challenges occur. Below Grant McArthur SEO has written up some actional steps for you to refer to if any of
 
Do’s:
 
Optimize your website for mobile: Make it easy for customers and followers who use mobile devices, tablets and Smartphones. Smartphone and tablet users use their mobile devices two to six times in a week to search local businesses. Assure Accurate Information: You should keep your information accurate and constantly updated and accessible throughout the web and on all publisher’s listings. These will increase your search engine ranking.
 
Offer High Quality Content: Your website content should be impressive and useful for your customers. It will make it easy for your customers to leave reviews about your business. Quality and effective reviews leave a good impression on your customers, it also influences your search engine ranking.
 
Update your profile: You should update your business profile from time to time with updated images, new product or new services. Search engines love consistency. Your customers will want to know more about your new products and services.
 
Include Media: Videos and Images increase your appeal in your local market by
making your offerings more tangible. Search engines love them. Visuals can boost your business rankings and appeal in the market. You can include customers’ testimonials, product demonstrations and customer service staff in your videos and images to make it more powerful.
 
Correctly optimize the On Page Signals: On page SEO is associated with page title, URL, header tags, image alt text, and page content. You can consider the geographic area in which you provide service, including suburbs or nearby towns. You can place keywords, language and content to describe your business and the area with a consistent NAP (name, address and Phone) listing on online directories. This will help local searchers find your business.  
 
Stand Out: You should always try to be different and creative to stand out from the crowd in your marketing niche. You should tell your audience what you are providing that your competitors don’t. You can give them a reason to purchase from you.
 
Utilize social Ambassadors: Social media pages work as a brand ambassador. Some people check their Facebook account more often than their mailbox. You can create mini pages to drive your traffic to your business blog and utilize the social platforms to get more traffic.
 
Use a Strong call to action: You can include a call to action on your business website. You can run an offer, free coupons, % off on products, etc. People always look for offers. With this you can get a great deal of traffic to your website. You can also include this offer information on your landing page.
 
Claim your Profile: You can list your business in local directories. Each directory serves different purposes, but overall they increase your visibility on the web. You can claim your business on Google Places, Yelp, Manta, Bing Business Portal and others. Power Listings allow you to claim your local business in more than 30+ local search sites in a few minutes.
 
Don’ts: Don’t Create Fake Reviews: Do not write fake reviews for your company. Search engines are getting better at detecting fake reviews, so be able to stay away from that. If you post fake reviews you might face a penalty that can harm your business’ local search engine ranking for a long time.
 
Don’t Spam your customers: Just because you have the customer’s contact information that does not mean you should go crazy with your marketing strategies and send them an email every hour. If you do this, your customers will definitely unsubscribe from your lead list forever.
 
Don’t Set it and forget it: Remember things change on the web, you’ve gotta keep an eye on all the online services you are using for your local marketing. Social Media as well as various online marketing tools are updated often. You must be aware of that for your local online marketing efforts too.
 
Don’t Use P.O. Box Address: If you use a P.O. Box address for your business then it will be difficult for the search engine to determine where your local business is located geographically. If you run your business in your own home, then you should always use your physical address as your business address.
 
Don’t focus only on new customers: You should appeal to both new and existing customers. New customers are quite interested in your contact information and support unlike existing customers who are often interested more in your products, discounts and new offers.
 
Don’t rely only on Search Engine traffic: Local people don’t always use Google, Bing, Yahoo or other directories to find businesses around their local area. A significant number of local searchers use review sites, portals, applications and other tools to find you.
 
Don’t over optimize: Search Engine Optimization is important, but do not try to over optimize your website. Search engines penalize those who try to game the ranking code to get in the top no matter what. Try to optimize for several keywords at the same time instead of just one.
 
Don’t use a toll-free number: Using a toll-free telephone number will make it very difficult for the search engines to find your geographical location. Using a land-line phone number will help you avoid this. Besides that, a land-line number will make you look more professional and real.
 
Don’t ignore Negative Reviews: Negative reviews are a great opportunity to make your product or service even better each time until its perfect. Be kind to people who offer Negative Reviews, thank them for being honest. And tell them you actually use negative feedback to make your product a lot better.
 
Don’t pay to be in directories: You don’t have to pay to be in local directories. They don’t provide any extra facility to your business. These types of directories are spammy and search engine don’t like them.