Month: December 2022

Brand marketing is the number one tool for creating long-term positive connections with the public and your target audience. In many ways, branding is just as important as the product or service that you sell.

Great brand marketing is a crucial step for any successful business, as it has the ability to set you apart, create value proposition, and drive sales by hitting all of the important touchpoints, including your brand story, what makes you different from other brands, and how your brand makes people feel.

In this guide, we are going to learn all about what a brand is, what brand marketing is, and the crucial elements that go into developing a successful branding strategy.

What Is a Brand?

Before we dive in and start looking at strategies, let’s first answer the question, what is a brand?

Ask anyone you know, and they’ll likely have different ideas as to what the term “brand” means to them. So, to get a better idea of its definition, let’s start by looking at what a brand isn’t.

A brand is not a product.

While the brand will certainly help sell a product, a product on its own does not create a brand. The same thing goes for a company’s values, culture, and promises. They can work as elements of a brand, though they don’t comprise brands all on their own.

A brand is also not a logo.

Logos are symbols that provide visual representations of brands for consumers, similar to trademarks, names, slogans, typefaces, and color palettes.

At its essence, a brand is something intangible.

It is the thoughts, feelings, and emotions people get when they hear about your company or see your products. Think of it as a combination of elements working in conjunction with one another.

Let’s perform a quick exercise

Think about Starbucks.

One of the first things that come to mind when we think of Starbucks is the green logo with the siren on it. Next, you probably think of a cool, crisp morning holding a foamy latte in your hand. You may also think of comforting jazz music playing from the speakers and the sweet smell of freshly roasted coffee beans.

The feelings that you’re having provide comfort and nostalgia.

Every thought or feeling that comes to the surface when you think of Starbucks is the company’s brand.

Most people are aware that Starbucks does not brew the best coffee in the world, though the undeniably strong branding is deeply embedded in the hearts and minds of most consumers. In all actuality, when we work to develop a brand, we aren’t creating a single idea but millions of ideas paste on the unique way each person experiences your products or services.

What is Brand Marketing?

By now, you understand that a brand is a much larger concept than a product, service, or logo.

As a result, you should understand that brand marketing is any kind of marketing that is designed to promote a much larger concept.

People often get brand marketing and product marketing confused.

Product marketing is all about promoting product awareness for any awareness surrounding the things a company offers. Brand marketing, on the other hand, is designed to promote more intangible ideas relating to reputation, ethics, values, image, or a sense of purpose.

In a way, the main goal of brand marketing is to plant a seed in the minds of consumers. No matter what kind of product or service you offer, brand marketing will tell people that your offerings have a special, potentially inexplicable ‘X factor’ that sets them apart.

With that in mind, it’s clear that brand marketing is a long-term marketing strategy.

It can take quite a bit of effort to tell people how they should feel about your brand. In reality, how they feel is completely up to them. With long-term communication that showcases your mission statement, values, and personality, you can better align consumers with how you feel about your brand.

The basis of a brand marketing strategy

In its most basic form, a great brand marketing strategy provides consumers with answers to three major questions:

It’s important to note that these questions align themselves with the intangibility factor update brand. It’s not about how well a product or service can work for a person, meaning their strategy ultimately has to reside in a different realm atop the tangible elements of your offerings.

Luxury Ads – 15 Beautiful Examples to Spark Inspiration

What are the Goals of Brand Marketing?

The main goal of brand marketing is to solidify your company’s vision.

There are a few key areas of focus that you could hope to achieve with a successful brand marketing strategy:

Developing a Strong Brand Identity

Think back to our example of Starbucks. Everything about the Starbucks brand is instantly recognizable, from the drinks to the logo to the overall tone each shop sets.

With an effective brand marketing strategy, the building blocks of your brand can reach the same level of instant recognizability. It’s important to make sure that you stay consistent with each building block, whether it’s logos, color palettes, audio, videos, or other content.

Raising Brand Awareness

Many companies spend too much time trying to market their products without marketing themselves. The only way to solidify your brand and the values of your brand into the wider public consciousness is to consistently market yourself on a regular basis.

When you increase awareness for your brand, you increase the likelihood that a person will consider your company whenever it comes time for them to purchase relevant products and services.

Building Brand Loyalty

There is no doubt that developing quality products and services can be a catalyst for brand loyalty. However, we have found that it is often the values, story, and personality of brands that people feel the most connected to. That connection fosters loyalty.

When implementing brand marketing properly, you can create a loyal bond, which, in turn, drives revenue.

6 Steps to Building a Marketing Strategy

Developing a long-term marketing strategy to build your brand can seem pretty overwhelming.

To get started on the right track, follow these six steps to start building a foundation.

What Are Your Marketing Goals?

The first thing you need to consider when building a brand marketing strategy is your overall goals as a business.

What do you want from your business?

What kind of outcomes are you hoping to achieve?

You also want to ask questions that will define the intentions of your marketing team, providing them with a clear sense of direction.

Here are a few examples of goals you might have for your brand:

Setting goals is very important, as it helps you envision and see specific marketing strategies you’ll require to reach them.

Think of your goals as achievement goggles, providing you with a clear vision of the possibilities ahead.

Craft Your Brand Story

A successful brand story is so much more than facts about the way your company was established or how it currently operates.

A brand story that is well written is all-encompassing, integrating the facts, thoughts, feelings, and values that you want your company to be associated with. Your brand story should invoke an emotional reaction in consumers, referring to the motivations, goals, and objectives of your company.

Storytelling is a very Innovative form of advertising. The beauty of great storytelling is that you can focus on customer experience and shared values without ever describing your brand at all.

Of course, a brand story is much more than a written tale.

If crafted correctly, it is a message you send two people that becomes common knowledge, even for consumers who have never purchased from you or clients that have never worked with you.

Define What Makes Your Brand Special

The thing that makes your brand special is the thing that will help you stand out among the masses.

There are a few key things to consider when trying to determine what makes your brand special:

• Originality – Be original. There is no reason to try and mimic a competitor brand, as people won’t have a reason to choose you over the other.
• Sincerity –  Demonstrate sincerity and invest in the personality of your brand, speaking to customers the way you might speak to a friend or family member
• Understanding – Create messaging that shows you understand your target audience to demonstrate a degree of sympathy
• Value – What makes your brand more valuable than your competitors?

Research Your Target Market

Your target audience is the people that are most likely to purchase your product or service.

Knowing what kinds of pain points or answers your products or services solve is the first step in finding the target market.

Know how old they are, what their hobbies are, what they do for work, where they live, and what kind of challenges they face.

SEO Reputation Management – 10 Tips to Boost Your Brand

Connect to Your Customers’ Emotions

Building an emotional connection with your customers goes hand-in-hand with building trust.

To connect to your customers emotionally, you need to stay in tune with their challenges and needs.

There are many ways you can begin developing emotional connections with your customers, such as sharing brand stories on social media, sharing customer testimonial videos, or adding instances of personalization to your marketing efforts.

Stay Consistent

One thing you can’t forget is to prioritize consistency.

It is the secret to successful brand marketing.

Of course, consistency is a long-term game. It’s easy to lose your footing in this dynamic society, trying to chase new trends or hone in on different ethos.

However, time and time again, the brands that remain the strongest are the ones that pick their personalities and stick with them.

Commitment to ethos and personality shows authenticity.

Analyze Your Campaigns

The best way to optimize new brand marketing campaigns is to analyze your current brand marketing campaigns.

In doing so, you’ll determine which aspects of your campaign worked and which ones need Improvement.

There are many ways to analyze campaigns, including tracking conversions across campaign channels, identifying relevant KPIs and metrics, and looking at the level of success based on your original objective.

3 Examples of a Brand Marketing Strategy

Coca-Cola – Happiness

Coca-Cola is arguably the most popular soft drink on Earth, and one of the unique campaigns used to position its brand was the “Share a Coke” campaign. This campaign provided Coca-Cola with a personal touch, inspiring kindness by urging customers to share with the people they love.

Nike – Desire and Will

We can’t think of many other brands that have as popular a slogan as “Just Do It.” The culture of Nike is that everyone can be an athlete, and the brand tells the story with inspiring stories of successful athletes.

The 2018 campaign of Serena Williams playing tennis with her father as a child is still one of the brand’s most popular campaigns.

GoPro – Adventure

GoPro takes a unique approach to brand marketing, making heavy use of user-generated content.

The brand enables its camera users to provide quality footage of them engaging in dynamic sports or daredevil stunts. The content is invigorating, authentic, and inspiring, all of the elements that GoPro stands for.

Hiring a Brand Marketing Agency

Building a successful brand isn’t something you can do overnight. It’s tough and requires a lot of work.

However, when you arm yourself with the right tools and put the right strategies in place, designing and developing a brand doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

If you are looking to work with a team of experts that can help you develop a strong brand marketing strategy, get in touch with us today here at MediaBoom.

As a whopping 92% of buyers do their research online before setting foot inside a car showroom, an effective dealership marketing strategy can help you get your inventory off the lot and on the road. It will help build trust and entice prospects to visit your dealership.

But first, what is Dealership Marketing?

Dealership marketing refers to the strategies you use to attract prospects and sell your products and services to them. It can increase sales, enhance brand awareness and positioning, and resource optimization. It can also help you understand your KPIs to create an even bigger impact in the automobile world.

There’s a catch, though.

The automotive industry is incredibly competitive, so you’ll have to be smart about the elements you incorporate in your marketing strategy. Read on to learn about the most effective dealership marketing strategies to lure customers and increase sales.

12 Car Dealership Digital Marketing Strategies and Ideas to Attract New Clients and Improve Sales

95% of sales occur in-store, but most customers turn to search engines for information when purchasing big-ticket items like cars. This heavily influences their buying decision.

So, to get an edge over your competitors, you must establish your online and offline presence. Incorporate these car dealership marketing ideas into your marketing approach to get your wheels turning.

1. Understand Your Target Audience

An automotive dealership caters to customers from all walks of life — and it’s vital to consider the differences between various target groups when building a marketing plan.

Before you sketch out a marketing strategy, ask yourself:

• What type of customers are we marketing to?
• What does our ideal customer look like?
• What are our customers looking for?

You should monitor and apply the latest trends and consumer behavior and combine it with demographic and geographic information to create content for the target audience.

Consider the wants, needs, and concerns of prospective car buyers to develop unique marketing strategies. This will help attract individuals interested in luxury cars and those looking for an affordable option.

2. Create a Stunning Website and Optimize it for Search Engines

Customers conduct research on a new dealership before visiting it in person to test-drive the vehicle and potentially seal the deal. So, you must update your website regularly and optimize it for a top-tier user experience.

In addition to a mobile-friendly design, multiple payment options, and accessibility features, you should also provide timed chat assistance to enhance your dealership’s digital storefront experience. You can also use strategically placed ads and offers, but keep them few and far between to avoid overwhelming your prospects.

3. Invest in Local SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can improve your chances of appearing at the top of search engines like Google. With 70% of consumers looking to buy a car turning to search engines for help, investing in SEO is critical to your campaign’s success.

To motivate the algorithm to put you at the top of the search results, use keyword tools to find relevant keywords to draw your target audience. Use long-tail keywords to increase your chances of ranking higher on search engines. You can then curate your content around it to achieve your marketing goals.

Local SEO solutions can help you establish yourself as a thought leader in the space, and you can pair them with ad extensions to improve lead interaction.

4. Post on Local and Business Directories

List your dealership in popular local and business directories to lure in customers.

It should include all the important information needed to create a mark—business name, address, website, opening hours, and more. It will improve your SEO by giving search engines rich content and local signals to make you more visible to your prospective customer. This will increase your leads and offer prospects a platform to share their experiences with your business.

5. Check out Video Marketing

70% of buyers use YouTube when shopping for a new vehicle, and 90% of consumers say that video marketing helps them make a more educated buying decision.

So, if you want to tip the buyer’s decision in your favor, invest in video marketing.

In your videos, highlight safety features, how new models compare to old ones, and how effective the GPS is through walk-arounds, virtual tours, 360-degree videos, panoramic videos, and other interactive forms of videos.

Video content marketing will help you stand out from competitors, enhance brand awareness, and increase your visibility in the automotive space.

6. SEO Reputation Management

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Reputation Management is a strategy that improves the brand’s reputation with the public. It helps manage the type of content the public sees on the search result page when looking up a business.

If you integrate it into your marketing strategy, it will allow you to enhance the quality and volume of your website’s traffic. This will polish your reputation, increase your leads and, in turn, your revenue.

7. Focus on Brand Development

Your marketing approach gets people through the doors, but your branding campaign lures customers in and tempts them to stay and stop.

So before launching your dealership marketing, you must be clear on how you’d like to assert yourself to your customers. Branding can help you stand out from the crowd and influence buyer decisions. You should also see how it affects your dealership marketing campaigns, analyze how it pans out across channels, then make changes for future branding campaigns.

8. Use Email Marketing to Your Advantage

Email marketing can generate $36 for every $1 spent. With stats as good as this, you should consider email marketing campaigns to acquire new leads and customers.

You can send emails tied to specific blog posts, exclusive offers to tempt prospects to make a purchase, and offer incentives, like a discount for an oil change or a coupon for complimentary mechanic services in exchange for customer feedback or surveys. This fosters a personal connection, which can enhance customer retention rates.

Pro-tip: Avoid sending too many emails, as that is the #1 reason why 69% of people hit unsubscribe.

9. Manage Your Online Reviews

User-generated content influences the buying decisions of about 76% of customers. This means your online reviews can make or break your marketing campaign.

To improve your foot traffic, you must manage your online reviews.

Encourage your customers to post a review of their experience when they visit you in-store and write testimonials on your website or third-party sites like Yelp. The glowing reviews will bump up the popularity of your business. You can pair them with customer success stories and videos to bank on the popularity of social proof.

While we’re on the subject, make sure you reply to the bad reviews, too—not just the positive ones. Accept the criticism gracefully and express a desire to make things right. It will help you improve your relationship with the customer in question while projecting a positive, customer-centric image to potential customers.

10. Network with Local Businesses

If you want to build a community loyal to you, network and establish meaningful relationships with local repair shops, car wash shops, auto parts stores, and car insurance companies in your area. You can cross-promote them to your customers and post videos in collaboration with them to educate the public.

How does this benefit you?

Well, it shows customers that you’re a customer-centric brand that sees them as more than just a cog in the money-making machine. It helps build trust and ensures that your dealership is on top of your prospects’ minds when they are ready to buy.

11. PPC and Digital Advertising

65% of consumers click on Google Ads—which operate on a pay-per-click(PPC) basis—before making a purchase. On the other hand, Facebook has 2.96 billion monthly users, which can give you greater odds of reaching your target audience. They allow you to customize the keywords, car makes, and models, helping you reach the relevant target audience for maximum leads.

Understanding it can be challenging, so you should consider hiring a PPC ads agency for the best results.

Pro tip: For a comprehensive digital marketing approach, consider promoting your products and services through videos, blog posts, infographics, podcasts, and even website content and aim to improve the buyer journey from start to finish.

12. Get Active on Social Media

There are 302 million social media users in the U.S., which means you must establish a favorable social media presence or risk being left behind in the rat race.

To market your car dealership on Instagram or even Facebook, you must engage your target audience and post content that will draw them in. From behind-the-scenes footage to glamor shots of new models, you should cover every inch of the product, all while keeping your online presence polite and professional for maximum impact.

Pro-tip: Customize your content for different channels, and use a marketing performance tool to evaluate the success of your digital marketing campaigns.

Hire a Digital Marketing Agency

These dealership marketing strategies are essential for selling more cars but are difficult to incorporate.

That’s where Mediaboom comes in to help maximize the success of your car dealership marketing strategies. We offer valuable insights, help you build a strong client-brand relationship, and make you stand out from your competition.

So, what are you waiting for? Contact us today.

Online review management is essential to the continued success of your business. In this day and age, customer reviews play a critical role in engendering sustained interest, and it is imperative that those reviews are carefully managed. Thankfully, the ability to do so is right at your fingertips. 

Deploying an effective and carefully engineered online review management strategy offers significant benefits to your business. Its implementation, however, needs to be thoughtfully executed and approached from a few equally salient angles. In addition, online customer reviews can be positive, negative, or even fake, and your response to each is equally crucial. Given the need for efficacious online review management, it is no surprise to see the development of potent software to aid in this crucial endeavor – utilities that you would do well to strongly consider. 

In order to fully understand online review management, let’s take a deep dive into its various components. We’ll cover the essence of online review management, its key components, and highlight several tools that can help you achieve your goals.

What is Online Review Management? 

Online review management is the process of mindfully and expeditiously responding to online customer reviews of your business. Doing so in an appreciable and routine manner will positively support your brand. Customers place a heavy emphasis on a “personal touch” from business and, accordingly, ascribe value to a business that engages with its consumers. In turn, this means not only acknowledging positive reviews but also engaging with negative reviews and responding in a manner that serves to highlight the core ethics and values of your business. 

It is also necessary to note that online reviews can be posted on a multitude of platforms, like Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media arenas. It is, therefore, essential that you monitor customer feedback wherever you have an online presence. 

Importance and Benefits of Review Management  

In order to fully appreciate the need for online review management, it is critical to understand how undeniably influential online reviews are in today’s marketplace. No matter the industry – whether hospitality, healthcare, luxury brands, and practically everything else – online reviews are present. 

It is an indisputable fact that online customer reviews play a tremendous role in an individual’s purchasing process. To emphasize this point, it must be noted that an overwhelming majority of people consider online reviews before making a purchase. In fact, 97% of consumers entertain online reviews before pressing the “buy” button. Therefore, it is without question that online reviews play a decisive role in the flourishment of your business.

Furthermore, online reviews serve to foster trust in your business. Consider that, according to Forbes, 91% of 18-34-year-old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. The notion that an individual is highly likely to consider an online review composed by a complete stranger as equally valid to that of a recommendation from an acquaintance serves to further underscore the fundamental importance of online reviews. 

7 Strategies to Effectively Manage Online Reviews 

1. Solicit Reviews 

By now it should be abundantly clear how essential online reviews are to boosting your business. Reviews, however, do not magically appear out of thin air. As such, it is often necessary to engage in soliciting customer feedback to bolster your online review total. When soliciting reviews, however, it is imperative to do so at the right time, and in the right way.  

As for timing, you should take care to solicit a review when there is clear evidence of strong customer satisfaction. Consider the following key moments when asking for a review – 

All of the above instances represent clear and obvious indications of customer satisfaction and should be capitalized on accordingly. 

2. Follow the appropriate methods

It is equally important to conduct solicitation in an appropriate manner. Doing so will ensure that you do not run afoul of any regulatory concerns or otherwise develop a “questionable” reputation. In accordance with standards set by the Federal Trade Commission, be sure to adhere to the following guidelines – 

Leveraging the right moments and methods for soliciting reviews will aid significantly in accomplishing your goals. 

3. Respond Quickly

Responding to your customer reviews in a timely manner accomplishes several critical objectives. 

First, it shows your customers that you care and that you place an emphasis on their overall satisfaction. Keep in mind that your customers are taking time and effort to leave a (hopefully positive!) review about your business. As such, extending yourself in equal measure highlights your appreciation of your customers and cultivates further loyalty. 

Second, it represents the fact that you operate an organized, efficient business and that you invest resources into engaging with your customers. People desire to be seen and heard and this absolutely holds true for people at any stage of the purchasing process. Promptly responding to customer reviews is a strong indicator that your business values this reality. 

Finally, quickly responding to customer reviews helps to separate yourself from your competitors. Potential customers will no doubt be cross-shopping and contemplating where they intend to allocate their dollars. As such, exhibiting a level of customer interaction that your competitors may be lacking could very well sway an individual in your direction.

4. Establish an Approach for Responding 

A key component of online review management is how you go about conducting your response. It is paramount that you incorporate the highest degree of professionalism in your responses. For example, any response should adopt an appropriate tone of voice that embodies the core values of your business; it should be well-constructed, grammatically correct, and respectful. This holds true for both positive and negative reviews. Particularly with regard to the latter, it is critically important that your response addresses any concerns in a helpful, dutiful manner (more on this later). Remember, your responses to online reviews are an extension of you and your business and need to be executed with care. 

5. Give Priority to Google Reviews 

When it comes to online reviews, Google is the place to be. Indeed, 81% of consumers use Google to read online reviews, a figure which exceeds all other review sites. Knowing this, it is vitally important that you dedicate an appropriate degree of effort to encouraging customers to leave a Google review, as well as effectively overseeing and managing reviews already present on Google. Do yourself a favor and target Google reviews – it is well worth it. 

6. Showcase Customer Reviews and Make Them an Asset 

Positive customer reviews can be leveraged in meaningful ways, resulting in more customers and increased business. Particularly enthusiastic reviews should be highlighted and shared as part of your promotional materials. As mentioned prior, customers place a great degree of trust in online reviews, and, therefore, you need to effectively promote your positive reviews. Online reviews should not be static entities; seize upon them and turn them into a malleable asset. In other words, make reviews work for you.  

7. Use Review Management Software (RMS)

Soliciting, monitoring, and responding to customer reviews requires a considerable amount of effort. Thankfully, software exists which helps to streamline this process and make it much more manageable. Deploying review management software will accomplish the following – 

Opting for review management software is a must in order to maximize the efficacy of your online reviews. 

How to Manage Negative Online Reviews 

When operating a business, negative feedback is, sadly, an inevitability. It is simply impossible to make everyone happy, and attempting to do so is futile. With that in mind, it is important to develop a strategy to respond to negative reviews. As the world’s largest review platform, Google has devised a helpful list of steps you can take to handle any negative reviews. 

Also, handling a negative review in the right way presents an opportunity to turn a negative into a positive. Perhaps the disgruntled customer will appreciate your efforts and give you another chance in the future. Or, maybe other customers see your genuine care regarding customer satisfaction and feel confident knowing that you will take the necessary steps to rectify any issues. 

The Best Review Management Tools 

By now it should be abundantly clear how important online review management truly is. In that vein, let’s take a look at some of the best review management tools available to help you with your endeavors. According to the website Software Advice, the following are excellent options: 

True Review

TrueReview is a cloud-based reputation management platform that helps businesses generate real customer reviews, collect feedback with surveys, and avoid negative reviews. Users can create customized SMS review requests and Email drip campaigns with their own business logo and message. It allows users to monitor and respond to reviews, all in one place. 

Podium

Podium is an award-winning marketing and communication platform that uses text messaging to help local businesses improve their online reputation, convert more leads, and retain more customers. Podium’s all-in-one inbox consolidates reputation management, website chat, marketing campaigns, and mobile payments into a single inbox that has helped over 100k businesses.

GetMoreReviews

GetMoreReviews is a cloud-based reputation management solution that helps businesses of all sizes manage and generate customer reviews across the web. It allows users to maintain brand value by receiving alerts on negative feedback and resolving it offline directly with customers. Key Features of GetMoreReviews include review reminders, bad review blocker, automated social posting, and website/email management. It enables enterprises to generate reviews by adding a capture tool in email signatures or tag solution codes on a website. Additionally, it comes with a reputation monitoring tool, which sends real-time alerts to manage all reviews from across the web on a unified platform.

Raanko

Rannko is a cloud-based digital reputation management solution for small businesses. The solution provides modules for review management, listing management, task management, and social media post-scheduling. The review management module syncs with Facebook, Yelp, Google, and other applications to monitor user reviews. Users can receive review notifications and respond to them automatically or manually in real-time through text messages. The solution sends review requests and reminders to customers and tracks the number of reviews received from them.

All of the above are excellent choices when considering which online review management tool is right for you and your business.

Online Review Management: A Must for Your Business 

Online reviews are fundamentally critical to the success of your business. Due to their influential nature and widespread availability, it is so important that you effectively engage in online review management. Take advantage of the software available to help you in the process and utilize emphatic customer reviews to help bolster your business. And, be sure to reach out to the experts at Mediaboom for further advice!

Local SEO for small business is how you can separate yourself from the more than 32.5 million other small businesses in the United States, according to Oberlo. Which SEO elements should you incorporate?

Here are some critical elements to use in local SEO for small businesses:

• SEO audit
• Completed Google Business Profile
• Link-building
• PPC advertising
• Local business directories
• Social media

In this extensive guide, we’ll go over each of these strategies in full so your small business can implement them and accelerate your growth!

What Is the Difference Between SEO and Local SEO?

Search engine optimization or SEO is an inescapable acronym for business owners. You might grasp the basics of SEO, but what separates that and local SEO?

The difference is your audience. With standard SEO practices, you’re trying to reach as large of an audience as possible, so not only in your state or country but internationally or even globally.

Local SEO is about downsizing your SEO presence to only focus on the customers and leads in your neighborhood. This is a common SEO practice for small businesses with one brick-and-mortar location. You don’t yet need customers from all over the world because you have no means to accommodate them.

Why Is Local SEO Important for Small Businesses?

If your small business isn’t using local SEO, then you risk being usurped by the competition. Let’s delve into some benefits that should inspire you to harness the power of your local community.

Put Your Name on the Map

Even if you’re only trying to rank for local customers, you do still want your small business website to rank.

Local SEO for small business is critical to your success. The early days of a small business are fraught with uncertainty. The sooner you can find leads consistently, boost conversions, and generate a reliable revenue stream, the steadier the financial footing that your small business will find itself on.

Generate More Local Reviews

When the neighborhood is talking about you, they’ll do more than buzz about your business. They’ll also want to chat about your products and services.

As we’ll discuss in the section to come, reviews are a major component of local SEO. They’re also a huge factor in the decision-making process for the average consumer.

According to content service provider Podium, more than 90 percent of customers will look at online reviews before they make a purchasing decision.

The reviews that your customers leave will motivate other leads and customers to buy your products and services (provided the reviews are positive, of course), which further pads your bottom line.

Boost Your Website Traffic

Local SEO will undoubtedly bring more visitors to your small business website than perhaps you’ve ever seen before.

While the bump in traffic is nice, it will be short-lived unless you’re ready to capitalize on it. We’ll discuss this more coming up, but your website must be optimized for mobile.

The site should have clear navigation, easily understood menus, active links, and an appealing design. Finding the information one needs should not be challenging.

You also need opt-in forms and lead magnets to convince a lead to offer their contact information and join your email list. After all, you never know if their first visit to your website will also be their last.

Local SEO Services for Small Business to Optimize Your Website

Now that we’ve expounded on the benefits, we next want to delve into the strategies and services of local SEO for small business.

1. Finish Your Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile is a free business directory courtesy of Google that showcases your small business name, phone number, website, address, and business hours.

You can also include images of your business (customers can upload these as well) and reviews.

The most important component of a Google Business Profile, or one of the most important components at least, is your website link.

Australian Web Experts notes that 60 percent of Google Business Profile interactions happen via clicking the link to a company’s website.

If your small business Google Business Profile is not 100 percent complete, then take the time to do that. It’s a small but major step towards bettering your local SEO.

Double-check that your address, business hours, phone number, and website link are all accurate as well.

2. Get on Local Business Directories

If you’re looking for directories to join on an industry-wide level, you need to tighten your scope.

You can always join a directory by niche, but make sure the niche is represented by your geographical area as well.

Appearing on business directories will increase your small business visibility, get you the exposure you need, help your local SEO standing, and build more trust and credibility among your audience.

3. Do a Local SEO Audit

As your small business more readily embraces local SEO, it would behoove you to do an SEO audit, which looks for any foundational problems your website has.

For instance, website structure problems or on-page issues could mar your SEO standing.

If your users aren’t having the best experience using your website, this too can hamper your goals of landing on the first page of the search results.

An SEO audit does more than point out mistakes but also provides valuable information that can shape your future SEO decisions. You can look at competitive insights within your marketplace as well as content gaps and where future opportunities may arise.

4. Use Local Keywords

Speaking of content, when you produce content such as blog posts, checklists, social media posts, emails, and the like, what kinds of keywords are you using?

If you didn’t answer “local keywords,” that’s something you need to implement into your local SEO for small business strategy immediately.

Keywords link back to user intent. When a user is looking for a local business, they’re going to search for keywords relevant to them.

As an example, if a person in Chicago wanted pizza, they wouldn’t type “pizza restaurants US,” but “pizza restaurants Chicago” or even “pizza restaurants near me.”

If they have Google location services turned on, then the results will be hyper-local.

You need your keywords to be just as hyper-local so you can rank for what your customers and leads are searching for!

5. Use Localized Content Marketing

Beyond using local keywords, the content your small business produces and the methods you use for marketing it should be localized as well.

Localization accounts for cultural experiences and expectations. For example, the content is in a language that’s commonly spoken in your region, even down to the dialect. If the language must be translated, then it’s accurately done.

According to language translation resource Smartling, more than 72 percent of people visit websites with content in their local language.

Language is a powerful communication tool, so make sure you’re on the same page with your audience before launching a single marketing campaign for your small business.

6. Optimize Mobile SEO

Like your small business website should be mobile-optimized before it goes live, you must optimize your local SEO as well.

How do you do that? As we wrote about in this post, you have plenty of options for optimizing local SEO, many of which we’ll include throughout the rest of this guide.

Here’s one we recommend right now. Use more than local keywords in your content, but keywords optimized for voice search.

The rise of voice searching is upon us, which means writing (at least some of the time) the same way that someone would speak when using Siri or Alexa to do an online voice search.

7. Optimize Online Reviews

Your online reputation inspires leads and customers to either take you or leave you. How the public perceives your small business can also affect your SEO.

Your paid ads won’t perform as well, as your reputation will precede you. You won’t generate as much organic search traffic, and your website traffic will also be well under industry standards, even for a small business like yours.

Negative reviews are going to happen. We’re not telling you to sweep them under the rug.

Rather than pretend they’re not there, actively address negative reviews. Respond to the reviewer and offer to make things right.

Don’t focus your reply energy on only the negative reviews but the positive ones as well.

8. Use Local Schema Structured Data

Although a bit more complex, another local SEO for small business strategy is using local schema.

This structured data markup code goes on your website. Through the markup code, a search engine like Google can quickly gauge what type of small business you are and what your niche or industry is.

Here are some types of local schema structured data that need to go on your website if they aren’t already:

• address (your small business’s physical address)
• contactPoint (a point of contact’s information such as phone number or email)
• geo (latitude and longitude)
• sameAs (supporting social properties)
• url (your website URL)
• openingHours (your small business hours)
• description (who your small business is and what it does)
• logo (your small business logo)
• name (your small business name)
• telephone (your business phone number)
• image (a banner image that’s not your logo)
• @type (the type of business you are, such as a local business)

9. Build Links

No guide on SEO would be complete without discussing link building, which is something your small business must do even if you are focused on local SEO.

Search engines use links to decide if a website is relevant. A website with a lot of links is likelier to have valuable content, so that site deserves to be ranked more highly than a site with fewer links.

That doesn’t mean you can be linked by anything and everything under the sun.

You need high-quality links. You can gauge a link’s quality based on its site relevancy and authority.

Publishing content is a fantastic way to start building links, especially visual assets such as infographics or charts, list posts, descriptive ultimate guides, and original guides backed by thorough research.

10. Harness the Power of Social Media

Social media is a valuable local SEO for small business strategy that directly plays a role in your SEO standing.

You can use social media to augment your content reach and cement your branding.

You can also encourage your audience to share reviews on social media, post using local keywords, and write descriptive bios and about pages that could be how people find you online.

11. Use Search Engine Marketing for Local Business

Search engine marketing or SEM is a form of marketing that promotes websites to help them rise higher in search engine results pages.

Taking SEM concepts and retooling them for small business means incorporating local keywords, using language localization, and only displaying ads to those in a specific geographic range. 

12. Launch a PPC Advertising Campaign

Pay-per-click or PPC advertising is another avenue at your disposal for increasing your small business’s local SEO.

Just as you did with SEM advertisements and marketing materials, your PPC ads should be centralized to your local audience.

This can keep the costs of running an advertising campaign affordable, which is especially important for a small business still figuring out where the chips fall financially.

13. Bonus Tip – Join Local Events

We have one more tip for you, and that’s to get out there and be a part of your community! Participating in local events shows that your small business is focused when it comes to your digital marketing and SEO but can participate in the real world as well.

Should You Hire a Local SEO Agency for Small Business?

SEO is a complex and nuanced subject even if you do only stay within the scope of local SEO.

Your small business can’t afford many missteps, as you don’t have an infinite marketing and advertising budget.

To get your SEO done right the first time, you should consider hiring a local Digital SEO agency.

Digital SEO experts offer services such as keyword research, SEO audits, keyword strategizing, technical SEO, link building, content marketing, and reporting.

With the pros on your side, you can formulate a winning local SEO strategy that propels your small business to the next level.

Conclusion

Local SEO for small business can set you apart, help you rise in the ranks, build more customers, and increase your revenue.

If you’re looking for local SEO services, contact us at Mediaboom today.