Local search marketing is a specialized effort that uses geographically optimized web content to lure local search traffic from your neighborhood or town of your business.
The objective of local search is to pit your company and the products you are selling in front of your local audience. With the proliferation of mobile devices, local search has become a critical marketing function that cannot be neglected.
As a first step, claim a place for your business in local listings and display exact information about your product/service to millions via search engines like Google, Yahoo Local and Bing Places for Business.
If your business has multiple locations, make sure each location has a dedicated page that includes contact particulars, working hours and (if required) directions to your shop. This information that you provide helps search engines return the most relevant results for the online keywords they’ve searched.
List your internet business with a 100% score on Google My Business by scrupulously filling all the 20+ fields. By meticulously filling in all the relevant account fields, you’re more likely to rank in the first page of Google SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
Think beyond Google and spread the word about your business in some of the top local information outlets like
- Search Engine Maps
- Yellow Page Directories
- Local Directories
- Review Sites
- Business Directories
- Industry Specific Directories
While submitting your listings, it is important your local search listings are verified, exact and fully optimized.
Even if you’ve exhaustively mentioned your contact and other necessary particulars in the listings, it won’t suffice as long as you do not optimize your profile and content for the major search engines.
It should be your endeavor to make search engines decide your listing as more visible on SERPs over that of your competitors. Much depends on how well you optimize your listings. Optimization, accuracy, and completeness are the three parameters that help you steal a march on your competitors.
Your descriptions must be keyword rich (location based keywords); you must provide maps and details of your business location and embed brand photos and videos.
You should make an effort to keep reaching out to a wider audience. One of the simple ways you can do this is by creating and distributing content relevant to your business niche and its location.
Local search is a cost-effective marketing strategy provided you understand it all that well. Use tools like Google Analytics and Hootsuite to realize the full potential of local search and harness its benefits for your business.