Many businesses – especially brick & mortar establishments – pretty much serve a local town, region or state at the most. While getting an inquiry from other parts of the country or world may be exciting, you can only realistically reply to ones in your local area.
Below are 4 steps to drawing in those highly valuable customers in your local area. As more people migrate to smart phone technology (even my mom got one…sheesh!), local businesses must be accessible beyond just a sign on the road or an ad in the phonebook.
Employing these steps can help ensure you’re drawing in highly valuable local website visitors and maximizing the value your website brings your business.
1. Use geographic-specific keywords in your SEO campaign(s)
Many people looking through a Google search use the town or state in the search to find local businesses and information. The ease at which you can rank for these “local” keywords depends on your location and industry but by including these kinds of phrases in your copy, title tags, meta tags and more, you can in most instances propel your rankings to the top pretty quickly.
Keyword examples: Gainesville roofer, Denver workers’ compensation attorney, Florida cosmetic surgeons
2. Regularly add new content to your blog
Your blog can serve as a great way to showcase your local services and commitment to your community. Include case studies of prior clients and success stories of prior work in each city, town and county you’ve done work in. Customers generally love being in the spotlight so include profiles of them in your blog (with their permission of course). And as always, optimize each post with local keywords and promote your blog to generate inbound links.
3. Reach out to other local bloggers and city-specific websites
Engaging with other local bloggers and websites is another great way to establish your name as a trusted authority in your industry. The relationships you develop with local bloggers may develop into them doing a story about you, putting your name in front of even more people in your area.
4. Join a few ratings & review sites
As we said earlier with smart phones and the general development of the Internet as a source for finding all things, you want to be sure you’re listed with a few ratings and review sites. Google Local is one free service you can sign up for but Yelp and Angie’s List are a couple others you may want to check out. Not only will customers be able to obtain unvarnished reviews of your products and services, you will get a link back to your website.
Attracting the right kind of web traffic is critical to maximizing the value of your website. If you’re a local business that only serves a certain area, you want to be sure and get traffic from places where people can actually take advantage of your services.