According to a survey by BrightLocal, 99% of consumers use the internet to search for information about local businesses (Local Business), and 78% search more than once within a week. Therefore, for anyone running a small business or a local business right now, it’s time to start thinking about ways to increase local traffic to your website.
This article will introduce 5 ways to help small business owners take advantage of these trends to increase local traffic to their website. If you’re ready, let’s get started.
1. Start with LOCAL SEO
If you want to break through the reach limitations of local businesses, using general SEO techniques alone may not be enough. As you know, local businesses don’t have a lot of marketing budgets. Therefore, doing Local SEO is one of the top choices that many marketing experts recommend because there are many advantages to doing Local SEO, such as:
The following basic Local SEO tips will help local businesses implement them immediately.
- Improve Longtail Keyword As mentioned, for local businesses, the keywords used should be more specific to the location of the business. This can be included in both the Title and Meta Description. For example, if you run a restaurant in Bang Sue, using the keyword “restaurant” might make it difficult for your website to rank on the first page, and it might not be targeted. So, try adding the residential area like “Bang Sue Restaurant” to increase the chances of being found in searches and also specifically target the audience at the same time.
- Don’t forget to put your location on your website Putting location information on your website, whether it’s name, address, and contact number, and of course, it must be the latest information, will help your website rank better (should match the information in Business Profile).
- Optimize your website for mobile use It is well known that 90% of internet users today use smartphones. Therefore, you must not forget that optimizing the structure of your website to have a layout, page load speed, or other elements related to user experience (User Experience) suitable for mobile phones is important for Google’s algorithm to evaluate and rank websites.
2. Online Reviews
According to a BrightLocal survey, 98% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses. While research from Trustpilot found that 64% of purchase decisions for products or services were influenced by online reviews from other customers. (For those who are afraid of online reviews, read more in this article) In fact, online reviews are one of the important components of a business’s reputation. As you know, online reviews are one of the key factors that Google uses to evaluate and rank websites. Therefore, don’t forget to provide a good experience for customers to respond to customer needs as much as possible. Then just wait for customers to share positive feedback about the website.
3. Add Local Backlink
One of the important factors that will make Google see that a website is of quality and worthy of being on the first page on SERPs is that the website receives backlinks from quality websites. It also increases the chance of people finding the website through search. For basic techniques in creating quality backlinks on your website, you might try the following examples:
- Participate with other local businesses on social media Let those businesses know about the good content we have. For example, write an email sharing articles. If the content is useful and of quality, those businesses may share the link back.
- Give away for free for people to share Everyone likes free and good things. If the content we hold is truly of quality, it’s not a bad idea to try giving it away for free to increase the chances of people referencing the content and sending backlinks back.
4. Improve Your Social Media Campaign
As you know, in this Post-Pandemic era, the rate of social media usage among people has skyrocketed. Hootsuite reported that social media platforms accounted for 33% of total digital advertising spending in 2021, and is projected to increase by another 17% in 2022.
For this reason, it makes sense to use social media platforms as one of your marketing strategies. Aaron Dunham, CEO and Marketing Analyst at Concentric Management, recommends 3 things to focus on when using social media as one of your marketing strategies this year.
- Strengthen your “offer” Targeting users on social media platforms depends on behavior, interests, and other insights. Therefore, Aaron recommends offering products or services along with extras to stimulate people’s interest in your business immediately.
- Track campaign results It is very important to constantly track the results of advertising campaigns on social media platforms, whether it is viewing engagement metrics on posts such as likes, comments, shares, or checking website traffic that originates from social media campaigns.
5. Improve Your Information on Google Business Profile
According to a Google report, 50% of local consumers are more likely to purchase products or services from businesses that have a profile on Google Business Profile. And Google also claims that updating business information in this Business Profile will help your website rank dramatically.
For local business owners who are unfamiliar with Google Business Profile, you may need to find out more urgently (Read from this article) Because Business Profile is a free tool suitable for all local business owners who do not have a large marketing budget but want to make their shop more well-known. There is nothing better than having someone help build an online identity for you for free.
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Relevant Audience is a company providing services as a Digital Performance Marketing Agency, with the main goal of providing digital marketing services to help businesses reach target audiences who are looking for products or services at the right time, place, and device through various online channels. Our services cover both Search Marketing, Social Media Ads, Search Ads, and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to Influencer Marketing and is also part of the Google Partners program.
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