Make your business visible to local customers:
Local customers have a loyalty to local service providers and prefer to ‘buy local’ wherever possible. Since 2020, this loyalty has grown, with consumers preferring independent suppliers. Over 65% of people opt to stay local with purchases.
In this article we will cover off the main ways that a local service provider can make local consumers more aware of their business and brand.
Research suggests that over 80% of people use the internet to learn about a product or service provider before making a purchase, therefore having an online presence, and one that demonstrates the top-quality service you provide, is as important as ever.
Local SEO
For local service providers, being found high up in both the local map pack, and organic search results is crucial to being found online by local customers.
Local SEO involves implementing strategies that allow businesses to be more visible locally online.
We’d like to take this opportunity to shamelessly plug our new local SEO service, which we think is a very affordable for businesses of all sizes, due to the various stepped packages on offer. For as little as £34.99 per month (no contract required) you can start your journey to better local listings. See more here.
By way of example, below you can see our own listing in the map pack, for ‘digital marketing agency Guiseley’.
For anyone searching with local intent, (this may include a name of a location, or terms such as ‘near me’), Google will show the map pack at the top of the search results, allowing the searcher to find relevant details such as directions, phone numbers, opening hours, and reviews for the service that they are looking for.
According to Search Engine Roundtable, 46% of all Google searches have local intent. Additionally, 29% of all Google search results contain a local pack in the results.
Not optimising for local search? That’s a lot of potential traffic and leads you’re leaving off the table.
Having solid local rankings is the first step in generating more local leads, and the good news is, by implementing these local SEO strategies, there are ways and means of improving your local rankings both quickly and economically.
Here are some factors that are commonly seen in highly visible local listings:
- Google My Business profile optimisation
- 5* reviews and lots of them!
- Citation building – local directories! NAP!
- On page localisation, including local SEO kw research
Google My Business (GMB) Profile:
According to Moz, a key player in the SEO software space, the number 1 factor in local map pack ranking is ‘GMB’ signals. They ranked the key signals as follows by importance:
- GMB Signals (25.12%)
- Link Signals (16.53%)
- Review Signals (15.44%)
- On Page Signals (13.82%)
- Citation Signals (10.82%)
Given its impact on local rankings, it’s very important to keep your GMB profile both up to date, and consistent.
When we talk about consistency, we mean consistency of name, address, and phone number (NAP), to match your citations across the web. This helps to prove legitimacy to Google, and as you can imagine, it would be very confusing to see one address on your GMB profile, and a completely different address on a listing elsewhere on the web.
Keeping business data up to date is extremely important. Let’s say you’re a business that has a showroom and is therefore public facing, and you don’t update your hours to let people know you won’t be open on Easter Sunday. You’re leaving yourself open to potential customers showing up and leaving disappointed when you’re closed. This not only leaves a bad taste in their mouth, but may also result in negative reviews, which may result in you slipping down the local pack rankings, rather than storming up them!
You should also ensure your listing is complete, paying special attention to the category selection, which is where you get to tell Google what it is you do and what keyword(s) you want to appear in the map pack for.
Reviews:
Reviews are another key signal in Google’s ranking factor.
Getting positive reviews certainly helps you to climb up those rankings, but avoiding negative reviews is equally important.
Whilst it’s sometimes not possible to avoid negative reviews, how you respond to them can also positively impact your rankings, and the opinions of anyone else looking at your reviews. We recommend a measured, professional response, perhaps explaining the reason that the review is not justified and offering an olive branch to resolve the issue and hopefully, ultimately, getting that negative review removed!
You can request Google looks at reviews that aren’t genuine or deserved, however getting them overturned is often very difficult and time consuming.
In terms of getting more positive reviews, there are a number of ways to do that. Here are a few:
- Deliver a fantastic product or service, of course.
- Follow up your service with a nice message and an email or text link to your review page.
- Offer a worthwhile incentive to the customer for leaving a 5* review – a discount off their next order maybe.
- Give them some sort of leave behind that reminds them to leave a review if they’re happy. For example, one of our home improvement clients leaves behind a warranty card, which has a link to their review page on the reverse.
Citation Building:
What is a citation I hear you ask. In this context, a citation is essentially a reference from one website to yours. The higher authority the referring website, the better for your SEO.
NAP Citation is the terminology commonly used in the digital hemisphere. NAP referring to NAME, ADDRESS and PHONE NUMBER.
Any citation you build (as reference in the GMB section above) should be the same as the last, and the same as the next. Any inconsistencies in NAP will ultimately hurt your local rankings.
There are tools out there that allow you to check the consistency of your citations quickly and easily, though there is a cost to both the software on offer, and in most cases, fixing it, without going through all your citations manually.
These tools also help you to find new opportunities, which will also assist in boosting your local rankings.
Luckily, the Search Buddy team are on hand to help you with your local SEO – find out more about our cost-effective services here.
On page localisation, including local keyword research:
A side from the off-page optimisations discussed above, you can take it a step further by optimising your website (on-page).
This process starts with local keyword research, whereby you’ll find out what people are searching for to lead them to either yourself, or other people that offer your service.
As you work in the business, you will have a good idea of how consumers refer to your product or service, but if you don’t know, ask your existing customers. Where did they find you, what did they search for, how do they refer to the service in ley-man’s terms.
If you run Google Ads, or have a Google Ads account, you can also use the tools within to find the terms your competitors are using, and ideas of alternative terms that you could also use. Alongside this you will find data such as search volume, levels of competition, and even the expected cost per click.
Yelp is another quick and easy way of finding out how people might refer to the service you offer, or the product you sell. Check out the landscape gardener example below:
Here you can see that other advertisers use terms such as ‘landscaping’, ‘gardeners’, ‘landscape architects or designers’, and so on. This is generally a good indication that these terms are useful keywords to use.
Another way of working out what keywords people use to find your service, or the questions they ask, is the ‘People also ask’ section on Google.
And lastly, you do have the option to use tools such as SEMrush for keyword research, however if you have no other reason to have a subscription like this, it can be a very expensive and wasteful option.
Once you have decided on your keywords, and the local areas you wish to optimise for, you should ensure that you have dedicated pages on your website for not only the keywords themselves, but also the localised options.
So, taking the electric garage door example, you may have a stand alone page optimised for that term, but you may also have a page for electric garage doors in Leeds. This sends signals to Google about your service areas, and also helps you rank in both the local map pack, and organically in the search results.
If you need any support with keyword research, or optimising your website for your chosen keywords, let us help – contact us for digital marketing support.
Social Media:
Social Media is an incredibly powerful and cost effective tool for small businesses.
It’s free to post, so depending on your target audience, and whether you’re direct to consumer (Facebook & Instagram), or direct to business (Linkedin & Instagram), a lot of your customers can be found online, you just need to work out where they are, how to reach them, and when.
Social channels are however an incredibly saturated space, so, you need to stand out from the crowd, with your visual and written content, offer value, and do the right things for the algorithm to push your posts.
Local groups are a great option for generating local awareness, as the members within those groups usually have to be local, or have a legitimate local interest, to be accepted to the groups.
Be careful though, not all groups allow sales posts, however you will often find people within the groups asking questions and asking for referrals for certain trades or services. It is not against policy to ‘recommend’ your business or have your friends and family ‘recommend’ your business, and we all know social proof from others who have had a positive experience with your business is a valuable thing.
Paid Ads on social media:
Paid advertising through social media is a sure-fire way to speed up the process of local awareness.
You can run campaigns with objectives such as engagement, to build up your following; traffic, to increase the number of relevant users on your website; leads, to get relevant users to submit an instant form, giving you their information and declaring an interest in the service that you offer.
Now you can run ‘advertising’ through Facebook without experience, and without using Facebook Ads Manager, however, there are limitations to this approach, specifically with the lack of flexibility in your creative, and less detail allowed through your targeting.
If you are looking for help with Facebook Ads Manager, or general social media management, we’d be delighted to have a chat with you. Learn more about our social media offering by following the link, or click here to get in touch.
Google Ads:
If you think local SEO helps you to meet your objective, but doesn’t get you there quick enough, Google Ads are the logical next step.
Google Ads campaigns offer a quick route to the top of Google, as once you’re account and campaign are active, you can expect to see your adverts placed in a matter of days.
Google Search campaigns allow you to ‘bid’ against other advertisers for your desired keyword.
From the perspective of a local service provider, you can be targeted in your campaigns by specifying a distance radius from your place of business, meaning your ads don’t get served outside of that area, saving you the budget you would waste by hitting people you wouldn’t want to service.
Google Ads can also be used in conjunction with Facebook & Instagram ads, via the integration of a Meta Pixel.
Installing a Meta Pixel on your website, allows you to ‘retarget’ previous website visitors via Facebook and Instagram – a very effective way of reminding previous users that you’re still there, and ready to solve their problem with your service.
In summary, if you want results quickly, go with Google Ads, but be mindful that each click costs money. You can however set a daily budget, meaning you won’t even spend more than you want to.
Networking with local businesses:
Whilst we are a digital business that believes in the power of the web, we are also not naïve to the benefits of traditional methods of marketing, such as print, and networking.
In fact, we ourselves are members of local networking groups, and feel the benefit of these communities and the relationships that can be developed.
Referrals are a great way of winning new business, as they are formed from an existing foundation of trust between your contact and the third party that requires your services.
Networking helps to leverage the power of referrals but be mindful that these things usually work both ways for referrals, and it can take time to build trust with contacts, to the point where they are comfortable referring you.
Other forms of local marketing:
Local Service Directories, direct mail, local event sponsorship and signage are some other effective means of marketing your business locally, that we will cover off briefly.
Local Service Directories such as A2Z Local are a tried and trusted method of generating local enquiries.
Advertisers pay to be featured on a specialist printed product, which is dropped quarterly through buyer’s letterboxes at a nominal cost – allowing service providers to reach their local audience, in a novel form. This drop is coupled with a listing in a local directory, which is also visible and accessible online.
On the topic of local service directories, direct mail is still an incredibly effective marketing tool, delivering on average £14 return per £1 spent, according to online statistics.
Consumers still place a lot of trust in printed marketing, which is evidenced by the fact that the advertising mail market grew by 42% in the last five years.
Both local event sponsorship, and signage at your business premises are useful ways of making local people take notice of your brand and presence at a relatively low cost. This is particularly beneficial if you can sponsor events that you know your ideal audience will attend.
Conclusion:
Both the digital and traditional methods covered in this article have been successful in gaining more local leads for our clients. Each come with pros and cons that should be weighed up, depending on various factors, including the type of business you operate, and your budget, for example.
Here at Search Buddy we are running a one-time offer for our local SEO service whereby you can access our pro package, usually priced at £50 per month, for the price of our standard package, at £35 per month up to a period of 3 months.
In this period you will:
- Gain accurate and consistent citation links, boosting your local rankings on maps and in the organic search results.
- Have your existing links audited and amended for NAP consistency.
- See the results of an audit on your Google My Business (GMB) profile, showing the gaps between you and your competitors.
- Get an optimised GMB profile with useful updates, utilising keywords commonly used for your service/product offering.
- Receive a monthly report illustrating your positioning and movement in local search results.
We hope this article has been useful and has provided some actionable tips to take your local marketing to the next level.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us via the contact page, phone us on 0113 467 5392, or email us contact@search-buddy.com
Thanks for taking the time to read!
