Before you launch a local search campaign to boost your online traffic, it’s important to have everything you need already in place to ensure the campaign is effective and that you are integrating your efforts across multiple platforms.
Prep For Launching a Local Search Campaign
1. Make Sure Your Website Is Ready For Customers
Navigation
One of the most vital aspects of ensuring your customers stay on your website is making it easy to navigate. A glitchy website or one that is difficult to find information on will put people off and discourage visitors from moving throughout the website.
Relevant Information
It’s important that your website provides all of the information your prospective customer would want. Key details to include are your business hours and contact details. Other relevant information includes things central to your business that a customer may be interested in. If you are a restaurant, then it makes sense to list some example dishes from your menu. Including prices is important so a customer knows what to expect. Leaving out information can make it seem like you are hiding something.
Optimized Landing Page
Your website not only needs to work for your customer, it also needs to work for you. Your website should drive business to you, so design it in a way that directs people to the best things you have to offer. If you have a sale going on, make sure this is advertised in a big way on your landing page.
2. Check Out Your Local Competition
Who are your competitors?
You need to establish who your biggest competition is and what they are doing online. It’s likely you already know who your competition in your town is, but have you been watching how they interact with customers on the Internet? If you are a niche business, like a maternity store, you may only have one or two competitors to worry about, but something like a restaurant or coffee shop is likely to have many similar businesses in a town or city. Make it your job to know who they are, and which of them have a strong online presence.
Spy on Them through Social Media
How do your competitors interact with their customers on social media? Which of their methods are successful and which are not? A lot can be learned from your competition about how to tailor your local search campaign specifically to your customers by watching what they do.
Understand Their Successes and Failures
Is the most successful competition in your local area also the highest ranked competition online? Just because a company has a lot of Twitter followers, for example, it doesn’t necessarily translate to sales. What could they do better to turn those followers into cash sales? Learn from their mistakes.
3. Be Present on Social Media
Create
Before you launch your local search campaign it’s vital that you create accounts on social media websites. Make sure they are all local SEO optimized, the branding is consistent and they have some content posted on them.
Get involved in the Social Efforts
If you don’t already know, learn how to navigate social media websites so that you can use them effectively for the brand. It is very important that you participate in conversations, not just as the business, but also from your personal accounts. Customers want to see the person behind the scenes. They feel more connected to the brand this way.
Create Offline Awareness Online
One of the best ways to interact with customers is to share the things your company is doing offline locally with your online audience to increase awareness and reach new prospective customers. Plan community events, attend charity auctions, and share highlights on your social media accounts.
If you lay the groundwork, your local search campaign can generate the results you need to take your business from zero to hero!
Have you launched a local search campaign before? What worked? What didn’t? Let’s discuss.
