Every local business needs online visibility to thrive and grow. Let us start by bursting a myth – you don’t actually need a business website to be noticed online (more on this later!). Doesn’t matter if you sell directly through a brick-and-mortar store or operate exclusively online, your online community can become a valuable asset. Gaining visibility online is not just a strategy for attracting new leads, but it can also deeply influence your business in a positive or a negative way.
Here are 5 proven ways to improve your business’s online visibility-
1. Know Where You Are
Understanding the problem is half of the solution! If you get a view of what your business’s current online visibility is, you can come up with a focussed online marketing strategy. Either find out manually on what directories your business is listed, or use a tool that will show you how your business is listed online. At the end of the day, it is important to first understand the current problems and then come up with solutions!
Here’s Your Motivation – Do You Really Need to Clean Up Local Citations?
Tools We Suggest – ListYourBusinessOnline
2. Maintain a Consistent Social Media Presence
We know!! Small business owners often work hard and work alone on a day-to-day basis to manage operations and business, managing a constant presence on social media can be quite a hassle. Social media helps you widen the business reach, engage with audience and create loyal followers. Start by posting interesting & informational content on a regular basis and engage with the community.
Here’s Your Motivation – 8 Small Businesses that Made it Big with Social Media.
Tools We Suggest – HootSuite, Buffer, StartAFire
3. Get Listed Locally
As a local business, one of the major challenges that you will face is attracting new customers. People are turning to the internet to find business recommendations and including your business in an online directory is one of the sure shot ways to get noticed. This is especially important for businesses that don’t have a website. Adding your business to online directories like Judy’s Book is an easy but time-consuming task. We suggest you to use a citation builder tool to help you with building and managing business listings.
Here’s Your Motivation – Finding the Right Citation Builder
Tool We Suggest – Synup
4. Manage Online Reviews
Online reviews are important for a number of reasons; It affects the purchase decisions of consumers and it influences your local search engine rankings. As search engines strive to build the best online experience for users, online reviews have become more and more important. According to Moz’s local search ranking factors, online reviews make up to 10% of how search engines calculate the SERPs. To summarize it all, having more positive reviews = better search engine rankings for your business.
Here’s Your Motivation – Crafting the Best “Review Us” Pages
Tool We Suggest – Review Handout Generator
5. Make Local SEO Work for You
Local SEO is not dropping brochures through letterbox or featuring an ad in a local paper. While other marketing methods reach out to people who may or may not be interested in your service, local SEO helps you reach out to local customers when they are looking to buy your service and are ready to buy it!
If you are running a cafe in LA, wouldn’t you like it if your business comes on top of search engine results when someone searches for “best burgers in LA”? Local SEO helps you do just that!
Here’s Your Motivation – Local SEO: How to Rank Your Local Business
Tool We Suggest – Local SEO Checklist
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