How and where to promote a local business online

You must be thinking: “I don’t need that! My customers live nearby and know me anyway!”. Does this way of thinking sound familiar? You’re not alone with that, because many local business owners share your view, but unfortunately, they often allow potential new customers and sales to escape. Consumer behaviour is always changing dramatically, especially through the evolution of smartphones, which are always at hand. As a result, more and more potential customers automatically go to their smartphones to search for relevant companies, offers and services near their current location.

For you, the owner of a company, this means that if your company and products are more visible and discoverable online more customers can find you and visit your business. According to Google, 46% per cent of all searches have a local reference. And as many as 88% per cent of these users will visit a local company they found on their smartphone.

The range of tools for local marketing is large and can be quite confusing, especially for newcomers. In a nutshell, we’ll show you some easy-to-use strategies (in no particular order) that will help you significantly improve your company’s online visibility, even with limited resources:

Google My Business

For quite some time now, Google has made it easy for you to share your business information so that it’s easy to find in Google Search. Google My Business listing brings together all the information Google has about your business in one place and lets you manage and edit it with a dashboard. Your advantage: Your company gets a common look at in Google Local Search and Google Maps with little effort and is often rewarded by Google with better rankings for your business. This depends on things such as how many quality citations sites your business is in.

Entries in online business directory sites

Google My Business is one of the most important, but by far not the only relevant business site. Getting listings through a variety of small business directory websites can help boost your business in search engines, spread awareness, and increase your position in Google My Business. Having your company listed in local business directories can do wonders for your company and most of the time they are free to get a listing.

A business website

Having your own website is a must for any ambitious company these days. Owning a website opens the door to many online marketing tactics you can implement to promote your business. Often you can submit your website and its products in other websites in the form of links and banners. Important: It should be optimized for mobile use and all important information such as contact details or opening hours should be easily and clearly accessible and always up to date.

Promote a Facebook page

Start a Facebook page for your company. Facebook has plenty of users, you can market to your friends which can share with their friends. A well updated and optimised Facebook page can help your business to succeed and have a professional look. Even if you invest 10 minutes in the maintenance of your Facebook page every other day, you can achieve a lot.

To summarize, the most important step is to stay up to date and diversify your promotion strategy in order to achieve results in the long run.