How To Improve Your Local Visibility?

Are you a business that relies primarily on local customers ? Is your market partly determined by the proximity of your customers? If so, there’s a good chance that local marketing initiatives can help your business gain new market share.

In this article, we’ll briefly examine what local marketing is and the benefits of online local marketing . We’ll then take a detailed look at the various tools you can use to improve your local visibility, and conclude with some future prospects. Ready? Let’s dive in!

What is local marketing?

Local marketing, or local marketing initiatives, are any initiatives you undertake to encourage your local customers to purchase your services or products. When you advertise in a local newspaper or sponsor the local sports club, these communications are aimed at the residents of your neighborhood . That’s what local marketing is.

But what about digital marketing for local businesses? You might think the “worldwide web” isn’t the place to advertise as a local service provider. But you get the idea—it’s quite the opposite. There are two main reasons for this: first, you can target digital marketing campaigns specifically to local users or a specific geographic area ; second, local searches more often result in a purchase . You’ll find more information on this in the section below on the benefits of local marketing.

What are the benefits of local online marketing?

The first benefit is that you can build your local online marketing (or local digital marketing) strategies to exclusively target people who (1) are located near your business , or (2) are specifically looking for services or products in your area.

This is also the great strength of local digital marketing: you can organize your campaigns based on a specific audience. This means you can choose to run your campaigns only with people who fall into at least one of the two categories mentioned above. Convenient, right?

Second, studies show that one in five searches contains a local search term. For example, “restaurant + city name” or “restaurant open near me.” The same study also showed that 18% of people who used a local search term in their online search made a purchase. For searches without a local search term, this figure is only 7%. That’s 2.5 times lower.

Local searches are more often action-oriented than regular searches, so targeting local search terms can be very beneficial given the desire to make a purchase.

Footnote: In this article, we’re going to review some levers of a local digital marketing strategy that will ensure you rank high on the search engine results page (SERP) in order to attract them from there (“pull strategy”). So, we’re going to talk more about the resources you can use to attract local customers to you through search results, and less about how to attract potential customers to you through social media.

Pro Tip: List your business on top free business listing websites in the USA. Boost your online visibility and reach more local customers today!

How can you do local marketing online?

There are several ways to do local digital marketing as a local service provider. First, you need to ask yourself what people in your area are searching for and what search terms they use to find the answer they are looking for. We have already written an article on this topic, which you can find here.

To do this, you can use specific tools, including keywordtool , ahrefs , and many others. At Yools, we have paid versions of these tools, but you can also create a free account. Feel free to contact us for more information on this topic.

The easiest way to explain this is to take a local search example. Let’s look at Google results for “café Bruxelles.”

Specialized platforms

Let’s enter the search term “café bruxelles” in the search bar.

First, Google will provide you with links to platforms like Facebook , Tripadvisor , and other local service provider aggregator sites. Registration on these platforms is usually free. Your local municipality may also have a website for local businesses. Don’t hesitate to register there, as this will undoubtedly increase your website’s visibility!

Create a profile, fill it out as best you can, and upload a dozen beautiful, meaningful photos. It’s important to mention what you do and where you’re located, of course.

Another way to earn points is positive customer reviews . Across all your channels, try to collect as many reviews as possible. Ask friends and family for positive reviews first. If necessary, write them yourself and make sure to include some search terms. “Best coffee in Brussels” is a good comment in our example. The search terms “coffee” and “Tervuren” help the search engine rank this review when someone uses these search terms. So get into the habit of asking your customers to write a review if they are satisfied .

Google Services

This brings us to the second part of the search results: the Google Maps and Google My Business results.

If you’re looking for a local service provider, chances are Google Maps can help you make the right choice. Google Maps displays the various Google My Business profiles of businesses that can answer your potential customer’s question. Don’t have a profile yet? Feel free to check out Google’s help page . Having one is very important. It’s no coincidence that, during a local search, the Google Maps section takes priority over regular search results. The same advice applies here too. Complete your profile as best as possible, add beautiful photos, and be as comprehensive as possible in describing your services. Google places great importance on the number and quality of reviews. Encourage your customers to leave positive feedback as much as possible. Here’s the order of the search results

Links to your website

Only after these first two suggestions (external platforms, Google Maps, and Google My Business) do we find the classic Google results for websites. But even here, we see that external platforms occupy the top spots. This once again confirms the importance of these external platforms.

To have a good SEO, there is no doubt that the managers of the websites arriving at the top have carried out a correct analysis of the keywords (more info: see here ) 😉

We can see that the first results also have an image, which can encourage people to click on the link. To learn more about the importance of images, see below.

Local Marketing and Google Image

There’s a lot of image-based research, including local searches. Don’t just provide beautiful images on your website, such as using a photo gallery, but also name your images correctly so that the search engine can rank them appropriately in a (local) search.

The importance of smartphones for local searches

It’s no longer a secret: with your smartphone in your pocket, you’re being closely monitored. And this is, of course, very practical for entrepreneurs who want to target potential customers based on their location. When you perform a search using your smartphone, the search engine will automatically take your location into account, particularly for certain “geolocalized” searches. If you’re looking for a pharmacist, the search engine will suggest the nearest pharmacists. It does this based on two criteria: distance and the pharmacy’s online quality.

Distance isn’t something you can do much about, but the quality of your digital business card is. What do we mean by the quality of your digital presence?

A well-completed Google My Business profile
A website related to this profile and well ranked
References from other merchants in your region or sector

Research conducted in 2018 already showed that local searches are also increasingly being done using voice. And we’ve made progress a few years since then.

50% of people have used voice search to find a local business.
74% of voice search users use it weekly to find a local merchant/service provider.
46% of voice search users do so daily.

So you’ve got it: good local marketing is an essential piece of your digital story puzzle!