[Hot] Online Marketing for Local Businesses: Tips for Sucess
Today is Small Business Saturday, the second of three "shopping holidays" in the long Thanksgiving-weekend that includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Despite the heavy-hitting financial power of its founder, American Express, Small Business Saturday stands in stark contrast to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two huge online shopping days that promote big guns retailers like Best Buy and Amazon, respectively.
As we noted last week, Black Friday and Cyber Monday both saw a roughly 17% percent increase online, to $5.03 billion and $6.59 billion, respectively. And online sales for Small Business Saturday also saw an increase--of 10% to $5.12 billion.
Read: "SEO 101: Mobile Optimization for Black Friday & Cyber Monday"
Unfortunately, the increasing emphasis on online sales hurts local businesses. Conceived in 2010 to promote local brick and mortars, Small Business Saturday has yielded steady sales growth--that is, until last year, when brick and mortar foot traffic and sales declined (Source).
In reality, many people will not shop local businesses today for a very simple reason: marketing. Many consumers do not know about Small Business Saturday; many more consumers do not even know about local businesses in their own town!
Why? part of the problem is sociological. People are spending more and more time and money online--to the detriment of brick and mortar stores.
But this point also clarifies precisely why local businesses fail to attract attention: Most local businesses do not have a solid web presence. To succeed, brick and mortar businesses must play the online game.
With the support of our sponsor, Alex Stepman, (a small business owner himself), The Organic SEO Blog is dedicated to helping small and medium-sized business owners compete on a level playing field with the big box retailers. A quality online marketing campaign can elevate any local business, small or large, to the top of the search page rankings.
The Value of Local Business
Will you be shopping local businesses today? We hope so. There are many, many reasons to go local. Shopping a local business benefits your community. Local businesses offer unparalleled customer experience as well as unique goods and services.
And there's still something to say about a face-to-face transaction--it's humanizing touch in a world otherwise dominated by screens.You meet the people who produce your goods; you put a face to your purchases. Also, most local businesses offer unparalleled customer service and unique goods and services.
Small, local shops may see the increasing emphasis on online shopping as bad news: more online shopping = less brick and mortar shopping. Online sales only account for 8.1% of total retail sales (source), but we know this number will increase.
On the other hand, many small businesses are not equipped to compete online: only 28% of small business sell products online (source). Now, of course, not all businesses have the facility to sell products online. For these businesses, however, local SEO is the best way to attract business online and to brick and mortar locations.
To a degree, the Internet equalizes the competition, giving even the smallest shops a fighting chance. And the greatest tool in any business arsenal is online marketing.
So how can a small business use SEO to compete locally and nationally? The tools below can help you attract business to your website or your brick and mortar location.
Hack the SERP with Google My Business
Most brick and mortars attempt to limit prices by limit marketing costs, yet an optimized online presence need not be expensive.
The first key for any local business is to use Google's free tools to tell a unique story that differentiates itself from other retailers. As we've noted in our post about Google My Business:
Google My Business (GMB) is the single best free marketing tool available to websites online. Of course, we consider a GMB account a must for all local business, yet many do not know it exists. This is a shame. GMB is not only free but exceedingly simple.
Find Your Niche Market Online
A small business will not compete against the outstanding variety of products offered by Amazon. A small business can, however, offer well-curated products that exceed the quality and value of Amazon's products.
It can be hard for a smaller business to compete for a variety of products--in SEO parlance, keywords.
For most smaller businesses, a better option (by far) is to specialize in a few key products--and a few keywords.
The more effort you put into promoting a smaller amount of keywords, the more likely you will attract specific visitors to your store that will be interested in your product.
The links below should help you define your niche and discover your most appropriate keywords:
Read: "To Compete, Discover Your Niche"
Read: "SEO 101: Short and Log Tail Keywords"
Optimize Your Reputation Online
The essence of Small Business Saturday is local shopping. As a small business, you can leverage your accessibility to locals by optimizing your website for this specific audience. Instead of competing against a national audience--and all the big retailers--you compete against local companies.
To optimize for a local audience, create hyper-specific content for your local town or audience and seek local reviews. You can perform all the website optimization you like, but if you're local reviews do not reflect a good customer experience--well, then, your optimization efforts will be for naught.
Read: "The New Word-of-Mouth: Online Reviews"
Small Business Marketing with Stepman's SEO
If you're looking for an SEO company that understands how to effectively promote websites for specific local areas we suggest contacting our sponsor, Stepman's SEO: 215-900-9398.
Stepman's SEO combines traditional marketing methods and organic SEO--with an emphasis on natural website optimization--to design thoughtful, inspiring, and effective SEO campaigns that can attract your ideal local customer.
Despite the heavy-hitting financial power of its founder, American Express, Small Business Saturday stands in stark contrast to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two huge online shopping days that promote big guns retailers like Best Buy and Amazon, respectively.
As we noted last week, Black Friday and Cyber Monday both saw a roughly 17% percent increase online, to $5.03 billion and $6.59 billion, respectively. And online sales for Small Business Saturday also saw an increase--of 10% to $5.12 billion.
Read: "SEO 101: Mobile Optimization for Black Friday & Cyber Monday"
Unfortunately, the increasing emphasis on online sales hurts local businesses. Conceived in 2010 to promote local brick and mortars, Small Business Saturday has yielded steady sales growth--that is, until last year, when brick and mortar foot traffic and sales declined (Source).
In reality, many people will not shop local businesses today for a very simple reason: marketing. Many consumers do not know about Small Business Saturday; many more consumers do not even know about local businesses in their own town!
Why? part of the problem is sociological. People are spending more and more time and money online--to the detriment of brick and mortar stores.
But this point also clarifies precisely why local businesses fail to attract attention: Most local businesses do not have a solid web presence. To succeed, brick and mortar businesses must play the online game.
With the support of our sponsor, Alex Stepman, (a small business owner himself), The Organic SEO Blog is dedicated to helping small and medium-sized business owners compete on a level playing field with the big box retailers. A quality online marketing campaign can elevate any local business, small or large, to the top of the search page rankings.
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| The Small Business Saturday Logo |
The Value of Local Business
Will you be shopping local businesses today? We hope so. There are many, many reasons to go local. Shopping a local business benefits your community. Local businesses offer unparalleled customer experience as well as unique goods and services.
And there's still something to say about a face-to-face transaction--it's humanizing touch in a world otherwise dominated by screens.You meet the people who produce your goods; you put a face to your purchases. Also, most local businesses offer unparalleled customer service and unique goods and services.
Online Marketing for Local Businesses: Tips for Success
Small, local shops may see the increasing emphasis on online shopping as bad news: more online shopping = less brick and mortar shopping. Online sales only account for 8.1% of total retail sales (source), but we know this number will increase.
On the other hand, many small businesses are not equipped to compete online: only 28% of small business sell products online (source). Now, of course, not all businesses have the facility to sell products online. For these businesses, however, local SEO is the best way to attract business online and to brick and mortar locations.
To a degree, the Internet equalizes the competition, giving even the smallest shops a fighting chance. And the greatest tool in any business arsenal is online marketing.
So how can a small business use SEO to compete locally and nationally? The tools below can help you attract business to your website or your brick and mortar location.
Hack the SERP with Google My Business
Most brick and mortars attempt to limit prices by limit marketing costs, yet an optimized online presence need not be expensive.
The first key for any local business is to use Google's free tools to tell a unique story that differentiates itself from other retailers. As we've noted in our post about Google My Business:
Google My Business (GMB) is the single best free marketing tool available to websites online. Of course, we consider a GMB account a must for all local business, yet many do not know it exists. This is a shame. GMB is not only free but exceedingly simple.
Find Your Niche Market Online
A small business will not compete against the outstanding variety of products offered by Amazon. A small business can, however, offer well-curated products that exceed the quality and value of Amazon's products.
It can be hard for a smaller business to compete for a variety of products--in SEO parlance, keywords.
For most smaller businesses, a better option (by far) is to specialize in a few key products--and a few keywords.
The more effort you put into promoting a smaller amount of keywords, the more likely you will attract specific visitors to your store that will be interested in your product.
The links below should help you define your niche and discover your most appropriate keywords:
Read: "To Compete, Discover Your Niche"
Read: "SEO 101: Short and Log Tail Keywords"
Optimize Your Reputation Online
The essence of Small Business Saturday is local shopping. As a small business, you can leverage your accessibility to locals by optimizing your website for this specific audience. Instead of competing against a national audience--and all the big retailers--you compete against local companies.
To optimize for a local audience, create hyper-specific content for your local town or audience and seek local reviews. You can perform all the website optimization you like, but if you're local reviews do not reflect a good customer experience--well, then, your optimization efforts will be for naught.
Read: "The New Word-of-Mouth: Online Reviews"
Small Business Marketing with Stepman's SEO
If you're looking for an SEO company that understands how to effectively promote websites for specific local areas we suggest contacting our sponsor, Stepman's SEO: 215-900-9398.
Stepman's SEO combines traditional marketing methods and organic SEO--with an emphasis on natural website optimization--to design thoughtful, inspiring, and effective SEO campaigns that can attract your ideal local customer.