Standing Out in the Online Local Market
Small business owners today know that they need a website to compete. More and more people search the internet to find shops and services in their area before hitting the streets. Having a website is a crucial way to make an impression on potential customers and get the word out, no matter how modest your business.
Many local business owners wonder, however, how useful a website can be on a practical level, and might be leery of investing the time in creating one if they’re not sure what benefits they’d reap. Won’t my business get lost, you may be asking, among the thousands of other sites catering to the same clientele?
Not if you make your site easily searchable for your local customers. The most important immediate goal of your website is to hit the top of the search engines, and this is easily done if you know what your potential customers are searching for and can optimize your site with the right keywords. If you run a small shop or other business that caters to local customers, your only real competition is the other businesses in your area. People searching for your type of business online will be using local search keywords. If I live in the Cabbagetown neighbourhood of Toronto and want to find a flower shop nearby, I will use “flowers” or “flower shop,” “Toronto,” and likely “Cabbagetown” in my search. I will not waste my time pulling up hundreds of thousands of flower shops across the globe.
Many businesses are not aware of how to optimize their sites for such searches using location-specific keywords. You can have the competitive edge by knowing this valuable information! And it’s not rocket science-you don’t have to be tech-savvy to make your website work for you!
- First, decide what the best keywords are to use in highlighting your location. How specific do you want to be? Do you want to target customers in an entire city, in a specific neighbourhood in that city, or in a larger geographic area (perhaps you have a store in a small town that attracts tourists from other areas). Perhaps you are located on a well-known street frequented by a particular target market (for example, Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles)-you can include the street as well. Remember to tailor the keywords to the way people who live in the area actually say the name, such as informal nicknames or short-forms.
- Make the location keywords stand out in search hits by using them in the text and the code for your headlines, and using them liberally within the actual material on your site. The more you emphasize your location, the more relevant the location will seem to the search engine looking for you.
- Make your business easy to find on your website itself. Your address should be displayed on every page, along with a phone number including the local area code. Include a directions page on the site with a Google map.
- Use local internet listings to help publicize your business. No need to pay for this service-many of these are free! Search engines will find your site more attractive if it is listed on a range of local directories. Below is a list of reputable local internet listings:
Google Local – Be sure to check out our FREE Google Maps Course
Be sure to get a listing on your local city’s directory, just type in your search engine ‘your city’ then directory an bunch should come up. Remember, making your small local business stand out on the web is easy-if you learn how to think like the search engines do!
