There is no denying the fact that digital marketing is the go-to form of marketing for many modern businesses. With methods that make it easy for businesses of all sizes to adapt to, digital marketing has helped even out the playing field.
Small businesses no longer have to struggle to keep up with larger businesses and retailers, and it has made it much easier for these small businesses to reach their target audiences. In the past, small, local retailers have found it difficult to compete for the same audiences as their larger counterparts. With digital marketing, smaller retailers have access to the same audiences, but on a local scale. One way that smaller retailers can reach local audiences is through methods like local SEO and the “Buy Local” movement.
Here is everything that you need to know about both options and how this can influence the outcome of your SEO campaign.
What is the “Buy Local” Movement?
There has been a stronger push for customers to buy their products from smaller, local retailers as a way to support local businesses and boost the local economy. In fact, in 2019, 46% of Americans preferred to shop for their products locally (NielselIQ, 2021).
With the pandemic and its effect on retail and shopping, that number has jumped to 57% of consumers looking to buy their products online (Retail Council, 2021). Because of the stronger support for local goods and services, smaller, local retailers should leverage this to their advantage, which is where local SEO comes in.
The great thing about this movement is that the support for local businesses is no longer limited to physical mom and pop stores. Consumers are strongly supportive of local businesses on both a physical and online scale.
What is Local SEO?
With the popularization of the Internet and other online services, it is no secret that consumers use these tools to supplement their buying decisions. Search engines like Google have picked up on the fact that online users tend to focus their searches on a local scale and have changed up their algorithms to reflect this.
Local SEO is a subcategory of SEO that allows businesses to focus their efforts on a more local scope. This typically involves the optimization of your pages and website through the use of more location-based keywords.
How Does Local SEO Differ From Traditional SEO?
Local SEO is not, in a sense, different from traditional SEO. Local SEO falls under the scope of traditional SEO, and the optimization techniques used in this are the same. The distinguishing factor in local SEO is the utilization of more location-focused keywords.
Traditional SEO gives your business the chance to reach anybody, anywhere, as long as they are looking for your offered products and services. On the other hand, local SEO gives you access to a more targeted, local audience.
When done properly, local SEO gives you access to an audience with a higher conversion rate potential. This can also help you make the most out of your SEO budget, which is ideal for smaller businesses.
Building Your Local SEO Strategy
Now that you understand how local SEO works and what it can do for your business, how do you get started with this? The great thing about local SEO is that, if you already have a traditional SEO strategy in place, all you need to do is build on top of this.
Like traditional SEO, it’s important to do keyword research, and optimize your website for local SEO. However, your efforts should also include the research of local trends and audiences so that you can optimize this fully for a local audience.
Pinpoint Your Location and Do Your Research
Like any other digital marketing method out there, your local SEO strategy should begin with research. You should first make sure to identify and fully clarify your target location for your SEO strategy.
Are you only going to be focusing your efforts in your local town? Or do you want to cover the surrounding areas as well? Knowing the extent of your target location allows for better optimization of your SEO.
With local SEO, it is especially important to do your research into the local audience and their purchasing habits, as you need to tailor your SEO strategy to a local audience in order to guarantee its success. This will serve as the foundation of your local SEO strategy.
Use Your Research On Your Product Pages
When you’ve researched your target audience, you should take all of this information and apply it to your product pages. What items do your local audience typically buy as a bundle? You can offer a bundle deal to encourage bigger sales for certain items.
Are there any local, seasonal events that trigger the purchase of specific items? You can anticipate these events and offer special sales or ramp up your SEO and PPC to reach out to your audience during these times.
Optimize Your Pages and Your Entire Website
Your local SEO strategy should be treated the same way that you would your traditional SEO. One of the most important steps to a successful SEO strategy is the optimization of your site’s pages.
There are a few ways to carry out this optimization.
If you’re looking to optimize your website for local SEO, you should start by creating meta tiles for all of your product pages using the product name plus business location.
When you’re describing your product or business, place the location keyword in your meta tags. Everything on your pages should be optimized, including your site images, so keywords in alt-text should not be neglected.
Of course, content is essential in modern SEO practices, so you should never forget to invest in quality copy for your site pages. A length of 300 words on each page should be enough for quality optimization.
Use Google My Business
Other Google tools like Google My Business can also benefit your local SEO. As a small, local business, you should make sure to activate your Google My Business profile. These profiles are tied in with your domain and can help improve your SERPs, especially on a local scale.
To make sure that this works well for you, your business’s information should be kept up-to-date. Some of the information to keep updated includes your shop hours, address, email, contact information, website, social media pages, and any reviews and FAQs.
If you change any of this information, you should ensure that your Google My Business reflects those changes. If there are any discrepancies between your business and the online information that you have up, then this can affect how users see your business and, subsequently, your SEO.
Not only that, but keeping your page updated with reviews, images, and FAQs signals to customers that your business is up and active, which encourages users to choose your business over less active retailers.
Wrapping Up
For the longest time, smaller retail stores struggled to compete against larger retailers like Walmart and Amazon. After all, these larger retailers are more recognized, and they’re working with a seemingly endless pool of resources for their marketing and outreach.
However, with recent advances in SEO, marketing, and online technology, it is now much easier for smaller businesses to reach the same audiences as these larger retailers.
Coupled with the push for the support of the local businesses movement and the encouragement to promote the local economy, small, local businesses are now capable of achieving retail success with a local audience.
As long as you apply the proper SEO methods and optimization techniques, you will find that your local SEO efforts will pay off well for you, allowing you to make the most out of your SEO and digital marketing budget.