Sometimes in the local digital marketing world we want to be found everywhere. The reality is that most small and medium businesses are local; therefore, they can (and should) do their best to rank in local search results for their city, in addition to surrounding cities when possible and applicable.
We all know the story of Santa Claus. He magically appears all over the world in one night. Marketing digitally for people located around your business is, unfortunately, not a Santa Claus approach. It requires a ton of preparation and planning to accomplish a great feat of dominating the local digital marketing landscape.
Keep reading to learn more about local optimization from a holiday perspective.
How Local Optimization Isn’t Like Santa Claus
Often business owners think of local digital marketing like Santa Claus bringing a ton of presents on Christmas Eve. In reality, it is the exact opposite. What? Local optimization is not like Santa Claus? Yes, it’s true! Let’s investigate further.
#1: Santa has built up his brand.
He doesn’t need you or me to advertise to post billboards or broadcast who he is all over the United States. Everyone has heard about him. Just like everyone has heard about Apple and Google.
Unlike Santa Claus, everyone does not know about your business. Therefore, your business information needs to be consistent across all local marketing platforms, including but not limited to the following: Google, Facebook, Bing, Citysearch, and Foursquare (to mention a few).
If your information isn’t consistent, then search engines have a hard time trusting you, which means you are less likely to show up in search results. Want new customers? You need to show up. Local optimization helps your business build trust with Google and ensures accurate, consistent information across a variety of directories to help you do just that.
#2: Santa can deliver your presents in one night.
Local optimization can take months to begin to show results. Santa just appears in one night and poof! – you have a present.
Professionally, and accurately locally optimizing your business requires an audit of your current situation. The professional at Uptick Marketing start with a 60+ point inspection to make sure your business is primed for success locally. Only then do we begin actually capturing, correcting, and spreading correct and accurate information about your business to each of the relevant directories.
Unlike Santa, this takes time. In fact, most local optimization projects take anywhere from 3 to 6 months of work! Trust us, it is worth the wait (almost like waiting all year for Santa Claus to finally come to town).
#3: Have you ever met a bad Santa?
You know, the one who has matted hair, cigarette burns on his jacket and promised to give a child everything they want. If you’ve met a Santa like that then you would want to let others know what a bad Santa he is and how they should definitely not get their child’s picture made with that Santa.
In fact, if you are mad enough, you might go online and leave an honest review of this despicable Santa.
Likewise, small and medium businesses face the same obstacles with online reviews. When a customer leaves satisfied, we want to help you capture those great experiences. Why? Because when you have good reviews in local search results then people are more likely to choose your business over the competition. We will talk more about review tracking and management within the next couple of weeks. For now, just know that reviews are an important part of local search engine optimization.
Taking Advantage of Local Optimization in 2016
Is your business showing up correctly in local search results? If not, Uptick Marketing can help. The new year is a perfect opportunity to take advantage of kicking off your local optimization project.
Contact us to learn more about local optimization! We would love to help your business better reach potential customers.
