Rapid advances in Google’s ranking algorithm and radical changes in the way consumers behave have made it increasingly difficult to talk about search engine optimisation (SEO) without specifically touching on local search.
But what is it about local SEO that has marketers and business operators so excited? Here are six key reasons that local SEO has become so important for businesses in Australia:
Local SEO Helps You Target More Relevant Traffic.
When a small company first gets started with in-house search engine optimisation, they’re bound to make more than a few rookie mistakes. One of these could be focusing on generating more traffic to the website without giving much thought to who these new site visitors are or what they’re after. There are many ways to address this potential problem when researching and selecting keywords to target. For locally focused (and especially bricks-and-mortar) businesses, optimising for local search is one of the most effective ways to ensure that the increased traffic correlates to their target customers.
The modern world is always changing as we speak. New developments are always becoming a reality at an increasingly fast pace. These developments don’t only concern the field of medicine, technology, and other branches of science. The reality is, change is moving everywhere, including the world of business.
In the past, ordinary people hardly had anything to set up their business. If they had the means, maintaining a stable firm has its issues which will eventually lead to their failures. Today, with almost limited starting funds, a business could turn into an empire in no time.
Indeed, the advancements in the world have become the main contributors to this fast pace change that everyone is experiencing. In the world of business and entrepreneurship, the age of paper and printing is slowly nearing its end, while digital advertising is at the top, enjoying its prime.
A curious case for paper and printing is that they never seem to die and succumb to the changes. Despite the advantages that digital media brings, paper and ink remain relevant with business owners, especially those small and aspiring entrepreneurs. Here’s a look why printed media remains a good choice for a starting business.
In a world full of large scale companies competing in a cut-throat environment, a lot of small ventures get beaten by a considerable margin. From logistical capabilities, enormous financial differentials, to overall company power, a small business just cannot compete with such huge corporations.
For small time entrepreneurs, the fact stated above may discourage them from starting home-grown ventures. They think that they’ll just end up with the other businesses that get eaten up by the “Big Boys.”
However, to the few who want to wade into deep waters and test the market, an emerging strategy is beginning to take the world by storm: Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short.
Here are some advantages that SEO can bring to small time business owners.
One of the advantages that SEO can bring is that utilizing it doesn’t have to cost too much. As with other types of businesses, finances usually have to be spent. These funds are called investments. There are a lot of services out there that can offer help when it comes to SEO ranking.
Some companies who manage SEO, they have a “no rank, no pay” policy. This system means that if a blog or site does not appear to rank, then the entrepreneur doesn’t have to pay anything to that company.
Even if you’ve been playing by Google’s rules, keeping up with frequent algorithm changes, you might still find yourself to be a victim of negative SEO.
How come?
You have to look over the fence into your competitor’s backyard, as they might be the ones playing it dirty, setting up traps in order to make sure you fail. By dropping out of search engine’s good graces, your company is bound to hit the bottom, what has a negative effect on your rankings, visibility, visits, and, ultimately, conversions and revenue.
What many tend to forget is that once you hit the rock bottom, the only way you can go is – up. But how?
Google Search Console represents extremely valuable collection of tools which include information about search traffic, search appearance, technical status update, crawl data and other educational resources. With this in mind, it is evident why it found its place in almost every website owner’s, webmaster’s and SEO professional’s toolbox.
If you’re using Google Search Console as well, then you know you can leverage it to monitor the safety of your website. It helps you detect any kind of abuse, and to react quickly to any weird activity, turn on alerts. In order to do that, go to the GSC dashboard, choose settings and then go to Preferences. There you simply enable email notifications and you’ll get alerts directly to your inbox.
If you’re an avid social media user, you probably have profiles created on platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, all of which you use fairly regularly. What you might not realise is that you also have an account created on Google +, which is the same account that you use when you watch Youtube (if you watch while signed in).
I can’t blame you if you haven’t noticed that you have an account on this platform, as Google have done a very good job at making Google + nearly impossible to use and make sense of. Besides the constant layout changes and updates which add to the complexity of the platform, Google + has always been a very confused social media platform. Unlike other successful platforms that have clear purposes, Google + tries to do a bit of everything, which ends up creating a very muddled and ugly user experience.
However, where there is a problem there is always an opportunity, and while most people are put off by Google +, there are still millions of people actively using the platform as their main source of news and for keeping in touch with their friends, so you’d be silly to ignore Google + completely – especially if you’re a business owner.
The success of an up-and-coming startup depends heavily on the marketing approach. Before you focus all your effort into a marketing campaign, first you need to devise a proper marketing plan, complete with a system which encompasses all the marketing initiatives you need to take in order to ensure the success of said plan. Whether you’re using content marketing, e-mail marketing or a lead generation campaign, each initiative needs to have a specific plan driving its execution and guaranteeing the return of your marketing investments.
People who aren’t directly related to the marketing industry often confuse these two terms. A marketing plan describes the complete picture when it comes to marking your business. This includes identifying specific marketing strategies which will be used to engage the target audience and interest them in the products and services you’re offering. A marketing campaign is just a small part of the overall marketing plan and describes a particular marketing action used for achieving a particular goal or objective.
Before you define the trajectory or your campaign, first you need to think about who your target audience really is. You might be thinking “but I already know what my target audience is”, but in reality, it’s not that simple. The target audience of a marketing campaign doesn’t necessarily have to be the one purchasing your products and services. Marketing campaigns differ depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. Increasing the engagement, getting more visitors, leads or conversion all require a different approach and focus on different audiences.
As a Small Business owner, it’s a wise decision to leverage the power of Social Media for Marketing to increase Brand Awareness and Build Customer Loyalty.
After years of being a Social Media Marketer, I want to share with you the 4 foundational keys to your long-term success online.
100% Commitment
It all starts with a commitment. When you truly make the decision to use Social Media for Marketing your Small Business, make sure you are fully committed to doing whatever it takes to be successful. This means that when you create a Social Media Account, you don’t just post for a week or 2 and then move on to the next one because you don’t see instant results or you lose focus.
Tip: The worst thing you can do for your Brand Awareness is to create multiple accounts and leave them dormant for months on end. This doesn’t give a good first impression nor does it build trust with your target audience.
When you’re out of the office or during downtime, your secretary could be completing SEO tactics that won’t take up too much time. He or she could be maximizing your website in the search engines in between answering your phones or scheduling your appointments.
Before adding more content or following any of the other suggestions, it’s vital that your secretary is able to find relevant keywords for your industry. The keywords should be more specific than a general one like HVAC, home builder or lawyer. When you choose keywords, they have to be more specific to ensure that you’re moving up in the search engine rankings. It’s not enough to publish a website. If you want to find organic traffic through SEO, you have to find the right keywords. If you’re a personal injury attorney, use keywords like car accident lawyer or slip and fall attorney to gain relevant traffic. You can use Google’s own keyword planner to find the right SEO keywords.
Growing the awareness of a small business on social media is not easy, particularly if you are providing a relatively niche service such as window furnishings. However, that’s not to say it is impossible. When I took over my company’s social media channels, we had just 167 followers on Twitter… just over a year later, we are now on over 2,300 – a number which continues to rise. Similarly, the Facebook likes have gone from 1,200 to over 3,300, completely organically.
Offer Incentive
Buying followers is never a good idea, and it is easy to spot if a company has done this thanks to the many dead accounts on their Follower page. Nonetheless, if your social media accounts are in need of more followers, one organic way to grow your numbers swiftly is to run a competition. Sponsor a post on Facebook and Twitter, ensuring you hashtag the word “competition” within the post, and offer a prize that is related to what your company does.
For example, we recently ran a competition to coincide with Roald Dahl Day, which gave five people the opportunity to win a cushion in a Roald Dahl fabric of their choice. All they had to do was follow and retweet the post, and with a £20 budget behind the Tweet, we got over 400 new Twitter followers, and the post was retweeted more than 800 times.
Naturally, you will lose a few followers once the competition is over, but thousands of people across social media will have been made aware of your company and what you do.
