Business Briefing – Marketing

Marketing to local business is neglected too often. Most in the channel want to position themselves nationally or internationally. But this doesn’t rule
out local presence. Nearby businesses can be loyal customers who prefer local providers. When they search for your services, you want to be first result. So how to do it?

First, if you don’t have a Google Business account, create one today! It’s free, and the easiest way to generate local traffic and out-rank your competitors. Next, there are simple fixes to get more out of it.

Fill out your company description with all the services you offer.  Go into detail here – every service will be a term people search.  This has specific benefits for local searches.  It makes you more likely to rank high in searches from your local area with terms like “near me”. This is barely an afternoon’s work, and it’ll make local businesses more likely to call you first.

Google reviews make a huge difference too.  If you can get regular reviews, Google’s algorithms are more likely to judge your business as active and trustworthy.  In turn, this means you’re likely to rank higher in local searches, and to appear on Google Maps.  One good approach is to incentivise your team to collect reviews.

The final consideration is search engine optimisation (SEO) more broadly. It’s worth writing some locally focused content, whether it’s a blog or a section of your website.  If you namecheck places nearby, this will also improve your local ranking!

These simple tricks will improve your ranking in local searches. It doesn’t get in the way of your national presence, but it does create more local leads!