Local area marketing is a big boost for local brands mainly because Google uses a searcher’s location to promote relevant local businesses.
Insight: Local marketing strategy enables businesses to set parameters that target customers near where their business is.
Data: The number of mobile “near me” searches is growing on Google over the last several years, including 150% growth for “near me now” searches and 200% growth for “near me open now.” (Think With Google)
Key Action Point: Use local marketing strategy to drive brand awareness and stand out from non-local competitors using SEO.
Location-based marketing, or local marketing, is the process of optimising your website, paid ads, and any other online advertising to drive traffic and brand awareness in the geographic areas where you offer your service.
Almost half of all searches (46%) on Google are local, 78% of local mobile searches result in a purchase either in-store or online, and 76% of people who conduct a local mobile search visit a store within 24 hours. This means if your goal is to raise awareness about your brand locally, going local with your marketing is a great lead-generation strategy.
If, for instance, you are an IT service provider in Wollongong and someone from that area googles “networking services near me”, location-based marketing ensures your business comes out right at the top of website recommendations.
According to Search Engine Watch, 50% of mobile search is aimed at local businesses and 50% of mobile phone consumers frequent a retail outlet within 24 hours of a local search on mobile (Marketing Land).
Google adds that these mobile searches trigger either a purchase or a store visit, and 55% of these actions happen within just 60 minutes.
With these statistics to guide us, it is clear to see that one of the best ways to highlight your local marketing strategy is by optimising your website for mobile and making sure it displays seamlessly on small screens such as smartphone devices or tablets.
This is to ensure online consumers who are looking for a local business on their mobile phones have no problems accessing your website.
If by now you don’t have a mobile-friendly website yet, you’re already behind everyone else. It’s time to work on creating a full-funnel mobile shopping future.
Data shows that approximately 70% of mobile customers clicked the call button to call businesses directly from Google Ads. This means when you need to improve your brand awareness, you need to create online offers and ads that target specific regions.
You can run ads that mention local events in specific regions for maximum coverage. As much as possible, add your local keywords and city name into your headlines and content and make use of location extensions. You can also link your Google business page or include your local phone number.
Making use of mobile advertising with “near me” searches and Google Local Ads allow online shoppers to find you.
Most customers rely on reviews to evaluate the quality of local businesses. Asking for feedback from locals and highlighting their location can go a long way towards building trust.
When someone reviews your services and uses their city or other local terms, this can help boost your web rankings too.
The best way to drive engagement and create traction is by using keywords that locals can relate to.
Implementing local keywords in your online marketing is easy. All it takes is for you to research what people are searching for locally on top search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
To do this, you can create category pages that offer local goods and relevant content that targets your local customers.
To optimise it even further, make sure you include your contact details such as your business address, opening hours, and phone number on your website pages, particularly in your product or service pages to ensure these appear on local product or service queries.
If you still haven’t fully optimised your brand for local area marketing, now is the time to do so. If you want to stand out, you need to find new ways to increase conversion by presenting your brand’s unique offering in a way that targets local consumers and making use of other local marketing strategies that showcase who you are as a brand.