Have you ever done a “near me” search to look for a good local restaurant or grocery store? These types of searches form part of hyper-local marketing. Let’s look at what it is and how your business can take advantage of it.
What is hyper-local marketing?
As mentioned before, hyper-local marketing focuses on marketing to people in your neighbourhood. It is a small, targeted group of people who live close to your company. The benefits of hyper-local marketing are:
- Cost-effectiveness: You are focused on a small geographical area and your specific target audience in this area.
- Increased foot traffic: If your listing is optimised then you can attract more people to your brick-and-mortar store.
- Greater buyer intent: The customers who are using the “near me” search have a greater intent to buy from you than someone who walks past your store.
With these benefits in mind, how can you use hyper-local marketing?
STEP 1: Optimise your Google My Business listing
If you don’t have a Google My Business listing, then you should create one. If you do have a Google My Business listing, then you should optimise it. Whichever one you are, it is important when you create the listing that all your information is correct and easy to read. You should also ensure that you have good photos to show off your product. When writing a small description of your business use keywords which describe what you do and where you are located but be careful not to keyword stuff your introduction because Google won’t like it.
STEP 2: Make your contact information visible
When someone comes to your website, can they easily see how to contact you without scrolling through your site? Ensure that your contact information is in the header of your website and above the fold. This will make it easy for your customer to reach you.
STEP 3: Create a mobile-friendly website
As a high majority of searches are done on mobile phones, it is important to have a mobile-friendly website. You can test how mobile-friendly your site is here.
STEP 4: Write content which is focused on your local area
Create content which celebrates your local area. If you do something in the community, create a post on social media. If there is something happening in your community related to your business write about it. By increasing your presence in your local area, you will help to raise your search engine listing.
STEP 5: Ask for Google reviews
If you have happy customers, ask them to leave a review on Google. You can have a QR code which your customer can scan and have it take them to the place where they can leave a Google review.
By following these five steps, you will be well on your way to implementing a great hyper-local marketing strategy for your company.
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