Around the world, there are billions of people on the internet, all searching for information. Regardless, if you are like most businesses, you rely heavily on local customers.

Attracting visitors from around the globe, to your business website, has really little or no value. What drives your business is your local or regional community. So, the real trick to inbound marketing is placing your company front and foremost in the minds of those consumers most likely to buy from you. Don’t you agree?

There are many online articles describing the basics of how to improve your local ranking on Google. However, these articles often describe how to be one of the few business listings at the top of local search results pages. You are likely familiar with these results.

As an example, when a user searches for “a solicitor near me,” Google will list a few local solicitors based on their relevance, proximity to the user, and their prominence. Google makes use of both online and offline signals to determine the rank these local results. So, there are going to be times when you are not the closest or most prominent business, no matter what you do, and there is little you can do to improved these mapped results.

Inbound Marketing and Geo-Targeting

Today’s article is not so much about improving Local SEO. It is more focused on an inbound marketing strategy which employs geo-targeting, the practice of customizing marketing and advertising to a specific geographic location. This can be any specific local area including a neighborhood, town, metro area, state, or even region.

Using your business website as the centrepiece of this inbound marketing strategy, you can improve your brand awareness, increase customer loyalty, educate potential shoppers, improve relationships with consumers, and even attract more qualified employees. Is that something you could use in your situation?

Now, there is one thing you may have noticed missing from the list of potential benefits: increased web traffic. It is great when your inbound marketing results in more click-throughs from search results. However, an inbound marketing strategy which employs geo-targeting is about attracting only the most qualified potential customers and those most likely to buy your products or services.

Inbound marketing for local search targets those individuals which most resemble your ideal customer, which means people living in your local community. When you align your inbound marketing to the right goals, you increase your lead generation by making connections with the right consumers.

Source: chaosmap.com

How to Optimize Your Website for Local Customers

Optimizing your business website to attract local users is all about crafting the right content for your target. Every new content page and blog entry is a new web page for search engines to index and an opportunity to focus on a new local keyword or phrase. Regardless, you want to avoid the temptation of simply adding local keywords to a generic topic.

The success of inbound marketing relies on content that has value to your target audience at every stage of the consumer life-cycle: target, prospect, lead, active customer, super-fan, and past clients. Therefore, your content must have local relevance, authority, and perspective. Does that make sense to you?

1. Customer Success Stories – Highlight the stories about your happy customers. These articles are not only an opportunity for locally relevant content, but they also show off your products and services. Additionally, there is an element of social proof, the psychological phenomenon where people make assumptions based on the beliefs and actions of others.
2. Complimentary Local Companies – Provide positive reviews of non-competing businesses. For example, if you are a roofing company, review other local home improvement and repair companies. It provides valuable information for your target audience and creates goodwill with other local businesses.
3. Highjack Local News Stories – In a practice called newsjacking, you can capitalize on trending local news stories to amplify your marketing. Moreover, as a local business owner, community members are eager to read your insights and perspectives on important issues facing the area. These blog entries are extremely simple and extremely powerful.
4. Local Events and Guides – Not only does every community have local events and attractions, they likely have events and attractions of interest to the specific groups and demographics that you are targeting. Local holiday parades, concerts in the park, car shows, and more will provide an endless supply of locally relevant content.
5. Local Charities and Sponsorships – People love to support businesses that give back to the local community. Share information about the local charities or causes that you support. For example, if you sponsor a local little league team, write articles about their games. If you support a local food cupboard, use your blog to promote their food drive.
6. Storytelling – Every business owner has stories and antidotes that are informative, useful, or entertaining. Regardless, the power of storytelling is that it can humanize your company, improving your connection with your customers. Plus, it allows you to easily add locally relevant keywords and information into your content.

Piggybacking off these suggestions, you can easily come up with content ideas that will work for your target. The key is knowing your ideal customer and what will bring value to them. As you build your website’s local relevance, you will also improve brand awareness, loyalty, and customer relationships.

Ultimately, your company will become the first choice of local consumers when they are ready to buy.

Do you ave any questions? What haven’t we covered yet that is important to you? If you would like to talk about inbound marketing tricks to dominate local search, or a related topic, please contact us.