Local business can no longer depend on word-of-mouth advertising alone. In our present environment people find it more convenient to Google for a good hairdresser or car rental service than ask their neighbors for suggestions. Thus it has become absolutely essential for local business owners to promote their business online.
Discussed below are 10 simple steps that will help you in establishing a strong online presence:
- Be sure to add your URL everywhere: Make sure you post your URL everywhere. Include you URL in business cards, bags, flyers, newspaper ads, your store window, free giveaways, business stationery and promotional items to popularize your online presence.
- Optimize your text with specific keywords: Select simple and specific keywords and incorporate them throughout your text. Alternatively you could also target specific keywords through a pay-per-click campaign.
- Submit to regional sections of search directories: Submitting to local directories like Google Local, Yahoo Local, and YellowPages.com is essential as it helps people searching for your business or industry to find your listing easily.
- Trade links with local businesses: Linking your site with local businesses in the same area can help in bringing targeted traffic to the linked web sites. But be sure that these links are not placed on your main home page unless you want your visitors to click away the minute they hit your site.
- Make sure you include a good title tag: Spend time writing an effective title tag for each page, as title tags can increase a page’s search engine ranking. Ensure that you include your location in the title text to give searchers more targeted results.
- Use promotional e-mails to keep in touch: Since almost everyone has an e-mail address, use it to stay in touch with them, building trust and brand recognition through repeated contact.
- Engage in online social networking: Creating a page on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media sites can help establish brand popularity among the local crowd. Be sure to regularly update your status on these sites and connect with your customer base.
- Syndicate your web content and ideas: Making use of article distribution services like ezinearticles.com, articlebase.com, isnare.com is a good way to share content and bring quality leads to your site.
- Create a Lens at Squidoo: Squidoo’s easy to use interface helps you to provide your customer with all the information they require. You can further provide specific descriptions about your business, products and services.
- Submit a press release: Press releases submitted to prweb or prleap.com, help in promoting your business. Be sure to localize your press release to the ZIP Code or City in which your business is established.
