Reaching local markets with your online business, Part 3
Strategies for reaching local markets
Now that you've decided you can
reach local prospects with your online campaign, how should you go about
doing it?
In the Part 2 of "Online
business and local markets" we discussed how the web will
eventually reach critical mass and begin to replace services such as
the "Yellow Pages" as the default source for local business and
service information. That article was primarily about the role of the
major Search Engines in leading this process. Eventually the SEs will
develop methods of listing, categorizing, and searching for websites
based on location as well as keywords. At the same time we will start
to see more and more local-oriented websites coming on stream, and
more and more people looking for local services on the web.
What should we do in the meantime?
In the meantime it is up to website owners
to aggressively make their presence known and to "push" their services towards
local prospects who would otherwise have no idea these online services exist.
The smart website owner will use a
three-track approach.
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First, she will build her website so it
scores well in the search engines,
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Second, she will make her website(s) score
well with the soon-to-be-popular locally oriented search engines.
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Third, she will use a variety of methods
to "network" in the local community, and create an online "brand" that is
easily found by customers and prospects.
Let's discuss these strategies one at a
time.
1. Scoring well in the Search Engines
There is an endless amount of information
about "Search Engine Optimization". One of the best book ever written about this
topic is Ken
Evoy's "Make Your Site Sell". If you know nothing about "SEO" (Search
Engine Optimization), then here are some of the most important general
principles to be aware of:
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Search Engines use "keywords" to find web
pages and web sites. That means you must build your site from the ground up
around specific keywords.
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Not all keywords are equally useful. Some
are too popular (e.g., "web marketing") and you stand almost no chance of
getting good ranking in the SEs with them. Others are rarely searched on
(e.g., "online strategies"), and so nobody will see your site if you focus on
them. There are ways of analyzing keywords to pre-determine which are most
likely to bring you traffic. This service is built into
Site Build It!, and is also available
through my service called the SBO WebReport.
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You must
build your pages and your site(s) in certain ways to maximize your chances
of "scoring" well with the SEs. This is the only way you can get good ranking
when people search on your keywords
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You must consistently
"submit" your optimized web pages to the major SEs.
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You must build valuable content into your
site, so it is actually worth looking at.
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You must seek alliances with other web
owners in your field, and exchange links
with them.
2. Scoring Well in Local Searches
If you want LOCAL traffic, structure your
pages and sites to clearly associate them with the desired local geographic
area. For instance, if you sell landscaping services in the area around
Cincinnati, build consistent mention of your service area (Cincinnati and
surrounding area) into your most important pages. This is based on the premise
that Google-style surveys of your pages are looking for hints within your
pages about your geographic service area. You might as well help them along as
much as possible.
Where is the best place to mention these
things? There is no definitive answer yet, but the following are safe bets:
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In your page names (e.g., landscaping-cincinatti.html)
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In your meta-tags (title, keywords, and
description)
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In the body of your page, as near to the
top as possible
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In alt-tags, comments, etc.
In other words, use the same strategies
for your location hints as you use for your most important keywords.
3. Networking in your local area
Perhaps the most important thing you can
do is to define what I call a "Location-Focused Identity" — an LFI. If
you don't do this, you will constantly be debating whether your website is too
focused on the local market, or not focused enough. Websites are cheap, so my
advice is to create a locally-oriented website specifically to reach the local
market. By making it local-user-friendly you will have created a base for your
local promotion efforts. Here are some good places to start:
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If you can, give your website an
easy-to-remember name with a clear connection to the name of your company
or service. Over the years, the best one I have come up with is
www.theweg.com (short for "The Weekend
Golfer"). After only three weeks this site rose to about 215,000 in the Alexa
ratings. This had a lot to do with the content (it is an audio-based site),
but certainly also had something to do with the name itself. I readily admit
this is one of the few times I took my own advice about finding an
easy-to-remember name. (Unfortunately I haven't had time to develop the idea
since those first three weeks.)
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Your LFI should also be your domain
name. Try to build your location name right into it. For example,
www.indian-food-toronto.com, or
www.popups-canada.com. If you have a general non-local oriented site (like
ours called
www.tradeshow-display-experts.com) go ahead and create a completely new
site to service the local market. It could consist of only one or two pages
with links to your main site. (www.popups-toronto.com,
www.popups-canada.com,
www.vinyl-banners-usa.com,
www.seattle-pizza.com). The good
news is that generally these names are still available — so get them while you
can!
A name like this should be searchable (so it is findable using the
Search Engines), but even more important it must be memorable for people in
the local market you are trying to reach, so you can make it the basis for
your local promotion efforts.
Now that you have a Location-Focused
Identity (LFI) you can start to promote it locally. Here are some fairly
obvious strategies:
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Do everything you can to develop your LFI
into a "brand" with your customers, contacts, and prospects. Let's say it is "seattle-pizza.com".
Plaster this on all your promotions. You want customers and prospects to
remember your site name, and to find it without having to search for it.
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Register your new site with
locally-oriented and industry-specific directories or link exchanges that are
likely to send traffic your way. The point of these links is different from
link exchanges where you want to get higher SE ranking. These links are for
generating traffic.
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Create informal alliances with other
locally-oriented, non-competitive businesses in your industry. The two best
sources for such alliances are first, your customer list, and second, your
supplier list. What form could these alliances take? Here are some
suggestions: Joint sponsorship of online (or offline) contests, joint
sponsorship of golf tournaments, joint participation in local trade shows.
-
Offer sponsorships or special discounts
for products or services to high visibility local organizations such as the
Chamber of Commerce, service clubs, community sports associations — where you
are likely to get exposure for your locally-oriented services. Be sure to
insist that your LFI is prominently (and tactfully) displayed.
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Local offline advertising.
Generally I do NOT recommend promoting your online identity with (relatively
expensive and inefficient) offline advertising. But using local advertising to
promote your LFI may be an exception. It will generally depend on your
product. The best scenario is to create offline advertising that does
"double-duty" — that has immediate promotional value (and immediate returns),
but also helps build your "brand". A good example might be the Indian
restaurant that uses direct mail to generate local business lunch traffic.
This same clientele (local business people) will be prime prospects for online
strategies: establish your brand and they will almost effortlessly find you
online.
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Locally-oriented online advertising.
This is inherently inefficient because of the broad-brush reach of online
advertising. But some techniques such as Google adwords allow you to target
specific keywords (e.g., "Indian food Denver"). I suspect, however, if you
structure your pages properly, you will find it easier to get good position in
the regular Google search rankings for such terms, making it unnecessary to
"buy" position with ads.
Conclusion
This last point (about the relative ease of getting good SE
ranking with local keywords) is one of the most exciting aspects of the quest
to reach local markets. If you define your pages correctly, you should very
quickly be able to score well on searches like "Indian Food Denver" or "Sod
Hamilton"...because there are relatively few businesses catering to these
terms. As web surfers become more local-services savvy, the number of
businesses will also increase. But the number of Indian Food restaurants in
Denver is unlikely to ever reach the point where you won't score well on a
local search.
So you can see how this opens up fantastic opportunities for
even moderately persistent online marketers interested in reaching local
markets.
These suggestions just begin to scratch the surface of
possible ways to promote your Location- Focused Identity (LFI). The most
important thing is to CREATE ONE. Once you have created a memorable
LFI, ways of promoting it will tend to fall into your lap.
Richard J. Hendershot,
www.small-business-online.com
This article is called "Online Business and Local
Markets, Part 3: Strategies for reaching local markets"
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