4 Steps For Local Enterprises to Build a Strong Online Presence

Did you know that over 97% of people searching for local businesses in their area do it online? When potential customers are looking for a plumber or a contractor on search engines, as a business, you must pay attention to the keywords or keyphrases that may lead them to your website. Of course, your competition is trying to do the same.

So, if you don’t have a strong online presence, you’re losing a huge chunk of prospects to your competitors. So let’s look at the four elementary things that experts do to build a compelling online presence.

Start By Building A Professional Website 

Every online channel required to establish your presence will lead to your business’s website. Think of your website as your 24/7 salesman. Let’s discuss five key things you need to build a great website.

Your website must be fast: Statistics and SEO surveys suggest that users do not prefer websites that take more than a couple of seconds to load. In fact, you could be behind more than 50% of websites on the Internet if your website’s loading time exceeds 2.9s. 

Build a Clear & Functional Website: Users appreciate a website that is easy to navigate and comprehend. You do not want to bury your potential customers with too much information. Also, be sure to build a website with a professional, clutter-free design. 

Create a Mobile-Friendly Website: It’s no secret that more than 80% of online users rely on their phones to search for daily life solutions. Be it a recipe or a plumber, Google or Youtube on mobile devices is the way to go. You must optimize your website separately for mobile speed and responsiveness. There are several tools such as Google Pagespeed Insights and GTMetrix to check your website’s performance on desktop and mobile.

Ensure Your Website is Secure

Google has stated specifically, even as far back as 2014, that your website has to have an SSL certificate or security certificate. Without that certificate, Google won’t even rank your website, let alone display it on the first page. 

Work on Local SEO

The next thing you need to cover is your local SEO. About 46 percent of the daily Google searches comprise users seeking local information.

The “near me” tag that people type whenever they search for contractors increased by over 900% over the last two years. Now they don’t have to put the “near me” tag because Google treats all of these searches as a near me search. Furthermore, their search behavior shows that you need to have a solid niche-specific SEO plan.

For instance, if you own a construction business, you need niche-specific, tailored digital marketing for construction companies. But what does that mean for you and your business?

It simply means curating content and marketing strategies based on competitive analysis and location-specific keywords that your target audience use to search for a service that you offer. In this case, they might type “construction companies near me” or “general contractors in: name of the place”. 

It is also important to answer your customers’ questions and address objections before they raise them. This can be achieved through an engaging, well-researched landing page.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Now that you have a strong website and SEO framework, you must start running Google ads campaigns to get qualified leads. According to HubSpot, 65 percent of people click on Google ads when they’re looking to buy. You can target your specific location and audience to efficiently confine your ad spend to your local business’s maximum reach.

Create Awesome Video

Lastly, and most importantly, you must approach video marketing as a necessity to strengthen your online presence. Videos have been a social media and digital marketing staple for almost a decade now. People love videos. They prefer to see a video explaining the business rather than read long paragraphs about it.

Takeaway

So, these were the four core blocks for building a strong online presence. Most local advertising agencies offer all of those things in one complete package at a very competitive monthly fee. They develop a great website, manage your local SEO, and further create strategies that work for paid advertising campaigns. These agencies sometimes have their in-house creative team or partner with local production studios or expert freelancers to create great videos for your business.