It doesn’t seem all that long ago that local business owners went to their usual list of offline advertising and publicity options, including ads in the local newspaper, Yellow Pages inclusions, printed marketing (brochures, leaflets, flyers, etc.) and telemarketing. However, the times have changed and those options are less viable than they once were for the majority of local businesses.
In 2018, your business may still find that it gains traction with offline advertising, but if you’re not marketing your business online, you’re not where your customers are looking. As that’s so, you need to increase your online exposure and the best way to do that is through local search, especially Google’s local search as Google is used far more than its competitors, including Bing and Yahoo, to find local businesses.
Basically, if you’re not showing on Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), your business isn’t going to be found and customers looking for businesses like yours will find your competitors instead.
Local Citations
A great way to increase your online exposure is through SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) techniques, such as optimising your web pages with keywords and listing on leading local business directories like Pure Local, one of the top business directories in Australia. By listing your business on local business directories, especially those that have a high Domain Authority (DA) score, you can increase your online visibility in local search results. Here are a few of the many benefits:
- Amplify your online presence. The more business directories you list in, the more your business name will appear across the web. That means you could start showing for more searches, especially if your business name includes relevant keywords.
- Get discovered by locals. By listing in local business directories, local customers searching for businesses like yours will see your listing more often. Even if they don’t always click on your listing, they become more familiar with your business and that increases brand awareness.
- Improve local visibility. As is the aim of setting up a citation campaign, listing in local business directories increases your visibility in SERPs. When your business starts appearing on the first page of search results, you’ll start getting more enquiries about your products and services, ultimately leading to increased sales and revenue.
While there are costs involved in listing on business directories (some are free while others require a subscription or one-off payment), there are many benefits to doing so, including those discussed above and many more.
How to Set Up a Campaign
Depending on what you hope to achieve, a citations campaign can be run internally or you can enlist the services of a citations provider to set up the campaign for you. There are a number of service providers that offer services that enable you to take a backseat approach, or you could do the research, identify the most important business directories to list on and then manage this yourself.
Local citations campaigns offer many benefits, including increased online visibility which leads to more interest in your products and services.
