Brick & Mortar businesses offer their services face to face. Take the cafe a block away from your house; they are a brick & mortar business.
Today, many online stores compete fiercely with brick & mortar businesses. Stores like Amazon and Ali Baba have empowered hundreds of thousands of manufacturers and producers by creating a platform where companies can interact with customers and offer their services and products—without ever seeing each other.
What does this mean for your brick & mortar business? Can a brick & mortar business compete with an online business? What SEO techniques can a brick & mortar CEO employ to boost sales?
We brought over one of the most successful direct response marketers and entrepreneurs, Nimrod Santo, to answer these questions and every other question you may have regarding local SEO for brick & mortar businesses. Let’s hand it over to him.
First, more than ever, your brick & mortar business must become relevant online. According to a report by Hubspot, 89% of people who use smartphones will search for a local business once a week—and it can be more.
That’s 89% of an untapped pool of potential customers you will be ignoring if you do not bring your local business online. But what’s all the fuss about local SEO, and how does it differ?
Local SEO is Organic SEO with Geography.
Local SEO is similar to organic SEO—to an extent. As a local business owner, you are mainly concerned about serving the people in your community.
Is your barbershop not getting enough customers? Why don’t you optimize your web presence and meet them online?
Fun Fact: Many young people make buying decisions online, even if they want to purchase the good or service from a brick & mortar business. If I leave Colorado for San Jose, California, and I intend to have lunch in Colorado, I will most likely search for ‘best restaurants in Colorado.’
Google will give me the top-three best restaurants in Colorado through an algorithm known as 3-pack. The 3-pack is the top 3 list Google uses to identify the 3 best restaurants in San Jose.
Now that you know just how important local SEO is for your brick & mortar business, it’s time to understand how you can effectively go about it.
Tip 1: Maximize Google My Business— GMB
GMB or Google My Business is your business listing on Google. To go about it properly, ensure that your business is claimed, the name, address, phone number, and other essential information about your business are added.
Tip 2: Get Excellent Reviews
People often make final buying decisions from reviews. You get great reviews by making your business outstanding.
Black hat SEO trick like paying people to give fake reviews might trick people into using your service or buying your product; however, if your service or product is terrible, the real customers will definitely be aware of your fake reviews. Focus on making your business relevant and likable, and people will give honest, positive reviews.
Tip 3: Check out your visitors’ behaviour
Tools like Google Analytics will give you vital insights into your visitors’ behavior. How long do they spend on your site? Do they make purchases on your site? What pages do they visit the most?
All these data will help you determine how best to position your business, weaknesses, and strengths.
Tip 4: Have Uniform Information on Social Media and other Platforms
I have seen many businesses whose phone numbers on Trip Advisor are different from those on their Instagram page. A verified social media page can also help establish your presence on social media, and you can direct the traffic to your brick & mortar store.
Tip 5: Email Marketing
Email marketing is important to the growth and survival of your brick & mortar store. Ensure that you send consistent informational and product update newsletters to your clients.
With newsletters, you can inform consumers about exciting product releases, events, information about the industry, coupons, and more.
Connect with Nimrod Santo for more SEO insights.
