What is Local Digital Marketing?

When you do a search on a search engine and the results come up - what is the map and the little red balloons with letters in them? That is what is referred to as “local listings”. And it should become a bigger and bigger part of your online marketing strategy, especially if your business relies on your neighbors buying your products or paying for your services to stay afloat. Claiming your listings or profiles (depending on what you want to call them) and optimizing them to help get you to the top of the list can be critical to the success of your local business.

What is a Local Listing?

Your Local listing is different from your standard SEO or organic rankings on the search results and are based on different information and a different algorithm. Just when you thought you were figuring this online stuff out – they go and change the game again! And it isn’t as easy as claiming or building a profile in the top three search engines – you need to optimize those profiles adding as much information as you can – AND, and here is the tricky part – you need to get online reviews from your customers. Oh man, this marketing stuff is just work, work, work! No cheating either… Local Digital Marketing, like all other online marketing opportunities take time and effort.

You can’t go out and just post a bunch of glowing reviews from your own computer, the search engines have gotten smart and they know if you are trying to take a short cut. You actually need to ask your customers to go online and post a review of your products and services – the more reviews – the better. The systems also takes into account how close you are to what is called the “city center”. So if you are close to downtown Orlando for example, you have the potential, especially if you have lots of reviews, to be “A” on the local listings. But like all things online there is more than one thing that controls where and how you are listed so by doing everything you possibly can you increase your chances of being successful.

If you need help with claiming or setting up your local profiles and optimizing them to take as much advantage of these opportunities as possible please contact Sales & Marketing Technologies at 407.682.2222.