Do you want to attract as many people as possible to your physical store (clothing store, household electricals shop, restaurant, hairdressing salon, etc.)? Local marketing is just what you need to achieve this. With local marketing, consumers will be able to find you by entering their search term followed by the words “near me” or “nearby”. In this post, we will define hyperlocal marketing, its challenges and the five strategies that need to be implemented.
What is hyperlocal marketing?
46% of all Google searches are made to find a local company. Hyperlocal marketing is therefore a profitable strategy that offers instant conversion:
1️⃣ Customers enter a search term, followed by the keywords “near me” or “nearby”, e.g. “coworking space near me”
2️⃣ They go to the physical site
3️⃣ They consume, buy a product, or make a reservation for later
As the name indicates, local marketing targets a very restricted geographical area. The idea behind this commercial model is to increase footfall in your store as well as sales by focusing on nearby prospects who are ready to commit to a purchase.
This strategy is made possible by the increasing penetration of smartphones and the internet.
Any company with a brick-and-mortar store can now benefit from hyperlocal marketing:
- Clothing stores
- Household electricals shops
- Toy shops
- Sports equipment stores
- Restaurants
- Hotels
- Estate agents
- Hairdressing salons
- Beauty salons, etc.
The question is, how can you feature in the results when a prospect carries out a hyperlocal search?
That’s what we’re going to look at in the next part of this post, with five effective strategies that are easy to implement.
5 hyperlocal marketing strategies to employ
Are you ready to boost your store’s footfall? 🚀
Here’s our advice to help you attract more customers to your brick-and-mortar store using hyperlocal SEO.
1. Create a Google My Business profile
Creating a Google business profile (otherwise known as Google My Business) is an absolute priority. Without that, potential customers won’t be able to find you when they type the words “nearby” or “near me” into a search engine.
Your Google business profile will enable you to:
- Appear on Google Maps at the very top of Google’s search results when someone carries out a hyperlocal search
- Get more information requests by phone or email
- Highlight key information about your company (opening times, address, menu if you’re a restaurateur, etc.)
- Promote your events
All you have to do is open a Google account and click on “create a profile”. Once it is published, you should add photos of your business and update your profile regularly.
2. Set the “location” component for your Google Ads
What is the “location” component in Google Ads campaigns?
It’s geographical information added to your Google Ads. This feature enables users to find and interact with your business easily.
To set the “location” for your campaigns, follow these steps:
- Click on “Ads”
- Go to “Components” in the pages menu on the left
- From “Components”, click on the “More” button
- Select the “Location” component
When you’ve done that, your address will be displayed below your Google Ads, like this:
Good to know: you can also add the “location” component to a group of ads to set up an SEA strategy that will succeed on a hyperlocal scale.
3. Use hyperlocal SEO
In addition to your Google My Business profile, you should have a dedicated website for your business. Your website is your online shop window. To ensure that it gets more visibility, you should configure it for hyperlocal SEO.
Merely entering the location of your business is not enough to make it appear in local search results.
Not only should you identify keywords by country, but also by city and by neighbourhood! 📍
For example, you can enter the names of neighbouring streets or landmarks near your store. All these details will help users to find your store, but also search engines to list your website locally.
Hyperlocal is a question of minutiae.
The more keywords you use relating to your business and your location, the greater chance you’ve got of appearing higher up the Google rankings.
You should avoid the most common SEO errors. And to ensure that lady luck really is on your side, you should employ SEO best practice, such as the use of keywords in your metadata (title, meta description, slug), in the titles of your posts and in the body of your texts.
Lastly, don’t forget to highlight your address and phone number on your site’s main page.
4. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly
Did you know that currently 64% of searches are carried on mobile devices compared to 35% on desktop computers?
Our smartphones have become extensions of our hands and are being increasingly used to find nearby places. The reason is because, whether we’re in the street or in our cars, we’ve always got our phones with us.
That’s why you need to ensure that your site is suitable for mobile searches. Mobile-friendly sites are easy to read and use on a mobile phone. They display the text clearly, load rapidly and include calls to action.
5. Get online reviews
Before visiting your brick-and-mortar store or calling you, most customers will read online reviews of your business.
Customer reviews are now essential to reassure visitors to your website. They enable customers to check that your company is still in business, that any problems with previous customers have been resolved and that your goodwill is still intact. If you get too many negative reviews, such as “dishonest trader, always grumpy”, you risk seeing footfall in your brick-and-mortar store drop.
In addition, online reviews are a key ranking factor in local search results.
Don’t be afraid to ask your customers to leave you a review (if possible, including the name of your city and your company)! Display your reviews on your website, Google profile and social media.
💡
Have you received a bad review? Respond rapidly and provide a solution to the person in question. This demonstrates your good faith and responsiveness.
Hyperlocal marketing: recap of the strategies!
If you want to conquer the unexploited local market, we advise you to begin by creating a Google My Business profile.
Next, you can:
- Ask your customers to leave reviews to improve your ranking
- Insert a link to your mobile-friendly website
- Write blog posts with strong hyperlocal potential
- Activate the “Location” component in your Google Ads campaigns
And now that you know all about hyperlocal marketing, learn about the challenges of conversational marketing!
