When you market a local business there are many things you can do to help increase your online visibility and to get more visitors and more customers. If you have a physical location, you can also leverage things like Google My Business to help people find and contact you.
Example:
Let’s say you have a business located in Estepona and you want to appeal to people that reside in and around the area, as well as an international audience so they can also find you when they visit for holidays etc.
Website
The first thing you should have is a well written, easy to navigate and functional website, ideally kept up to date with blog articles of interest for your area or business.
Make sure your contact details are easy to find and even include a web form so people can contact you easily.
Social Media
Most businesses would benefit from having social media accounts like Facebook and Instagram. They can serve multiple purposes for your business. Facebook for example allows you to communicate with existing customers or potential new customers. It helps you keep them updated with activities, events and important information.
It is essential that you keep these posts regular so that people know you are in business and you are the one they should visit.
You can also use your social media to gain more customers by paying for coverage. If you want to appeal locally you can define the geographical locations you want people to see your advert and even the age range.
Paid Search
People not so familiar with the area or who are planning a trip might also search for information on certain businesses types in Google via a keyword search. For example if a family based in the UK and are planning to head to Marbella and Estepona on holiday with young children, they might want to plan some activities for their children. They will probably search for something like activities for kids Estepona in Google.
If you are a business that provides these types of services you will want to either be appearing in the Local Listings via a Google My Business listing, organically in the search results, as a paid advert for the keyword search, or a combination of all. The more you appear, the better chance you have of the user contacting you.
Appearing for these types of searches are not generally by chance, they are as a result of good marketing. Not every business has a dedicated marketing department or the time to keep fully up tp date with online and offline marketing techniques (which change regularly). That is why it is important to use a dedicated marketing firm to help you market your local business in the optimum way.