If you run a local business, you face publicity challenges that do not so strongly apply to larger organisations offering their products or services nationally or internationally.
For a start, to spend your marketing money efficiently, you must be careful to target only people based physically close to where you operate.
The internet still makes an ideal place for you to spread the word about what you offer. However, even if you set up a website (and web designers from our team can certainly help you with that), relatively few people could come across it if you neglect to promote it elsewhere on the web.
For this reason, you might seriously consider pouring money into either SEO (search engine optimisation) or PPC (pay per click). However, which of these options should you prioritise using first?
What would count as a local business?
A local business is basically a company that offers its products and/or services only in the local area. This can be out of choice, such as if the company wants to avoid growing too quickly, or down to drab practical reasons.
Good examples of local businesses would therefore include restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, salons, spas and pet shops.
What is SEO?
It is basically about optimising your website so that it is listed more prominently on search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO techniques we can help you with include:
- Setting up a Google Business Profile listing
- Inserting appropriate keywords into existing text on your website
- Writing new online content, such as blog posts
- Improving your website’s internal linking structure
One great thing about SEO is that it is geared towards luring visitors through unpaid search results. As a result, it can prove more and more cost-effective over time.
What is PPC?
This is a type of paid advertising where you arrange for an online publisher, such as a search engine or social media site, to post your ads on their network. That way, their own users will see the ads and so hopefully decide to click on them to learn more about your business.
You will only pay the publisher when someone clicks on a PPC ad of your company’s. Exactly how much you pay here can depend on your industry as well as how often the keywords you target with the ads are used in searches on the network.
Which of these two routes should you go down first?
As your business will have a relatively small customer base, you might not exactly have a huge marketing budget. Fortunately, though SEO can require a certain amount of upfront spending, its beneficial effect can grow over the long term without needing your direct input.
Nonetheless, PPC can potentially prove the better option in certain specialist instances — such as if you are looking to spread the word about a limited-run offer or a unique, innovative product.
As we at Webahead Internet offer both SEO and PPC services, we can lend you a helping hand in either case — please email info@webaheadinternetltd.co.uk for further details.
