The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker
Once upon a time, there was a small town in a quiet corner of suburbia. Each of its shops was, in a quintessentially British way, individual and they all sold completely different things.
The butcher, the baker, the greengrocer, the grocer, the newsagent, the general store, the bookshop, the masseur, the yoga centre, the pub, the coffee shop, the restaurant, the fish and chip shop, the Chinese takeway, the Indian takeaway, the video rental store, the petshop, the petrol station. Each establishment knew the remit of its clientele and stuck to it.
Traditional Advertising In The Modern World
Fast forward twenty years and you have towns that seem to be a collection of the same shops, all within a few hundred metres of each other – coffee shops and wine bars have proliferated, along with supermarkets. Sometimes four or five of the big players in just one small town, clamping down the margins and making life very difficult for their smaller competitors.
They know that they need to get more clients but the traditional methods of advertising are no longer as effective as they once were. The local newspaper and the Yellow Pages used to be the first ports of call for any promotional campaigns but, these days, both are mere shadows of what they once were.
The big spectre behind any commercially successful marketing is ROI – return on investment. And it’s very difficult to monitor with either of those two traditional methods – unless you use a tracking phone number or some kind of promotional discount that requires them to state where they saw the ad.
Small business advertising in the 21st century – Local SEO
The advent of the 21st century and the computer age meant that business owners began to realise there was a whole new source of income. The on-line market. Whether it was selling goods and delivering by mail or actually getting their business in front of customers browsing the internet in search of their product.
But this big new world came with a caveat. A whole raft of snake oil salesmen out to sell the world to the naive and charge them a fortune for promises that would be very hard to fulfil.
Speaking to local business owners, they get calls almost every day from purveyors of websites and search engine optimisation services, all promising to ‘get you to the top of Google’ but without explaining that SEO is a constant process which cannot be manipulated with a big stick. It requires regular and consistent work which is on-going to perpetuate any gains which have been achieved. However, it’s not about big words and geeky expressions, rather hard graft and repetition. Content, Activity and Backlinks are at the foundation of a successful and effective website.
Why A Beautiful Website Might Not Be An Effective One
Which brings us on to website designs – some designers can produce the most beautiful templates, aesthetically pleasing and slick. But, in many cases, the potential customers of that business can’t work out how to use the website and swiftly move on to a simpler site provided by a competitor. Beautiful does not always equate to successful. Functionality and relevance are key.
And functionality applies to the ability of the business owner to be able to upload any changes himself. They don’t want to have to pay a fortune and then keep paying every time they need a new photograph or to change some of the text.
Local business owners want a website that both they and their customers can understand and use and they need someone they can trust who can offer simple, affordable Local SEO Services which will promote their business on the search engine results page for their area. They don’t need to rank for the UK, just for their immediate location because the majority of consumers will purchase from a business within five miles of their base.
Why Reviews and Recommendations Count For Everything In Today’s Market
It’s not so much different to the old days of one shop in each town. When transportation was harder, people shopped locally. Today, it’s a question of trust and many people don’t want to buy from someone they don’t know who lives miles away. They need to have heard that service or product recommended by their friends – verbally or through social media – and they want to know that it has a physical bricks and mortar presence which they can see in order to establish credibility.
And they need someone they can trust, who has the same passion for their business success as they do. Energy and enthusiasm all expended on their behalf and going the extra mile to make things happen.
That’s the marketing ethos at Lollipop Local. We’re passionate about your success and we get as much pleasure from seeing your website perform well as you do. It’s great to see the fruits of our labours equating to positive performance… and a ringing telephone.
Working in Essex and Birmingham, we take pride in being able to explain the intricacies of search engine optimisation and social media strategy in words that non-Geeks can understand.
To find out more give us a call on 01702 476517 or 0121 249 1306
Originally posted 2011-09-01 08:55:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
Suite 1, 103 Leigh Road Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, SS9 1JL UK
info@lollipoplocal.co.uk • 01702 476517
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