Local SEO is an important aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) that helps small businesses to reach their local audience and compete with larger businesses in their area. With the right local SEO strategies in place, small businesses can improve their online visibility, drive more traffic to their website, and increase their chances of attracting new customers.
Here are some of the key benefits of local SEO for small businesses:
Local SEO is an essential component of any successful online marketing strategy for small businesses. By improving your online visibility, increasing your local search rankings, and engaging with your local audience, you can drive more traffic to your website, attract new customers, and grow your business.
Let i3 help you with improving your local presence with #SEO consulting
E-commerce has taken over the market in the 21st century. More and more customers are choosing to use the internet to buy their goods or services as opposed to face-to-face transactions, especially since the pandemic. Most companies have already seen growth in using digital platforms, as #supplychain predicts an uptick in distributing products for online sales over brick and mortar. If you are looking to set up a business in e-commerce or currently own an e-commerce business there are several important factors to consider to ensure your business is a success.
Firstly, you must make sure that your business is dedicated to creating a positive online shopping experience for customers. Your products must add value to the customer’s life and go beyond a mere commodity. Your site should be motivated by creating an empathetic and personalized connection with the customer, one that creates trust and brand loyalty. You want to create a journey for your customer where they feel like they are in control: the system should only respond to what the customer tells it to and when it does respond these responses should be motivated by creating micro moments ( moments of high intent and engagement) by prioritizing the most relevant content and supporting your products with trustworthy data.
In order to market your business effectively you should look into advertising platforms. The correct advertisements will educate your customers and drive them to your business. There are several options available to advertise your business.
One of the most popular advertising routes for e-commerce businesses is through social media platforms. Social media will allow you to target an entire social network and engage with your community by responding to comments on any posts receive. It is important that you are savvy when advertising your business on social media: make sure you are using a platform that is actively used by your target audience and that the timings of your posts grab the attention of a variety of users.
Given the competitive environment on social media platforms, you might choose to stretch the reach of your business by paying for social media advertising. Paid adverts are available on the majority of social media platforms and will ensure that your business reaches a larger audience. An increasingly popular option is to pay a social media influencer to advertise e-commerce businesses. As long as you have ensured that the influencer you are working with is well-known to your target audience you can build up a successful partnership.
If you want to step away from social media, one of the cheapest and quickest ways to advertise your business is through email lists and offers. With a specific list of potential or existing customers you can make sure that your email is personalized and offer customers incentives to visit your business through various promotion strategies that boost engagement (for example, creating an incentive for customers to spend a long time on your site through offering a treasure hunt for a specific word or item).
Of course, your advertising must be supported by good pricing. It is very easy for a customer to find the average price for a product so make sure that the price you are offering is not only competitive but also based on logic. For the former, customers might appreciate features such as a displayed Registered Retail Price that shows them what they would be saving if they purchased from your business. Looking at your e-commerce site as a whole you could easily boost customer engagement by using a loss leader. A loss leader is where you offer one product for a very reduced price to lure customers in, but ultimately you gain more profits through the up-sells and cross-sells that the loss leader creates. For example, if a supermarket were to offer a barbecue at a reduced price, they would also expect further profits to come in from products associated with the barbecue such as salads, meats, sauces, and drinks.
Once you have customer traffic on your business page half the battle has been won. However, it is important that all the hard work put in to drive customers to your business is not made futile by obstructive payment features. Cart abandonment is a problem that every e-commerce business faces: when a customer exits your site before any sale has been completed. Unfortunately, the odds are not stacked in your favor: for every 100 customers who start the checkout process, 69 won’t finish it. In order to overcome this issue you must make it as easy and smooth as possible for the customer to purchase your products. This could be done by adding multiple checkout buttons so that it is simple to navigate your site or reducing the number of fields your customer must complete in the payment process: something as simple as offering a guest checkout option will eliminate unneeded steps that might put your customer off.
If you already have a website or are looking to work with a team directly we can be able to assist. Email us today at info@i3megmarketinggroup.com or send a text message to 214-856-0631.
We’ve all been told that referrals are one of the best forms of advertising. Let’s face it, we generally trust the recommendations of those we know especially when they have had a positive, first-hand experience with a product or service provider.
Referrals are good in a number of ways:
Referrals have always been considered as a “word-of-mouth” recommendation from a known individual, that description is changing in the digital world. You may not realize it, an online review is a form of recommendation or referral. Although the person leaving a review is not likely known by the readers of their ratings and/or comments, the review gives the reader a certain confidence, or lack thereof, in the vendor, product or service. According to Myles Anderson, Founder & CEO of BrightLocal.com, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. That’s impressive considering the source of the review is most likely not personally known by the reader. The number of reviews found online effects the trust factor as well. A business generally needs a minimum of 6 to 10 reviews to be trusted.
Most businesses assume that online reviews only related to physical products purchased online or food service providers such as dine-in restaurants and fast food chains. However, in directories and independent rating sites like Google, Yelp, Yellow Pages and Trip Advisor, to name a few, reviews are being posted online for all types of businesses in every industry. The reviews aren’t just limited to individual customers or young people. People of all ages are posting reviews and even businesses are posting about other businesses they purchase from.
Even more importantly, search engines such as Google and Bing are beginning to adopt average review ratings into their ranking algorithms thus increasing the importance of a good rating from each.
Do not worry about your online reputation. i3 has the updates to keep your company aware of all of the new strategies to look out for this year.