3 Myths of Local Search Engine Marketing

Local Search Engine Marketing (or “local SEM”) is a huge and growing opportunity. And even though it is in its infancy, there are still some things that are misunderstood about it. Here are some of those myths… and what the real deal is:

Local search engine marketing myth #1: Locals don’t search online. Wow, this is a big one. Locals do search online for things that they will later go and buy at the store. Therefore, you need to make sure that you are meeting their online search needs. This trend is going to rise alongside the mobile web because people will search on the go.

Local search engine marketing myth #2: Your competitors can work to achieve the same keywords, too, so what’s the point. This makes some sense. If you want to aggressively target some other kind of brand in the hopes that people will search for that instead, it’s perfectly understandable. However, there is a lot of opportunity in local search right now because consumers are searching locally more often but local businesses haven’t caught up to the demand yet.

Local search engine marketing myth #3: It can be done by the business owner. This is a pervasive myth because small businesses may not have the budget to create big local SEM campaigns. However, SEM isn’t done well simply by buying a book or asking your web-savvy cousin. SEM is best done by a marketing professional with proven experience in it.

The Ready-to-Buy Psychology of Local Online Marketing

The internet is not just a global medium. It’s a powerful local medium. No matter where you live, people are searching for the service you provide with a local modifier: “[your city] [your service]” (like “Chicago dog walker” or “Kansas plumber”).

Marketing with this “[your city] [your service]” technique has some advantages: It’s faster to achiever higher search engine ranking placement and it costs less because you’re not competing against larger multinational conglomerations with huge search engine optimization budgets.

But there’s something else that is important to consider about the psychology of searchers who are searching locally. Let’s say you are thinking of buying a car. You type in “car” into a search engine and see what comes up. Maybe you narrow it down by manufacturer.

So, let’s say that as you do your research you go from searching for “car” to searching for “midsize car” to searching amongst “general motors”, “ford”, “dodge”.

This is all at the conceptual level; the research level. What happens when you’re ready to buy? You don’t just type in “Ford dealership”.

No. If you live in Atlanta, you type in “Atlanta Ford dealership”… Notice that’s the [your city] [service] search.

So, the psychology of people search locally is this: They are ready to buy.

The web is a powerful research tool, but the terms used to research are general and broad. Searchers hit credible, authoritative sites to get more information. And when they’re ready to buy? They add a local modifier and look to a solution provider in their neighborhood.

Search Engine Marketing as a Branding Tool

The hidden story of search engine marketing

Search engine marketing serves the most obvious purpose of attracting traffic to your site. But that’s not the only work it does. It positions you; it brands you. In this blog, we’ll look at six ways that you can strengthen your brand and, as a result, strengthen your search engine marketing:

1. Define your business and services. While many businesses think they can define their business and their services, they are really just defining them from an industry insider’s perspective. Instead, define your business and your services from a customer perspective: To use one real-estate-related search engine marketing example: People won’t search for “I want a real estate agent”; they’ll search for “I want to buy a home.”

2. Developing your marketing materials and your story. You can’t do it all; there are simply too many marketing options out there. So, decide what your story is (summarize it like an elevator pitch) and then decide which of the many marketing options available are best to relate your story. Be sure to develop a mix of search engine marketing and offline marketing to get a good mix.

3. What makes your brand stand out? Every brand needs to have something unique; otherwise you’ll just get lost in the crowd. As you build up a reputation online, people will start to search for what makes you unique. This also helps local search engine marketing as well if your brand is related to a narrowly defined geographic area.

4. Building and managing your brand online. This is where search engine marketing comes into play: While you’re creating content to push or pull traffic to your website, that content is also establishing your brand. By the time people get to your website they are already familiar with who you are, what you do, and what makes you unique.

5. Manage your brand reputation online.  Search engine marketing is not a “set it and forget” effort. You need to be consistent and strategic in order to maintain your reputation. Develop a search engine marketing strategy that has a long-term timeline with plenty of short-term effort spaced evenly throughout.

We’ll talk more about branding in the weeks to come!