Online shopping brought in $8.9 billion in sales for 2021. What’s even crazier is that figure doesn’t include brick-and-mortar purchases. Making it, without a doubt, one of the busiest and most competitive times of the year for local businesses trying to compete with big players like Amazon, Target, and Walmart.

So if your clients are looking to capitalize on the Black Friday buying frenzy, you’ll want to prepare their local Google Business Profile (GBP) and website well before Black Friday arrives.

In this quick guide, we’ll share how to incorporate a Black Friday marketing strategy into your client’s current digital marketing strategy to drive sales during the holiday shopping season.

Let’s dive in.

Here’s your local business checklist for Black Friday and Cyber Monday:

1. Set holiday hours

Black Friday sales are notorious for attracting bargain-hunting shoppers during the wee hours of the morning.

And every year, Black Friday sales start creeping closer and closer to Thursday (Thanksgiving Day). Not even a full belly of turkey and pumpkin pie can keep the determined shopper at bay.

Since most stores have different opening hours around the holidays, it’s critical to update your client’s Google Business Profile to reflect their specific hours for Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday.

Are they open on Thanksgiving? Do their store hours differ on Black Friday compared to their regular operating hours? Asking and answering questions about Black Friday in the Q&A section of your client’s business profile is the perfect way to keep their customers informed about holiday hours and sale details. 

Google also recommends confirming your client’s holiday hours, even if they will be the same as their normal hours. This simple gesture reassures customers that they are open for business on those days.

Source: Google Support

As a shopper, there’s nothing more infuriating than searching for and confirming store hours on Google and then showing up at the storefront only to find that the store is closed, especially when you are on a mission to find the best deals around before they sell out.

Thankfully, all you need to do is a simple update in the Google Business Profile. Follow these steps for setting holiday hours:

1. Navigate to Business Profile
2. Click Edit profile → Business information
3. Click the Hours tab
4. Within Business hours, click Holiday hours
5. Select the date
6. Update your client’s hours
7. If they are open on the holiday, check the box next to the date and enter the open and close times
8. If they are closed on the holiday, uncheck the box next to the date
9. Click save

As an essential reminder, make sure to select “Open with main hours” to guarantee that your client’s business hours appear on their Business Profile.

2. Add Black Friday specific products to the Product Catalog

The Google Business Profile Product Editor makes it easy to showcase your client’s products, drive customer interactions, and increase sales through the Google Business Profile.

Customers will see a curated showcase of products on the Business Profile Products tab on mobile or the Product Overview module on the computer. This coveted virtual real estate is the perfect place to promote your client’s top products available for purchase during the Black Friday sale.

65% of customers admit that they’ll look up price comparisons online while shopping in a physical store. This is an excellent opportunity for your client to get a leg up on the competition. Make sure your client’s prices are accurately updated to reflect any offers or discounts during the sale. You can also use price ranges for simplicity.

In this example, CocoNene, a local home goods store in Kapolei, Hawaii, shares some of its best-selling products in its Product Catalog. Notice that they include both high-quality images and prices for each related product.

Black Friday is more competitive than ever, so make sure your client’s products are attractive and have the information needed to catch the buyer’s attention.

Use a collage maker to create high-quality, professional-looking product images for your client to include in an offers post. You can even add the discount somewhere in the image to reiterate the value of the sale, like how Steve’s Plumbing & A/C Service adds the instant $750 rebate to the image. 

Another great thing about the Product Catalog is that you can include a call-to-action (CTA) directly in the interface. In this case, CocoNene connected its Google Business Profile to its website to streamline a one-click purchase.

When you click the “Buy” CTA, it brings you directly to the product on their website to finalize the purchase. Providing a seamless shopping experience for the customer will help improve conversion rates.

The goal of Black Friday is to sell as many products as possible to make up for the heavily discounted prices. Since you expect higher purchase volume and customer reviews, connect your client’s online store to the appropriate sales software to track and optimize sales and customer experience.

Make sure you monitor reviews during this period as you may see an increase with more products flying out. It’s an important time for reviews and you may want to consider using a review management tool to help.

Automating any part of the sales process will help cut down on wait times, improve customer experience, and ensure optimal reporting. Then you can both sit back, relax and watch the sales pour in.

3. Publish Google Posts to help customers prepare for Black Friday shopping

Don’t underestimate the power of Google Posts as a Black Friday marketing strategy. These posts are different from the average blog posts on your client’s native website.

These posts appear instantaneously in local search results and Google Maps. You don’t have to wait days, weeks, or months for blog posts to rank on the first page of Google. What’s better than that?

Use Google Posts to share announcements, offers, new or popular items, inventory, event details, or other details about your client’s business with customers. These posts are visible through the “Updates” or “Overview” tabs of the Business Profile. 

Since customers can access your client’s business information and updates as they browse, they can make better decisions. This helps them to:

• Communicate directly with local customers.
• Provide timely information to improve the customer experience.
• Promote Black Friday sales, specials, news, and offers.
• Increase engagement with their customers via posts, videos, and photos.

So leading up to Black Friday, create a consistent publishing schedule of Google Posts about topics that’ll help your client’s customers prepare for their Black Friday shopping.

For example, if they sell plumbing services, consider writing a post that ranks the top kitchen sinks or steam showers on the market (including links to product pages on their website). You can also consider reaching out to local press sites to get their offers included in round-ups to increase engagement and reach.

Another great option is to repurpose these Google Posts and turn them into email marketing campaigns to convert more browsers into buyers. 

Here are a few tips for using email marketing on Black Friday:

1. Make sure that your client’s emails are personalized—use the customer’s name in the subject line to make them feel like they’re getting something special just for them.
2. Include discount codes and promo codes in your client’s emails so that people can save money on their purchases right away (and know what they are getting). 
3. Send out a reminder email on the day before Black Friday with links to all of your client’s products at a discounted price. This way people who might have forgotten about your client’s sale can still take advantage of it. 
4. Use images in your emails to increase engagement and score more clicks. 

4. Create a website landing page for Black Friday sales, deals, and promotions

Up to this point, we have focused on optimizing your client’s Google Business Profile.

Unfortunately, Google restricts content on Business Profiles for financial services, pharmaceuticals, health/medical devices, etc. If your client’s business falls into one of these categories, like a local pharmacy that sells antidepressants online or a winery that sells alcoholic beverages, using their own website for promotion is the only way forward.

But don’t fret. Google shares some excellent recommendations for optimizing a website landing page for Black Friday shopping. Here are some of the highlights:

• Don’t wait too long to create the page. It’s best to make the landing page for your client’s promotion well before the sale so that Googlebot has time to discover and index it.
• Include internal links. Adding a link from your client’s home page to the landing page will help users (and Google) find the landing page faster.
• Use a recurring URL. Create a meaningful URL that reflects the event and can be reused annually. For example, www.example.com/sale/black-Friday instead of www.example.com/sale/2022/black-Friday.
• Add an image. Similar to Product Catalog, include a high-quality image that represents your client’s sale and has appropriate alt-text.
• When in doubt, apply for a recrawl. Ask Google to recrawl the landing page via Google Search Console to ensure the updated content reflects correctly (given the URL is repurposed). 

A well-crafted landing page for your client’s Black Friday sales, like this one from The Winery at Bull Run, can make the difference between someone buying from your client or moving on to the next deal. So make that first impression count. 

5. Upgrade to a mobile-friendly website

Mobile access to online retailers and ordering options have made the smartphone a crucial tool in consumers’ shopping habits. In 2021, almost 43% of Black Friday sales were purchased through mobile phones.

But smartphones aren’t just for buying. They’re also changing in-store behavior. Customers use their phones to find nearby retail locations, check local inventories, confirm store hours, compare prices and pay for purchases.

Just for Fun, a store in Noe Valley, San Francisco, selling art supplies, crafts, and toys, uses its Google Business Profile to share live inventory details with its customers around the busy holiday season. These details are available on both the desktop and mobile versions of their profile.  

What’s the key takeaway? Your client should have a mobile-friendly website to cater to changes in consumer behavior. Thankfully, the best website builders and Google Business Profiles already include mobile-friendly features.

A mobile-friendly website can make or break your client’s Black Friday sales volumes. Don’t miss out on this significant source of traffic. It’s worth the last-minute check to ensure their website is up-to-snuff. 

Wrapping up

Preparing your client’s Google Business Profile and website for Black Friday is a lot of work, but the payoff is worth it.

Making sure everything on their site and profile is up-to-date increases the chances that customers will find what they’re looking for during the most significant sales event of the year. If you’re not sure what state your GBP is in, try running a Google Business Profile Audit.

But it doesn’t stop there. These tips for a Black Friday marketing strategy also help your client build a strong online presence. And if they know how to use it to their advantage, they can turn it from a one-time revenue boost to a year-round driver of sales.

So how can local companies stand out from the masses and compete for business with mega-corporations? The answer is more straightforward than you might think. 

By focusing on user experience, you can help your clients drive website traffic, increase conversions, and hold their own against global companies. 

We live in an era where every business has a website, so your client needs to stand out to make a serious impact. 

In this article, we’ll explore nine different ways you can enhance your client’s website to provide a stellar online user experience for long-term business success. 

What is online user experience?

Online user experience (UX) is the sum of all user interactions with your client’s product or website. 

User experience starts with user intent. Identifying customers’ needs and expectations enables your client’s business to design an ideal experience for their online customers. 

For example, UX is all about how easy it is to navigate their site or app, what information they provide when someone visits their page, and how easy it is for your client’s users to find what they need. 

User experience design has grown in popularity over the past few years as more people use websites and apps on their phones than ever before. This means that UX design has become increasingly important for businesses that want to stay competitive in today’s digital market.

Areas of UX Improvement

You can improve the user experience of your client’s website in many ways. 

When it comes to local brick-and-mortar businesses, the strategies may differ from those of larger chain corporations. 

Local businesses aren’t one-size-fits-all, but there are a few areas of UX improvement that almost every local business can consider. 

Area 1: Google’s Core Web Vitals

Google’s Core Web Vitals are important to your client’s business. 

Why? Because according to Google, they’re one of the main ways that search engines determine how well their website is performing.

Google uses Core Web Vitals data like speed, broken links, and time people spend on the site to evaluate website performance.

The faster your client’s website performs, the better it ranks in Google search results. So if they’re looking for more traffic and better leads from Google searches, you must keep up with these metrics. 

(Image Source)

Google’s Core Web Vitals gives users website speed and performance data. This data can help them improve their UX, search engine rankings, and business success.

Area 2: Ease of navigation

Have you ever searched for the website of your favorite restaurant? Most of the time you’ll encounter a horrendous website that’s impossible to navigate. You can’t even find the menu, for crying out loud. 

And what was your immediate reaction? You bounce, of course. 

So, it’s essential to avoid this same scenario with your client’s website at all costs. Check that links are working, edit landing pages for a better user experience, and create or update blog content using an AI writing tool or content writing service.

Quality content and clear pathways throughout your client’s website are a must-have. All sub-pages should be labeled accurately and created with easy-to-read fonts. Don’t overcomplicate — simplicity is best. 

Stemple Creek Ranch, a grass-fed cattle ranch in Northern California, does an excellent job outlining its product-led content offerings on its website with clear, easy-to-read headers. 

And for anything that their customers can’t find right off the bat, they have included a search bar for increased navigability. Their customers can find the exact information they are looking for in a few simple clicks.

(Image Source)

Customers have a short attention span. They’ll bounce and go elsewhere if they cannot find something with minimal effort. 

An easy-to-navigate website equals happy customers. 

Area 3: Display important information

Make sure the most important information is displayed prominently.

Include a “Contact Us” page where customers can find an email address and “call us now” button to get in touch with them when they have questions or concerns. Also, include a link on your client’s homepage that takes visitors straight from the “Contact Us” page to any other page on their site.

Feature your client’s logo prominently on the website’s homepage, as well as other places on the site where it makes sense, such as within the menu bar. This will help people recognize who they are when they come across an article about local businesses in their area (especially if you are new to town), which helps build trust over time. 

Remember: You want to build trust through consistency, not just one lucky encounter with someone who happens upon some good advice at random while searching online for something else entirely.

Also, depending on the industry, make sure any booking pages or reservation systems are visible and identifiable on the homepage. 

For example, Ola Properties, a real estate management company in Hawaii, includes a rental booking portal on its website for vacation properties in West Oahu based on dates, number of bedrooms, and occupancy. 

(Image Source)

Placing the booking system on the homepage lets customers quickly find the next available rental unit without looking through multiple pages.

Area 4: Reducing design clutter

There’s something trustworthy about a nice website design.

Don’t underestimate the small details of your client’s website. Prioritize important imagery and website features over the urge to fill space. Embrace an appropriate amount of white space.

Make sure their images are relevant and customized to avoid generic stock imagery. 

(Image Source)

Personalized images add character and a human element to a user experience. So take pictures and promote the local charm of your client’s hotel, restaurant, or boutique through original photographs. 

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

Area 5: Utilizing original videos

Customers want to see videos. People remember 95% of a message if they view it in video format compared to 10% of the same message if they read it in text.

Videos are harder to fake and offer a more accurate view of the product. They could be a video walkthrough of hotel suites or a chef cooking local cuisine.

Another way to improve the user experience is to provide extra information about your client’s products and services. 

(Image Source)

For example, House of Prime Rib in San Francisco uses original videos to explain the unique service where the chef carves and serves your prime rib (with a side of mashed potatoes and creamed spinach) tableside. 

Videos are like a present, a nice bundle of information wrapped in a neatly tied bow.

Area 6: Modernizing your client’s webpage

Many local businesses have been operating on the same dated landing page for too long. Consider hiring a professional branding team, website design company, or virtual assistant to help spruce up your client’s webpage. 

The right company or service will be able to deliver an attractive and modern design that’s still true to your client’s roots and shares with locals a sense of familiarity and charm. 

Some local businesses may not think providing or improving their online experience is an essential part of their business; however, in today’s digital world, almost any business can benefit from this. 

For example, take a look at this list of moving container companies. What do they all have in common? They all offer stellar online user experiences, in addition to having an overall good moving service.

In other words, great digital experiences build trust.

So if you want to be included on best companies lists like these, you’ll need to make sure your online experience matches your real-world experience.

(Image Source)

Online tracking, quote calculators, and chatbots are simple tools that local moving companies provide to create a seamless experience for customers to stay at the top of the pack. 

Area 7: Leveraging social proof 

Social proof is a form of credibility that comes from the perception that something is popular, reputable, or of high quality.

Enable customers to leave comments and reviews. 

User-generated content on your client’s website helps customers feel good about their decision to buy and prevents them from going to a competitor’s site.

Social proof can be a powerful tool for local business websites because it can help increase conversion rates. This makes sense if you think about it: If people see that other people are using your client’s product or service and having success with it, then there’s a good chance they’ll also give it a try.

Use social proof by adding testimonials from happy customers in different formats, like videos and images, on different pages of your client’s website. You can add reviews from third-party review sites such as Yelp, Google Reviews, or Trustpilot directly onto pages where they have products/services available for purchase. 

Take Pride of Maui, the number one ranked Molokini snorkel tour, as an excellent example. 

They’ve integrated their five-star Tripadvisor rating on their homepage to showcase that Hawaii tourists love their snorkel tours. They complement the rating by sharing positive statements from recent outings.

(Image Source)

When a customer comes across these testimonials on the homepage of a website, they begin to trust the business credibility. 

The power of social proof is a force to be reckoned with.

Area 8: Creating a mobile-friendly site

Navigating a website on a desktop is very different compared to a mobile device. 

Make a mobile-friendly version of your client’s site so customers can use it on their phones as easily as on a computer.

For instance, Sunrise Shack created a responsive website that works well on both desktops and mobile phones. You can purchase a smoothie, coffee, or even mac nut butter with a touch of a button. That means more time catching waves. 

(Image Source)

They also have a small pop-up at the bottom of the screen for cookie consent for permission to provide an enhanced personalized shopping experience.

Area 9: Enhance your client’s site speed and performance

Site speed and performance are very important for your client’s customer experience.

The faster a page loads, the better user experience you’ll provide — and a good user experience will attract more visitors who want to return to their favorite sites again and again. 

Make sure your client’s website is loading quickly by optimizing it with all the right elements: resize images appropriately — don’t run unnecessary scripts — cache pages when possible, etc. 

(Image Source) 

Sites that load fast tend to convert better than those that don’t, especially sites where people buy products online such as jewelry, car accessories, and local satellite tv packages. 

If someone can’t access your client’s site easily, and it takes too long to load, they may quickly bounce due to the fear of a cybersecurity risk from clicking on a spammy website.  

Key Takeaways 

The local business market is growing as more people shop and spend their time locally. 

This represents a significant opportunity for your clients with businesses in our communities. 

We know consumers are looking for ways to engage with their favorite businesses on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Still, they also want the convenience of connecting with a business on their website. 

And unfortunately, there are a lot of local businesses out there that have terrible websites. So, it doesn’t take much to stand out from the crowd. 

Focus on ease of navigation, adding social proof, optimizing for mobile use, and modernizing your client’s website to improve the online user experience and drive long-term business growth.

With the majority of viable consumers having access to smartphones, it’s more important than ever for local businesses to optimize their websites for mobile. Not only is it important from a search engine optimization standpoint, but making a website mobile-friendly also provides a better user experience for your client’s customers.

In this guide, we will discuss all aspects of mobile optimization, from making your clients’ websites mobile-friendly for search engines, to improving the user experience. We’ll also cover some common mistakes to avoid and provide tips for optimizing sites for local SEO. Let’s get started!

Why Local Businesses Need Mobile Optimization

Mobile optimization is the process of making a client’s website easy to use on mobile devices. This includes everything from making sure the website loads quickly on a mobile connection to ensuring that the content is easy to read and navigate on a small screen.

Optimizing a website for mobile helps improve its search engine rankings, which is crucial since search is by far the main driver of traffic to business websites.

Source: BrightEdge

Plus, it also makes it more likely that people will actually use the site when they find it. 

Take Reliable Couriers as an example. They are located in various cities, so they need their site to be optimized for local keywords with location-specific pages and local backlinks. That way, if anyone uses the search term reliable courier services near me , their business will show up high in the SERPs, driving targeted prospects at scale.

Organic traffic from search engines can lead to more conversions. If you’re not optimizing your client’s sites for mobile, they may be losing out on potential customers.

Here are a few key reasons why local businesses need to focus on mobile optimization:

• Google penalizes websites that aren’t mobile-friendly.
• More people are using mobile devices to search for local companies.
• Optimizing for mobile provides a better user experience for your customers.

Mobile SEO Guide for Local Businesses

In order to impress Google’s search algorithm, the website needs to be optimized for mobile. If clients don’t have a mobile-friendly website, then chances are Google will stop ranking them on search results.

Follow these 8 tips to ensure all of your client sites meet Google’s expectations for mobile web design:

1. Check if the Website is Mobile-friendly

The first step is to check if the website is already mobile-friendly. You can do this by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. Simply enter the website’s URL, and Google will analyze the site and tell you if it passes its test by giving you a giant green tick.

Source: Mobile-Friendly Test

If your site doesn’t pass, don’t worry! There are plenty of things you can do to improve it.

Luckily, in 2022 most web page builders create pages to look good no matter where they’re viewed. Take your time to research and find products such as a landing page platform that best fits your needs for your mobile visitors.

Plus, every serious web design company today builds websites to be mobile-friendly as standard — often following “mobile-first” design principles. However, if you outsource this task, make sure that previous sites in their portfolio look good on mobile before hiring anyone to create a site on your behalf.

If you build your clients’ websites for them or are updating an existing site, check the help section of the website builder to see how to enable a responsive design for the site. In many cases, replacing the theme or template with a responsive one is the easiest way to achieve this.

There are a lot of options to create a code-free website nowadays. However, when using a drag and drop website builder, you need to ensure they provide an optimal viewing experience for desktop, mobile, and tablets. Creating a new website is a cost-efficient way to gain an online presence for a small business.

Source: WebAlive

Many online resources offer high-quality assets such as vector graphics , videos, and photos. Don’t forget to optimize the icons and images you use on websites for mobile. Make sure they’re the right dimensions, that the file size isn’t too large, and they look good on every device. Luckily, many content management systems, like WordPress, offer built-in responsive images — a feature where your website automatically delivers smaller photos to users using mobile browsers.

2. Improve Your Site’s Load Time With Google PageSpeed Insights

One essential factor in mobile optimization is your page loading speed. A website’s load time is the amount of time it takes for web pages to fully display when someone visits a site.

The faster pages load, the better experience the users will have, and slow load times are the number one reason why visitors exit a site.

Source: GoodFirms

Plus, Google rewards fast-loading sites with a rankings boost. In fact, page speed is a ranking factor on both desktop and mobile searches. 

You can check the website’s page speed using Google PageSpeed Insights . Just enter the URL and Google will analyze the site’s speed, give you a score from 0 to 100, and some suggestions on how to improve it. Check the opportunities section at the end of the report for information.

Source: Pagespeed Insights

A good rule of thumb is for a website to load in less than three seconds. If it doesn’t, you run the risk of people exiting the client’s website before it can fully load. This will lead to a high bounce rate which Google takes as a bad sign and may consider the website low quality.

Even though 4G is fast and 5G is on the way, it’s still important to reduce the size of the mobile version of your site to facilitate fast mobile loading. You can also set up “accelerated mobile pages” for your website to load even faster using AMP.

3. Use Responsive Design 

Responsive design is when a website automatically adjusts to fit the screen it’s being viewed on, whether that’s a desktop computer, a tablet, or a mobile phone.

It used to be that you would build a separate mobile version of a website that would be accessed by going to “m.yoursite.com.” However, this is no longer necessary as modern responsive design powered by CSS3 takes care of it for you.

Source: Digital Gravity

Offering a single responsive design saves you time, money, and resources which means you can offer a better rate to prospective clients. It also keeps their website usable and looking good no matter what device people use to view it. A poorly optimized mobile web page can hide content, add an unnecessary horizontal navigation bar, and display text that’s too small to read.

Responsive design is more user-friendly, and it’s also better for SEO as you only have to maintain one website rather than two. When building out your client’s web pages, you don’t have to worry about things being stretched or squashed on different devices.

4. Focus on the User Experience

Another important factor in mobile optimization is user experience. Google wants to make sure that people who use their search engine have a positive experience and can find what they’re looking for easily.

A number one priority should be to make sure the website is accessible. This means people with disabilities should be able to use it without any problems. You can do this by using proper alt text for images, adding transcripts to videos , and using easy-to-read fonts.

Accessibility also means that you are optimized for languages other than English. Having a Spanish option for your website can help you reach more potential customers because Spanish is the second most common language spoken in the United States.

Try adding some pictures of the client’s business to their website to connect with potential customers. Adding photo effects with a tool like Picsart can help you create a better customer experience on mobile and optimize your pictures.

When you include calls to action (CTAs) on the website, make sure they are clear and not overused. A CTA is a button or link that tells users what you want them to do next.

For example, if you want them to buy a product, your CTA would say “Buy Now” or “Add to Cart.” Make sure the CTAs are visible and easy to find so people know what actions they can take on the client’s site.

The design of the website should be created to be thumb-friendly. Most people use their thumbs to control their phones, so people should be able to navigate the website easily with their thumbs. The buttons and links should be big enough to press without having to zoom in.

This can be a problem on websites that are not mobile-friendly as they often have small buttons that are hard to press. Another thing to keep in mind is font size. Make sure the text on the website is large enough to read. Ideally, customers shouldn’t have to zoom in on anything.

5. Be Careful of Advertisements

When optimizing a website for mobile, you need to be careful of advertisements. Google does not like it when websites have intrusive ads that interrupt the user experience.

This means you should avoid pop-ups, auto-playing videos, and anything else that might be considered annoying. If your client wants to have ads on their website, make sure they don’t obstruct the content of the webpage. 

Before selecting an ad partner, check their reviews before onboarding onto their service. Many providers are Google Certified Publishing Partners , which means they have been vetted by Google.

Not to mention, if you showcase smart ads that allow retargeting, customers need to agree to cookies and the storage of personal data. Local businesses should be careful of zero-party data and what they are collecting.

Online companies need to adhere to strict regulations around customer data, including (General Data Protection Regulation in Europe), CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), and CASL (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation). Google is also planning to phase out third-party cookies support by 2023.

Companies will find it harder to acquire customer data from third parties or analyze user behaviors to collect them. In order to run effective marketing campaigns in the future, you will need to rely on customers willingly handing it over.

6. Use Local Keyword Optimization

Local businesses aren’t competing for the same high competition keywords as the dominating companies are. If you can rank number one for a keyword with a significant search volume, that’s great!

However, if for example, you’re a lawn care company in Wisconsin and those views are coming from a state on the other side of the country or overseas, that will not benefit you. Instead, the objective is to rank for ‘Lawn care Wisconsin’ rather than just ‘Lawn care,’ which should be much easier.

One way to identify local keywords is to think about what people might type into Google when looking for a local business. For example, if someone is looking for a pizza place, they might type in “pizza near me,” “pizza delivery,” or “pizza [your city].”

Another way to find local keywords is to use Google’s Keyword Planner . This tool lets you see how many people search for a particular keyword in a specific location.

Source: TomsGuide

7. Move the Navigation Bar on Mobile

The navigation bar or menu is one of the most important elements of any website. It allows people to move around and find the information they’re looking for.

The navigation bar is usually at the top of the page on a desktop. However, on a mobile device, the navigation bar can be moved to the bottom of the screen. This is because it’s easier to reach the bottom of the screen than the top. Most people hold their phones with one hand and use their thumb to navigate. This can make it difficult to reach the top of the page.

By moving the navigation bar to the bottom, you’re making it easier for people to use your website. In fact, Apple has recently made this change to their Safari browser.

Make sure the buttons on the navigation bar are large enough to be pressed with a thumb. You should also consider using icons instead of text to make the buttons easier to understand.

8. Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions for Mobile

Since the title tags and meta description show up in search results, they need to be attention-grabbing. SEO meta descriptions, in particular, need to be optimized for mobile instead of desktop. As we mentioned earlier, 64% of searches happen on mobile devices, so that’s where your focus should be.

One way to do this is to keep the titles short and to the point (maximum 60 characters). Try to include the focus keyword, but keep the title easy to read for a general audience.

The meta description also needs to be readable on a small screen. Write punchy meta descriptions that hook the user quickly; Google will only display the first 160 characters.

Conclusion

Optimizing a website for mobile is essential for local businesses to succeed in the future. With more and more people using their phones to search the internet, it’s important to make sure their website is easy to use on a small screen.

If you want to optimize a client’s website for mobile, follow the tips in this article. From optimizing the title and meta description to making sure your navigation bar is easy to use, these tips will help you create a perfect website for mobile users.

Local content is the key to success for enterprise brands because it allows them to target their audiences more effectively and leads to better customer engagement. According to Robert Blatt of MomentFeed, 85%-95% of customer engagement happens at a local level, through local listings and pages.

Due to the growing importance of localized content, many enterprise brands have now started focusing on localizing their content and marketing strategies. According to a Location-Based Marketing Association (LBMA) report, 25% of marketing budgets are spent on localized marketing, and 50% of brands target customers based on their location.

This is enough of a challenge when you’re dealing with just a few locations, but it becomes significantly harder for enterprise businesses, due to their presence in multiple locations. This calls for the generation and management of scalable local content while ensuring brand consistency. Following are the key aspects of a scalable local content strategy for enterprises businesses:

How to Generate Local Content for Enterprise Businesses

The first step is to have a well-defined plan for local content creation. You can work with local influencers, in-house content teams, and existing customers (brand advocates) to generate local content.

1. Collaborate with local influencers

There are several ways in which enterprises can leverage local influencers to create local content for their brands. Here are my top picks:

• Invite influencers to local company events and ask them to share their experiences on social media. For example, in 2017, Lalique hosted an influencer event in Florida for the launch of their new perfume. They invited local influencers from across the country to try the perfume and post about it on social media. The event generated a lot of buzz about the brand and the product launch

Image via Instagram

• Interview local bloggers and influencers and post the content on your local website or social media pages.
• Leverage influencers to create sponsored content and build quality backlinks to your site that can help in SEO. For example, mattress brand, Leesa collaborates with local home and lifestyle influencers and asks them to write unbiased reviews of their products on their own blogs.

                  Image via Mattress Clarity

2. Set up an in-house team to work on local content

This can be especially beneficial for large enterprise businesses as they can create specialized content teams for multiple countries to create content that resonates with the local audience. You can choose to hire full-time employees or freelance talent depending on the needs of your business for a specific location.

The added benefit of this approach is that these people will understand their local area (e.g. their customs and ways of speaking) in a way that a distant content writer won’t, leading to localization that goes far beyond Google Translate.

You can use freelance websites like Upwork or Freelancer to find local talent. You can also leverage talent recommendations from a content management platform, such as Contently.

Image via Contently

3. Leverage your loyal customers

Some enterprises, such as Airbnb, leverage their existing customers to generate authentic, local content for their brand. Airbnb connects travelers that have questions about their planned travels with local customers who can provide answers. The company’s neighborhood pages also leverage pictures taken by locals.

You could repurpose this User Generated Content (UGC), such as testimonials, reviews and photos, from each location to populate your local content pages, making them authentic, unique to that location and adding valuable social proof along the way.

Image via Airbnb

How to Optimize Your Local Content for Search Engines

While it is important to create local content, it’s still critical to ensure that your local websites or business listings rank high in search results. Here are a few ways to do this:

1. Optimize for organic searches

Make sure that you have a unique landing page for each of your brand’s locations or stores. This enables each page to be ranked in local search results, resulting in higher rankings for your local pages.

For example, Whole Foods has a separate landing page for each of their stores and ranks top in the local pack local grocery store searches:

Image via  Whole Foods US

Below are the search results for “grocery stores in clearwater florida.”

Image via Google

You should also create country-specific websites and social media handles to post local content for your enterprise.

For example, Whole Foods has country-specific, as well as city-specific Instagram pages to post local content:

Image via Instagram

You can use local search rank tracking tools to track your rankings and compare them against your competitors. You can even track hyperlocal results using a geolocation rank tracking grid tool. Accordingly, you can modify your SEO strategy to get better rankings.

Image via BrightLocal

2. Leverage map listings

Map listings are also an important component of any brand’s SEO strategy. Listing your brand and stores on local map listings can help customers find your stores easily and can improve your rankings in local search results. Here are some things you should do:

• Register your business on Google Maps and add accurate location and contact information.
• Ensure that all of your company’s stores are listed on Google Maps separately.
• Add your website links on your map listings. If there are regional websites, add links to those instead of the global website.

3. Leverage local directory citations

90% of SEO experts believe that accurate citations are crucial for optimizing local search rankings. So it’s important for enterprise businesses to find all relevant local data aggregators or directories and create accurate citations for their local businesses.

• You can use a citation tracker tool to find local websites that you can list your business on.
• Ensure that you create accurate and consistent citations across all such websites.
• You can also use local citation building services to create and update local citations.

Image via BrightLocal

Continuing with the example of Whole Foods, below are the search results for “whole foods clearwater.” As you can see, the company has registered their individual stores on various directories, making it easier for customers to find their stores, read reviews, and check times of operation.

Image via Google

Consider the local search ranking factors for each type of local listing to optimize your listings for local searches.

For large enterprises, it’s difficult to regularly track and update local listings, and so it’s more effective to use local SEO tools. These can help enterprise businesses to optimize their local content and also track its effectiveness.

Below is an example of BrightLocal’s local search audit report that enables enterprises to analyze their local SEO performance in an easy-to-use dashboard.

Image via BrightLocal

How to Ensure Consistency of Your Local Content

The key challenge for enterprises focusing on local content is to ensure content accuracy and consistency across locations.

Accuracy and consistency of business-related information such as name, contact, and phone numbers (NAP) is one of the top local search ranking factors, so it’s important for enterprise businesses to establish a clearly defined process to manage local content. Here are my top two tips to manage local content across several locations, while ensuring consistency:

1. Have a centralized Content Approval team

A centralized team that reviews all content and sets guidelines to ensure consistency of the information shared across various locations is a necessity for large enterprises. However, for a big firm with thousands of locations, this technique can be tedious, so it is better to utilize content management software.

According to Walgreens’ Kyle Eggleston, Walgreens allows their store and district managers to upload local content on websites for approval. The company delegates the content creation and publishing aspect to the local teams but retains the centralized content approval system to maintain content accuracy and consistency.

2. Use a central Content Management System

A content management tool such as Sprinklr’s Content Marketing Suite or Contently can help you easily manage local content for various locations. Below is an example of an integrated content management dashboard to manage content across multiple mediums and locations:

Image via Sprinklr

Conclusion

The key to a successful, scalable local content strategy for an enterprise business is to have a well-defined process and reliable Content Management System. Once you have a clear process, you can then use a mix of various types of content, channels, and optimization techniques to secure the top rankings in local searches.

If you have any other ideas for a scalable local content strategy for an enterprise business, please share them in the comments below.

If you want to expand your business and really reach your target markets, you need to develop a content localization strategy. Learning how to localize your content isn’t just a case of translating your marketing content into the local language; it involves connecting with your customers and understanding their cultures, traditions, and languages. But how can you pull that off?

In this post, I will share five of the most effective tips to improve your content localization strategy, with an aim to increase conversions on these localized content pages.

1. Localize Your Content for Relevance

As I’ve mentioned, you cannot simply use Google translator and translate your content to localize it. You know that search engines look for content that is more relevant and closer to users’ queries, so you need to create content that is locally relevant as opposed to simply translating existing content into the local language. You need to ensure that both the written content and the visual content is relevant and appealing to the local audience.

To localize your content, I suggest that you study the new market and its specifications in detail. I recommend that you collect data related to marketing trends, the economy, and the culture.

You also need to consider factors like the demographics and the government policies related to search engines, local SERPs, and algorithms. Creating a localized user persona, from interviews and research, is a great way to get connected to that audience and understand what makes them tick.

If you want to promote your brand in Asia, for example, you need to carefully research that market. It will be very difficult for a Japanese or a Chinese speaking person to understand your brand in English so you will obviously need to translate your content.

But there’s a lot more you also need to consider. For instance, did you know that Baidu is a much more popular search engine than Google in the Asia Pacific region? To create local content that is relevant, you need to consider factors like this.

2. Work with Local Experts

Local experts have a better understanding of the local culture, so I would strongly recommend that you identify and collaborate with them. This could be anyone from a marketing and sales expert to a local influencer.

Collaborating with experts and influencers in the area you want to target will ensure that your content is localized, accurate, and relevant. Many times, you may not know about the local culture, language, and people’s behavior, so never shy away from seeking help from a local expert, as they are the right people to effectively sell your brand to your target customers.

Hiring and teaming up with a local expert is also one of the best ways to get the most accurate translations of your content. Working with influencers will ensure that your content is conveyed effectively to your target audiences. The influencers are the ones who are directly in contact with the audience. They can give your brand a human touch, and they can properly convey your brand’s emotions and messages to your target audiences.

3. Optimize Your Offerings for the Local Market

For a content localization strategy to be effective and complete, you also need to adapt to local pricing. You cannot simply use global prices or prices from one region for another region. Adapting to local pricing can be the key to your brand’s success.

I believe you also need to consider the economic status of your audiences. What may seem affordable in one region can be way too pricey in another region. Also, when local markets come up with products or services with the same feature, it becomes very competitive and difficult for you to gain traction.

You also need to consider the percentage of discounts, coupon codes, and other offers you are providing. A 5% or 10% discount might excite many of your customers from the USA or the UK. But in regions like Africa or South-East Asia, your customers might hope for a higher discount on your products because they’re used to getting massive discounts.

You also need to capitalize on local festivals and seasons. It might seem obvious, but many companies overlook this. Chinese New Year is very different from New Year’s in the USA. So you can leverage this occasion in China and other countries with large Chinese populations to offer discounts to promote your brand.

You can use occasions like this to build stronger connections with your local audiences. Acknowledging their traditions and festivals makes them feel special and will strengthen your presence.

4. Be Part of the Local Community

Being a part of the community is not limited to celebrating festivals and the good times. You need to build your presence and stand by the community in their bad times as well.

You really have to show the locals that you genuinely care about them. And for you, it’s more than just business. To do so, you can collaborate with a local NGO and work with them for the betterment of the local livelihood. This will help you to win their confidence and trust.

In the case of any natural or man-made disaster, you can show your support by donating money, or you can get your employees to help the locals in any way possible. You can also consider blending the rich local culture with your products or services.

All of this will help you to build a stronger connection with your local audience. It’s also a great way to give back to the local community.

5. Identify the Perfect Marketing Channels

I think by now you understand the importance of localizing content, and how important it is to create locally relevant content. But in the process of creating perfect local content, remember to also use the most relevant social platforms.

Not everyone uses the same search engines or social media platforms that you do, so you can’t completely rely on Instagram, Facebook, or Google and expect your content to perform well. Every region has its own preferences.

I suggest that you spend some time to research and identify the most popular social media platforms in your target region. Also identify the most-used search engine in the region. This will help you plan your social media and marketing strategies accordingly.

You may be comfortable with Instagram, but if your new market region is China, then you might have to rethink. In China, social platforms like Weibo and WeChat are very popular, and you need to find your way around these two social platforms.

Ready to Localize Your Content?

I believe that for any global brand, it’s critically important to crack local markets as well as the global one. This will help them to generate leads and boost conversions.

I suggest that you collaborate with relevant local experts to get the job done, and also optimize your offerings for the local markets. Always invest time into identifying the most popular and most used social platforms in that region, and use them to promote your brand to generate more conversions.

Now that you know the importance of localizing your content, it’s time for you to get started and observe the impact it has on your target audiences. Don’t forget to share your experiences with us in the comments below!