This is part two of a five-part series intended to help a local small business owner understand how to attract local customers with a local search marketing strategy. Each blog post in this five-part blog series will document a part of the local search strategy I have developed for local businesses to rise to the top of search.

Part 1 detailed how a local small business owner can accelerate growth and maximize potential with a CRM, revenue goals and structured sales meetings.

Hello, Where Are We Going?

You’ve started a business and are brimming with excitement about what’s to come. The first question I want to know is…Where are we going?

Are you planning to sell the business, open a second location, or keep the business in the family for generations to come? Your answer will help drive strategy… even in the early days.

My client opened the business with a partner and both partners were in different stages of life. Without defined aspirations for the future, the alignment they settled upon was success was incremental growth (a great goal btw for small businesses!). Initial business goals were tied to growing slowly but steadily over the first year. Without historical benchmarks, the team set monthly goals at the beginning of the year and started monitoring the lead pipeline and jobs sold to track towards the goals.

Part 2: Becoming Visible

With an idea of what success looks like, it’s time to plan for how to get there. For a business that offers products and services to the local community, like my “new and unknown” client, you need a plan for attracting local customers. And, if you aware that 97% of users search online for a local business, you can understand the importance of becoming visible.

1 – Don’t Open Without A Sign

Becoming visible starts with documenting exactly what you want to become visible for. You must identify who you are attempting to reach, what they are looking for, and how you can help.

This is the initial step you must take before your business can even begin taking steps to become visible. Skip past this step, and you are opening your store without a sign and living on “a hope and prayer” for success.

Your sign is not just for your ideal customers but for GOOGLE and other search engines to understand who you are, what expertise you have, and what you offer.

2 – Let’s Prep Your Store Signage

Picture your ideal customer and what they are buying from you or how you would be servicing them. This initial planning is one of the essential parts of a search strategy.

• Who are you? What is your profession? What industry are you in? What is someone that offers your product or service called?
• What do you offer? How does your service or product can help your ideal customer? What’s your story?
• What are your customer’s pains? How does your service or product help your ideal customer? What are they struggling with that would encourage them to seek out a product or service like yours?
• How can you help? How does your service or product help your ideal customer?

Jot down as many answers to the questions above as you can. These answers will form the foundation for strategically building a website to promote your business.

3 – Architect Your Site to Speak and Signal

Gone are the days of strictly informational websites. Don’t rest on your accolades. 25 years in business. #1 by the credible industry insider. Sure, it’s nice to say but your ideal customer really wants to know how your expertise can help them. Quick note: It’s always about them. So, you must speak to them.

Your website should “signal” to Google that you are experienced and qualified to handle your ideal customer’s request and located within the local area. Ranking signals for Google are proximity, prominence, and relevancy.

Ranking Signals

• Proximity to the searcher
• Prominence in the local community
• Relevancy to the searcher’s needs

**Pro tip: The signal you have the most control over is relevancy. Therefore, your goal should be to make your site the most relevant site out there.

Address your Customer Needs

The strategic approach you take towards architecting your site to speak and signal will need to address WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE AND WHY for your ideal customer. This messaging needs to be front and center when someone lands on your website. If it isn’t, they might bounce from your site too soon!

Diagram Your Site

When architecting your site, you need to position your Home Page as the entry point spotlighting the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, AND WHYÂ to encourage the ideal customer to dive deeper into other core pages on your website or interior pages to learn more. Diagram your ideal customer journey to include all the different ways searchers might navigate your site based on the stage of the Buyer’s Journey they are in. A buyer’s journey begins with awareness, then consideration and finally a decision.

1. Awareness

Ex. Searcher lands on Home Page -> Encouraged to go to Solutions page -> Downloads a freebie explaining the types of solutions that can solve their need.

2. Consideration

Ex. Searcher lands on Home Page -> Encouraged to go to Product/Services page -> Downloads a resource about how your product/service can address their need.

3. Decision

Ex. Searcher lands on Home Page -> Encouraged to go to About page -> Fills out a form to get in touch and schedule a consultation.

The examples shown are very straightforward but the reality is searchers can navigate through sites randomly, clicking, bouncing, clicking back, clicking forward, clicking forward again, bouncing again, coming back and so forth.

The purpose of diagramming your site, however, is to simply be intentional about your site’s architecture. It should have a logical path towards conversion to be the growth engine for your business that it can be. Too many random or illogical rabbit holes and you’ll leave them confused. They will bounce and they won’t come back.

**Pro tip: Seek engagement. Make sure each page of your website is structured to request that the Customer take an action. One page might be requesting that they sign up for a newsletter. Another page could request that they download an informational resource or take a quiz. Ideally, you want them to get in touch but don’t lose sight that you can start the conversation with an ideal customer in different ways.

4 – You’ve got the blueprints. Let’s Build.

As you begin to build your website, take your time.

Your website is the first-person account of who you are. Stating the obvious but, it has to be compelling. This starts with great content. It cannot be cookie cutter or boilerplate, chatgpt-generated-type-of-informational-but-not-memorable type of content.

Demonstrate your knowledge and skill online. Emphasize your locality and by this, I don’t mean you simply state that you service a certain area. You must demonstrate you are local, you are established and you are connected and work in the area. Get creative to show what you do and how you do it in your area.

Lastly, a site with compelling content – in a time when attention spans are very short – is a memorable site. And, memorable business owners get chosen in search!! Stand out!

**Pro tip: Lose the fluffy words and generic speak. Instead, offer your ideal customer advice that only an expert like you could deliver while displaying in your writing and imagery your personality.

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OKAY, QUICK RECAP.

Becoming Visible requires you – the business owner – to articulate the WHY of your business to your customer.

Figure out who you are and what you offer. Diagram how an ideal customer that lands on your Home Page might travel through your website to the other pages on your website. Answer questions for them so that they are navigating your site in a logical way.

What if you already have a site that you built without business growth in mind? What if it lacks the strategy to generate leads and increase online visibility? What if it looks like all the rest? No worries; take the steps to restructure it now!

And, here’s my promise to you. There’s no better way to scale your small business then to build your website into a growth engine. A converting website that generates leads for you will save you thousands of dollars in advertising down the road. It will be working for you even when you are not working! Think about that solopreneurs and small team business owners…it will give you back a little time! Something we can all wish for!

BTW…if you want a handy guide for how your content should be diagrammed and mapped to get started, shoot me a request at Hello@TopofSearch.com with a subject line Site Architecture Local Mapping PLEASE and I’ll send you a PDF I created to help you get started. I also highly recommend a tool like LucidChart to get your ideas out of your head and mapped online.

**Pro tip: With all the fabulous partners that can design a website for you, it can be tempting to hop into design first. But, I caution you if your business goal is to attract local customers online to not be tempted to design first. Design is critical to your brand but should always come second. Design should elevate and support the written content on the page if you want to be best positioned to signal to Google who you are and what you do.

Once you’ve gotten your website in place, read Part 3: Gaining Visibility to get all the juicy deets on how you go about gaining visibility online.