Small Business Saturday (Nov. 26, 2016) is an American shopping holiday that aims to promote shopping at local businesses. Last year, it generated $16.2 billion in spending for small businesses which was a 14 percent increase from 2014. While it’s great to use Small Business Saturday as a way to increase sales, most small businesses need more consistency throughout the year to survive in the increasingly competitive marketplace. Fortunately, there are several ways small businesses can better position themselves to compete in the local market.
1. Small business tips online.
According to a study from Bazaarvoice, roughly 39 percent of in-store shoppers research a product online before buying at a physical location. This means that your small business must have an online presence in order to compete locally. How can your small business improve its online presence?
2. Improve your local SEO.
Focusing on improving your small business’ local SEO will help generate more traffic to your website and ultimately, more leads and sales for your business. With roughly 97 percent of consumers going online to search for local businesses, why wouldn’t you make SEO a priority? Additionally, Google is placing more emphasis on local search with prominent local results floating at the top of targeted search queries. With that said, Google has altered their local results to focus on the top three businesses for a specific search. This means, while difficult, getting your small business inside the top three results can result in tremendous return on investment. To get started, make sure you register your business with Google and Bing Places. Other considerations to improve local SEO include, hyper-local content creation onsite and offsite, outreach and publisher partnerships with local websites, optimizing your website (NAP, keywords, etc.) and strategic social media management among others.
3. Increase online reviews.
Online reviews are a critical part of your local search rankings, not just on Google and Bing, but also sites like Yelp and Facebook. Additionally, online reviews are the modern version of word-of-mouth advertising and can persuade new customers to use your small business, or to not use your small business. In fact, roughly 67 percent of consumers reported that their purchasing decisions were influenced by online reviews. Thus, it’s important to perpetuate reviews from your customers, especially if you know they had a positive experience. Consider adding calls-to-action on your receipts or training your employees to ask for reviews on your Google+, Facebook and Yelp page.
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