A successful search marketing strategy is less about doing one thing right and more about doing many things right. Every effective and successful strategy has at least one thing in common: an integrated approach.

Investing in Local Search, Organic SEO, and Paid Advertising strategies together can maximize your online presence!

Before we dive into each of these tactics, it’s important to understand a few foundational mindsets found throughout digital marketing.

1. Understanding your business’s ideal customer is vital for creating effective and integrated digital marketing strategies. If you understand your customers’ pain points, needs, and buying behaviors, you can form digital marketing campaigns that speak directly to those areas and have confidence that your marketing will resonate.
2. The way your business communicates its products or services is just as important, and arguably more important, than the quality of the products and services. This communication is called branding. Branding your products and overall business personality in a way that appeals to your target audience won’t just bring in sales, it will create lifelong, loyal customers.
3. Good customer service will never go out of style. If your business’s branding, products and marketing strategies are effective, but your POS and customer service experience are lacking, it’s a huge turnoff for buyers. It just takes one poor experience for a consumer to choose your competition, make sure your team is ready! 

With those three foundations in mind, let’s talk about these three elements of a successful search marketing strategy!

1. Paid Search Advertising

The goal of a paid advertising strategy is to expand your business’s market. Paid search ads get your business in front of new potential customers who don’t know they need you yet.

Paid search ads involve creating digital ads for search engines like Google and Bing that both create and meet demand for your business. These are the sponsored search results that show up first, and they are placed through keyword targeting.

Before the internet, consumers’ attention was oriented offline. Advertising strategies like billboards, magazine ads and radio sound bites were the norm. However, with the invention of the internet, consumers’ attention has become increasingly digital.

Paid search ads leverage that attention and strategically place your business’s online ads in search results where your target customers are actively searching for businesses like yours.

No matter your business’s size, budget or goals, there are paid advertising strategies that work to improve website traffic, increase calls and generate new conversions and leads!

RevLocal offers flexible and personalized paid advertising plans for small businesses and multi location brands. Sometimes, having an expert handle your digital marketing is the best investment. Learn more about our paid advertising plans!

2. Organic SEO

Your website’s search engine optimization score should be your first order of business when creating a cohesive search marketing strategy. Your website is your business’s online storefront and it needs to work hard for you. 

An optimized website is a high performing website in every way. Website SEO doesn’t have to be complicated, but it does have to be done right. Check out this blog to learn how to optimize your business’s website.

Organic SEO encompasses website SEO and a host of other unpaid practices to help your business rank higher in search results. A few elements of organic SEO are:

• Keeping up-to-date on what search engine algorithms value on websites and make those changes to stay competitive.
• Create content that meets high volume search queries. Doing keyword research and strategically creating blogs, resources, and other on-site copy to meet demand is a staple in organic SEO strategies.
• Showcase real client reviews. This signals to potential customers and search engine algorithms that your business is the real deal.
• Develop a backlinking strategy
• Consistently post new and helpful content.

These are just a few elements of a cohesive organic SEO strategy. To learn more, view RevLocal’s Organic SEO plan!

3. Local Search Marketing

If your business has a brick and mortar store, local search is extremely important. Local search marketing involves making sure that your business shows up when users are searching for your products or services “near them.”

If your business is in the neighborhood, but online users can’t find you on the map, they’ll find and choose your competition.

Making sure your business’s search engine profiles are updated and accurate is the first step to securing your business’s place on the map. To learn more, check out our Local Search best practices! 

Final thoughts…

Each of these search marketing elements should be utilized to create an integrated and successful digital marketing strategy. They are all stronger together and can yield higher results than investing in one over the other sporadically.

Cohesive and personalized digital marketing strategies are what RevLocal does best. To learn more about what it’s like to have RevLocal handle your business’s digital marketing, check out our resources or contact us for a free consultation.