The digital space is a busy place. It’s almost a war zone, with close to 2 billion websites, billions of social media pages and YouTube channels, each fighting for their 2 seconds of fame on the first page of Google. There are entire companies dedicated to ensuring your digital marketing strategies fail miserably and the customers do not make it any easier. They are spoilt for choice and are therefore extremely selective. But there are agencies (https://bluoo.digital/) dedicated to helping you stand out amidst the chaos. With a large footprint in Washington, we offer Digital Marketing for local businesses in cities like Seattle, Silverdale, Tacoma, Bainbridge Island, Gig Harbor, Poulsbo, Port Orchard….and many others within Washington.
Let’s break it down
Digital Marketing for Local businesses boils down to several tools like SEO, SEM, Chat Bots, and Content marketing. With so many websites advertising their services, business owners are forced to dig deeper into their pockets in order to bid and rank higher on Google, but this is not enough. Algorithms are constantly changing and what worked yesterday at 11: 00 pm may not work today at 8: 00 am. Just take this simple test, Google the services you provide; whether you run a real estate agent, coffee house, construction company, restaurant, luxury hotel, hospital or auto dealership. Is your website at the top of the list? How many businesses have paid for advertising? How many competitors do you have on the first page? If you can locate your site, how long does it take to get to the landing page?
All these are important questions, but they are just a tip of the iceberg. At the local level, the competition is quite high and the Washington playground is not easy to navigate. It’s not just difficult to get noticed but turning site visitors into customers can be nerve-wracking. This is why you need a complex 360-degree local digital marketing strategy executed by professionals.
Before we jump into the benefits of professional Digital Marketing for Local Businesses, we have a few fun facts about digital marketing in 2018;
- Bounce rates increase by 50% if a website takes longer than 2 seconds to load
- Large and mid-sized companies rely heavily on SEO for site visits, leads, and conversions
- 93% of website traffic comes from search engines with Google handling about 63,000 searches per second
- Digital marketing budgets have more than doubled for most businesses within the last three years thus making competition stiffer.
- Online shoppers appreciate a brand’s efforts more if their messages, either on social media or on websites are responded to
- Mobile ads attract over 50% of marketing and advertising budgets and smartphones are used to access digital media more than other devices
- 90% of online shoppers do not have a fixed brand in mind before surfing the internet for information and product/service comparison
- Web surfers are likely to visit a brand’s website if it appears more than once on the first Google page.
Benefits of Digital Marketing
As we’ve already established, digital marketing is already complex and more intricacy is expected, as technological advancements are realized. This is why you need an expert to take care of your digital marketing strategy. Having an internal strategy that does not work is worse than having no strategy because; you’ll end up using resources to achieve negative results. In addition, most businesses today have digital marketing budgets. This means experts are being hired to handle digital marketing for local businesses in order to achieve meaningful results.
The number one rule in sales and marketing is that ‘customers will not find you; it’s your job to find them’. Most shoppers are online today, and they are actively searching for your services. Hence, you just need to be in the right place at the right time and with the right message. The emergence of multi-billion dollar online shops is enough proof that customers are shifting to online spaces for their shopping needs. Therefore you cannot afford to be left behind. In addition, you have to brand your business appropriately from the onset, bearing in mind that the internet never forgets. Making wrong moves can break your business for good; this is why you need experts to handle your digital marketing strategy.
Lastly, consumers are bombarded with content; from videos to articles to infographics. The list is endless. Brands are desperately piling marketing content online. The bad news is; the content goes nowhere, so you have to pile your load on top of a mountainous heap. This makes digital marketing a constant struggle, but the good news is; there are ways to make your heap of content stays at the top.