For most people’s comfort, SoLoMo—a clunky combination of Social Local Mobile and undoubtedly one of the most dreadful marketing buzzwords ever—faded away without becoming part of the already unbearable vocabulary of digital marketing.

However, this doesn’t mean that local search also disappeared. In fact, it’s become even more vital than a few years ago, particularly for physical businesses aiming to attract more in-store customers.

To help you boost your local visibility, we’re revisiting the 13 best local marketing tips we’ve shared. Some are very specific, while others offer broader guidance. If you’re aiming to connect with new customers in your area, grab a drink and keep reading.

1. Design Unique Landing Pages for EACH Campaign

Our initial tip is crucial but often makes marketers groan.

This is an example of a dedicated landing page for an ad offering legal guidance for LLCs. Relevance is key for local campaigns. Using generic landing pages can hurt conversions. Our PPC best practices highlight that creating unique, highly relevant landing pages for EACH campaign is a top way to boost conversion rates. Yes, the initial time investment is higher, but this groundwork can yield significant long-term rewards.

2. Utilize Facebook Ad Targeting Effectively

Facebook Ads’ biggest strength—besides its massive user base—is the precision of its ad targeting.

Facebook provides advertisers with an impressive range of targeting options.

Facebook lets advertisers use nearly every aspect of a person’s life as a targeting parameter, including demographics like age, life events like marriage or having a child, education, estimated income, and more. Combining these with location targeting refines potential audiences even further.

This granularity, aside from highlighting how much data we share online, lets Facebook offer advertisers incredible campaign control.

While Facebook’s targeting is powerful, being overly selective can shrink your audience excessively, so be cautious.

3. Integrate Call-Only Ads into Your Campaigns

Unique, highly relevant landing pages are vital for many campaigns (as tip #1 emphasized), but they’re a double-edged sword: powerful but potentially “leaky” in the funnel.

A highly effective way to prevent losing conversions on a landing page and capitalize on mobile traffic is using Call-Only campaigns. Available on Google Ads and Facebook, this format bypasses landing pages by offering a “Call Now” button, allowing users to call directly from the ad.

This is invaluable for advertisers wanting direct prospect contact. Why use web forms when people can talk to you seconds after seeing your ad?

4. Generate Locally-Oriented Content

We know Content is King, yet surprisingly few local businesses utilize it. It’s understandable; many small business owners barely have time to run their business, let alone manage a content marketing campaign. However, those who can handle it could see significant benefits.

Local content - satisfying your audience’s appetite.

Locally focused content increases visibility and establishes you as a trusted community voice. When choosing content types, consider your customers. What are their common questions? Which products or services need complementary content? Are there seasonal content opportunities?

5. Leverage Ad Extensions for Maximum Visibility

Early AdWords ads in 2000 were basic. Today, advertisers have many features and formats to improve visibility, with ad extensions being highly effective.

Two ad extensions are particularly powerful for local search marketing:

• Location extensions
• Promotion extensions

Location extensions display your business location within your PPC ads, like in the example above.

Clicking the address provides directions, driving foot traffic. Besides easy store location, this could give you local search marketers an advantage; even if a competitor is closer, one-click directions might entice customers to choose your business.

Promotion extensions, among AdWords’ newest additions, add time-sensitive offers to ads, as shown below:

This is a persuasive addition, especially for high-commercial intent keywords or branded terms for popular products. Speaking of time-sensitive… Speaking of visibility, how strong is your online presence? Find out in 90 seconds with the free LOCALiQ Website Grader!

6. Craft Ads Highlighting Time-Sensitive Deals

While AdWords’ Promotion extensions are potent, they can’t replace unique ad copy, making it worthwhile to write specific copy for time-sensitive sales.

Again, it’s more work than automated solutions like Dynamic Keyword Insertion, but potentially very effective. Combining Promotion extensions with unique copy emphasizing limited-time offers can be very convincing.

7. Utilize Google Ads Geotargeting Features

Geotargeting is a potent tool for local search.

While ecommerce might not worry too much about customer location, local retailers and businesses do. Fortunately, AdWords’ geotargeting options make maximizing visibility in specific areas easy.

Geotargeting isn’t just for businesses with a single physical location. It’s also great for those operating across larger regions, like plumbers serving several states.

8. Align Ad Scheduling with Your Business Hours

Combining ad scheduling with geotargeting focuses your marketing on specific areas at specific times—a win-win for local advertisers. It also allows better control over when ads are displayed.

Imagine owning a pizza place wanting more foot traffic. Displaying ads all day might waste money on clicks that won’t convert. But scheduling ads during specific windows when potential customers are hungry maximizes visibility and controls your budget.

9. Implement Location-Based Bid Adjustments

Another technique to boost local search visibility is location-based bid adjustments.

These adjustments let you bid higher on certain keywords in specific areas: cities, states, or even zip codes. This prioritizes bids on keywords most likely to drive conversions.

For example, a pizza place might bid less on general terms like “family pizza restaurants” but more on specific terms like “family pizza restaurants Buffalo.”

While location-based bid adjustments are not new to AdWords, Enhanced Campaigns made them easier. Previously, separate campaigns were needed for location-based bid adjustments. Now, they’re simple to implement.

10. Include Directions and Business Hours on Your Website

This seems obvious, but it’s amazing how many businesses hide their address on their website.

Mobile optimization is crucial. Equally important is making your business easy to find; otherwise, you’re missing customer opportunities.

With easy website builders like Squarespace, there’s no excuse for not having your address and a Google Maps widget.

11. Promote Positive Reviews on Social Media

Social proof, alongside word-of-mouth, is incredibly persuasive for promotion.

With countless review sites like Yelp, customers expect to share their positive or negative experiences. If customers love you, leverage that by asking for reviews and promoting positive feedback on social media.

Many small businesses do this effectively, particularly on Facebook. When a customer raves about you, engage with them and amplify that feedback for more exposure. You don’t need to use it for ad creative; incorporating it into organic social content works too.

12. Keep Your Google Business Profile Up-to-Date

Google My Business is a free yet powerful tool for local businesses. Your Google business listing (or Business Profile) appears on Google Maps, local Google Search results, and the right-side Knowledge Panel. Creating a Google listing is easy, but it doesn’t give you control over it. To optimize your listing, you need a Google My Business account. All additional details you provide in your Google My Business dashboard will populate your Business Profile, making it more attractive to customers and more likely to rank in search results. You’ll also need a Google My Business account to use Location extensions, as mentioned earlier.

Claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile through your Google My Business account is crucial for local search marketing. It makes your business easier to find and provides searchers with more information and opportunities to engage right from the search results.

13. Test Local Search Ads in Broader Campaigns

We’ve covered a lot, but one final tip is using Local Search Ads within your advertising strategy.

Introduced last year, they further develop Google Maps as a commercial platform. Appearing directly on Google Maps (web and app) and Expanded Maps results from Google.com, they feature prominent “Call” and “Directions” buttons, making it effortless for prospects to contact or find you from Maps.

Testing Local Search Ads alongside these steps might seem excessive, but it’s about covering all bases. Your business should be easy to find, whether through organic search, paid ads, your website, or Google Maps. Maximizing visibility across platforms leads to greater potential ROI.

Here are some resources you might find helpful for further reading on local marketing:

• Ultimate Guide to Google’s Local Service Ads
• 19 Super-Creative Local Marketing Ideas
• 4 Big Local Marketing Trends – Plus 8 Ways to Adapt
• 3 Local Marketing Tips to Lock Up the Local SERP
• NEW Display Location Extensions & Ads: Drive More Local Business