Posted by Andrea Drennen on July 10, 2019 in Marketing
Did you know that on the Internet, one of the fastest ways to get big is to go small? Here’s how:
Many small businesses try to increase their options by targeting as much as they can – offering their services to every market, and spreading their service area across the world. But unfortunately, doing this dilutes your message, your branding and your marketing dollars to the point they become ineffective. If you really want to grow your business, you need to think smaller.
Niche Marketing: Big fish, Small Pond
If you’re not familiar with it, the musical Kinky Boots gives a perfect example of the power of niche marketing. The story goes that a small shoe manufacturer is struggling to compete against larger, more global organizations. So to prevent the business from shutting down entirely, they change up their product line to focus on a niche market that isn’t being served by the larger manufacturers.
If your business is trying to be all things to all people, you’re probably struggling, trying to compete with all of the larger and more well-funded businesses who are doing the exact same thing, only better.
Finding your niche – that small segment of the market that is being under-served, feels under appreciated, or is simply being under-marketed to is a sure fire way to pump up your sales. Why? Because in going after a smaller audience, you can focus your efforts on a specific audience. That means more targeted marketing, more focused content, and a smaller pool of companies that you need to compete against.
For management companies, look for under-served market segments, like townhome communities, co-ops or even communities under a certain size. If you can find a niche that nobody else is targeting, even if it’s a smaller market, you’ll be the only one they find when they go looking for your services.
Once you’ve got your niche figured out, make a list of words associated with your niche. Add the list words to your service words and you’ve identified your primary target keywords. For example, “townhome property management”, “townhome management company”, etc.
Localization: Make a List and Check It Twice
Another way to get bigger by thinking smaller is to focus on your local area first. This is a key component of any keyword building strategy.
Let’s say you run a property management company that caters to HOAs and Condo Associations. If you try to compete for keywords like “HOA Property Management” you’ll be competing with every national management company on the market – that’s a whole ocean you have to stand out in. But if you only serve your local area, let’s say Florida, you can narrow it down to compete only with management companies in that state.
Where you can really gain some traction though, is when you drill down even deeper into local. Say you serve the Tampa Bay area in Florida. Sit down with a pencil and a map and work out a list of local areas that you know contain potential customers for you. Your list should include larger zones like Tampa Bay; cities, like St Petersburg; counties, like Pinellas; or districts like North Tampa.
Adding Keywords to Your Website
Once you have your list of niche or localization keywords, it’s time to put it together and get it on your website.
What you absolutely DO NOT want to do is just add that list of words in the footer of your site. That practice is called Keyword Stuffing, and it is severely frowned on by Google, and could get your site penalized.
Instead, come up with a natural way to work the words into various areas of your site, not just your home page. Include these location keywords into your service areas section, anywhere you talk about your clients, in your contact us page, even your about us page is solid ground to include localization. Just work as many of these words as you can as naturally into your site as possible.
Alternately, if your list is not too long, you can add a section to your website called ‘Service Areas’ and create a separate page for each individual location keyword. If you choose to go this route, you’ve got ready-made landing pages for future marketing efforts, but it will take a little extra work to have enough specific unique content for each area to make the pages useful to visitors. (And it does need to be unique – Google also penalizes sites that duplicate the same content over and over, so try not to do that!)
Local Networking Opportunities
Just like narrowing your business’ focus to a specific niche allows you to do more targeted marketing, getting involved on the local level can help focus your marketing efforts as well. And while attending events IRL is a good way to network, I am actually referring to local networking online.
Many resources are available today for small businesses to list themselves on a local level. Part of your localization strategy should include indexing your business on as many of these sites as possible – you get free links to your website, business listings that will show up in search results, and potential referrals to your business – usually for free. Start with these, then do a search for more in your area: Google My Business, Alignable, Facebook Places, Yelp.
Don’t forget Your Hashtags
One last tip! When you post on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, be sure to sprinkle in those local and niche keywords as hashtags. You can get some good local recognition and social attention you might not have gotten otherwise.
Making your business look big on the Internet is a proven path to actually turning your business from small to big. However, sometimes, the best way to get there is to go small, focus your efforts on a niche market or a local market, and build from there. I hope these tips helped!
If you are looking to build out a keyword strategy for your small business, consider contacting Frontage Marketing Group for help! We can put in the research to find exactly what keywords will work to help you bring in the business you need to grow.