Jeff Leshin from Wilson Shaw IT is seeing his hard work pay off. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, WSIT has expanded locations to Birmingham, Alabama. This week he asked for digital marketing tips on promoting a new location.

Boost your location using Google Business

There are lots of opinions on SEO for local marketing, including local directories and on-page SEO. One of the fastest ways to ensure your new location appears in Google is to add your new location to Google business: https://www.google.com/business/. This local directory service ensures that your location, phone number and directions appear at the top of a local search for your company name. The Google search engine algorithm places emphasis on local results. This is a good place to start to ensure prominent display in Google for your new location.

Website and SEO Considerations for your new location

At a minimum we recommend you add information to your “About us” page. For example, list your locations in the description of your Company. Consider adding a sentence on areas served. Make sure to also include this information in the meta-page description for the “About Us” page and your home page.

Also make sure you add your location to the Contact Us page on your site. Include maps and directions along with the address and phone number of your new location. You may also consider adding the location, numbers and areas served to the footer of your site to boost prominence; then this information will appear on every page of your site!  

Other ways to promote your new location

Consider taking the time to draft a press release announcing your new location. You can add the press release about your new location to the “What’s New”  or “In the News” section of your website, and highlight the press release in your monthly email newsletter.

Also consider creating a case study from a client in the area of your new location. You can optimize this content for SEO purposes to help with getting links ranked in search engines.

These additional articles and internal links should help with the local ranking.

If you take the time to write a press release and draft case studies, remember to share them on Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook and other microblogs. This will broaden your digital marketing footprint when promoting your new location.

Advertising your new location

If you have exhausted all of the other recommendations, consider running a local Google AdWords campaign around your company name with all variants (e.g., Wilson Shaw IT versus WSIT). You can also economically create awareness using Facebook ads to reach targeted audiences with information about your new location.

Jeff, thanks for the question and for raising the issue on Digital Marketing Tips for Promoting a New Location. If others have questions about using digital marketing to promote their business, don’t hesitate to ask.