When people think of digital marketing they tend to envision a worldwide market. And to be sure, the global market is an important consideration. But one should take a moment to consider just how important local markets are as well. Portland offers one of the best examples of this principle.
Portland is well known for many different things. It has some of the best local brews in the country along with a very receptive market. Portland hosts one of the largest biking subcultures in the US. And finally, one will find one of the nation’s largest bookstores in the midst of the downtown area. And the bookstore in particular highlights why a local market is so important when working with digital marketing.
Bookstores all over the world have fallen due to the larger online distributors. Portland’s one of the few exceptions to that rule. In Portland, people enjoy walking into a bookstore. But one needs to consider why that’s the case. It’s not that people in Portland have an unusual love of books. Instead it’s the fact that the bookstore understands the local market and functions accordingly. This is at the heart of local marketing. A Portland digital marketing agency puts a heavy emphasis on the local culture. Obviously the Portland digital marketing agency will be able to target a larger market as well. But the most important part is the Portland difference. This comes down to a balance between SEO and standard digital marketing and local SEO.
Standard digital marketing essentially tries to talk directly to a search engine. It’s essentially a linguistic bridge. Search engines don’t really understand the writing within a website. SEO attempts to tell a search engine what it’s there to do in the search engine’s own digital language. The SEO will also target people. But it usually operates on the idea that if search engines notice a site then people will follow.
Local SEO needs to keep this idea in mind. But for the most part, local SEO is more heavily focused on local culture. The priority can shift around a little. In this case one will often hope that where the people are the search engine will follow. Both techniques have their benefits. And neither should exist in exclusion of the other. But while standard SEO is the norm people often forget about local SEO. This is in large part because it’s a more complex subject. This can be illustrated by returning to the example of Portland.
Digital marketing in Portland puts a heavy emphasis on foot traffic. Someone who does a search for goods and services should have information presented which leads them to a local store that can provide it. This is especially true of online maps. Using online maps on one’s phone is the norm these days. Local SEO puts a heavy emphasis on using that fact to their advantage. Local SEO should work toward ensuring good results for anyone searching for compatible items. This is further driven home by digital marketing which accounts for the individual nature of Portland culture.
Local SEO’s focus on people means creating a social snowball effect. People will constantly find out about a service and talk to friends about it through social media. This creates an online hub where local customers essentially act as an active agent to drive up awareness. Local SEO will often take this even further by working with blogging or similar services in order to drive local search results to a company.
Someone in Portland looking for advice on something might find himself on a locally run blog. As such they’d suddenly become aware of that service. In the end it comes down to knowing the local landscape. A marketing company which knows the local culture can leverage that expertise into solid local SEO.
