By Michael Lambert, Program Manager, Market Research Center

One of the services that we offer at the Wyoming SBDC Network Market Research Center is no-charge analysis and recommendations for websites and social media. Basically, we dive into the weeds on websites and social media accounts and make recommendations that will help folks improve how their internet presence works.

Why Physical Location Matters for Online Presence

One of the more common things that I see is something that seems trivial, but which can have huge impacts on whether your website or social media account is reaching your audience. This is the presence information on your physical location.

In the past few years more and more businesses have gone online. Many of these can be work-from-home businesses, businesses without store fronts or businesses that don't have a physical location that they want published. This might be the case for those who work from home, who work part-time at a "side hustle" or don't have an address in a standard retail or office location. Many of these businesses are great at what they do, but if you don't include an address web browsers and social media can't direct potential customers to your site.

Getting Started

There are things that you can do. The first and easiest, is to simply include your city and town without a street address on your website's home page, contact page or about page for social media. Saying "proudly offering accounting services in the Lander and Riverton, Wyoming area" is much better than "we offer accounting services."

When it comes to search engines, Google My Business will allow what they call SAB's (Service Area Businesses) to create a business listing that includes a hidden address. When you set up the SAB with Google you would then tell them to hide the address when creating the listing. If you don't want a home address or location listed, this is the way to go. More information on using Google My Business as a home or virtual business are linked below:

·         How To Do Local SEO for Businesses Without Physical Locations in 2021

·         How to use a service area on Google for service-area & hybrid businesses

·         Guidelines for representing your business on Google

In the case of Facebook and other social media, making sure that your content includes location information like "The best BBQ Food Truck in Casper, Wyoming", along with references to your location in your posts will help. Even if you don't want to include a street address, your "about page" should include location-specific keywords like "Casper, WY" or "Serving Casper, Mills, Evansville and Kaycee, Wyoming."

The bottom line is that people like shopping locally and search engines and social media understand that. This is the reason why including as much location information as you can will help even a non-brick-and-mortar business attract local customers.

Help is Available

To get started with a free social media or website analysis, contact your local Wyoming SBDC Network advisor by clicking here.

About the Author: In over 17 years, Mike has built an information resource for Wyoming businesses that is unique in the nation. The Wyoming SBDC Network's Market Research Center specializes in providing any Wyoming business with access to advanced marketing information that was previously available only to a few of the largest corporations. Mike's individual expertise also includes marketing, product management, product development, international trade, and exporting.