In this year of 2020 COVID-19 makes the business environment incredibly challenging. This is even more serious for small businesses that depends on the local foot traffic. Restaurant is a very typical example as indoor dining is often restricted or best open at the reduced capacity. Other small retailers have the same challenges.
As a result, there has been an acceleration of the trend of businesses moving online. Businesses take advantage of the new digital marketing tools will come out stronger than others.
Many businesses have already a Google My Business profile. This enables consumers uses Google local search including searching on Map to find the store to visit or order for a delivery. Google My Business profile can be thought of as the replacement of the traditional yellow pages of telephone numbers. It is only so much better as it shows more information of the business including direction, phone, website, pictures, and posts etc.
Small businesses should take this special pandemic period to optimize Google My Business. In addition, small businesses can advertise using paid local search ads to further increase their online existence.
For a lot of small businesses bracing for the digital marketing is not an easy task. The business owners are often too busy to focus efforts on this new task for them. SmartLens has helped small businesses moving to online marketing and achieved good successes.