Marketing mishaps are one of the biggest reasons businesses fail every year. 

Whether it’s a lack of preparation, minimal research, or decreased funding, it’s much harder to stay in business if you can’t consistently market your business.

There are several aspects to marketing your laundromat, but one of your focal points should be locational marketing–advertising your services to those near you. To stay in business, you need your immediate community to come to your store, so it’s essential they know you exist.

How do they find your business online? By searching “laundromats near me.”

In this post, you’ll learn how to understand your online presence and get the basics of local results on search engines. 

Before you can learn about improving your search results, let’s discuss what “near me” searches are and why they’re crucial for your business’s well-being.

Understanding the “Near Me” Searches

“Near me” searches have grown in popularity over the last two years, thanks to the pandemic.

But this isn’t all bad for businesses–your best customer is the one right down the street. Why? Because they can come back again and again.

“Near me” is not just about having a good website. It’s about proving that you provide excellent service based on your SEO rankings to search engines.

“Near me” means NOW–when someone does this search, they need an answer immediately.

For example, in Texas, you might ask, “Tex-Mex near me” because it’s dinner time, and your family is hungry. Instead of searching a map or driving around aimlessly, you trust Google, and other search engines, to share the best places.

Stores on this list come up for many reasons, but they all revolve around SEO, including business information, content, and reviews.

Do You Need to Show Up on “Near Me” Listings?

Your business needs to show up in “near me” listings. 

“Where to buy” + “near me” mobile queries have grown by over 200% in the past two years.

Showing up on local searches can improve business and help you grow your community.

How to Improve Your Local Ranking

Showing up on local search results requires a proactive attitude and funneling effort towards SEO services that will help your business.

1. Build a Google Business Profile

The first step for every business to get noticed is to have a Google Business Profile (GBP). Formally known as GMB (Google My Business), this service gets your business on Google. Whenever someone pulls up Google and searches for keywords related to your business, your store pops up.

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You have to include your NAP–the name of your business, address, and phone number (don’t use a 1-800 number). It also helps if you include hours of operation, but ensure the hours on your Google Business Profile match your website’s hours.

If you have multiple locations, you can mention them under one listing or create a Google Business Profile for each one.

But whatever you do, keep the information up to date. Otherwise, you risk Google not showing your page.

Why wouldn’t they show your page? If the information on GBP doesn’t match your website, the search engines don’t know which one is right, so they won’t list your business.

2. Create Location-Specific Content

People searching “near me” are looking for places in the immediate vicinity. So while you might have great information for the general search, you need to show search engines that you can help local searches.

To accomplish this, periodically create content (blogs and articles) that use key location indicators–surrounding areas, major cities, different names for your location.

Search engines like Google pick up on this, and when someone in the area searches “laundromats near me” or “laundromats near [city/town],” your business shows up.

3. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Devices

Most people searching “near me” need instant results because they are more than likely out and about, so they don’t have a desktop.

In 2020, 55% of worldwide online traffic came from mobile, 42% from desktop.

Since the majority are on phones, your website should react to that. 

How does your website look on a phone? Is it cluttered? Easy to read/navigate?

Why would people stay on your website if it’s not the latter? 

Conclusion

Ranking “near me” doesn’t happen by chance or luck–it requires deliberate action and effort.

You can improve your online presence and increase your customer pool with the three tips shared in this post. 

Because, after all, the community around your store will bring you the most business.

So, when people can easily find you online, they’re more likely to show up at your door.