For local businesses in the current era, online visibility isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity for survival

Case in point, SOCi’s 2024 Behavior Consumer Index found that 80% of US consumers use search engines to find local businesses, with 32% of users doing so every day

So, if you aren’t showing up on Google for local keywords related to your business, you’ll have an extremely difficult time remaining competitive. 

Yet, local SEO campaigns aren’t free, so there’s the not-so-tiny matter of developing a local marketing budget

Does this mean that your small business will fail if you don’t have millions to spend on marketing?

Not at all. 

It doesn’t take a gigantic budget to stand out in local markets online, but it does take a smart one

That means focusing on the channels that yield the strongest, most sustainable results, like:

  1. Optimizing and managing your Google Business Profile (an absolute must for local online visibility). 
  2. Generating positive Google Reviews. According to Bright Local, 71% of US consumers won’t touch businesses that have less than a 3-star average rating. 
  3. Uploading your business’s contact information to directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages, Better Business Bureau, and niche local directories. 
  4. Responding to customer reviews (both negative and positive). This helps establish trust with your audience. 

This guide will show you how to build an effective local marketing budget, regardless of your business’s size, so stay tuned! 

What Local Businesses Actually Need from Marketing 

“Which marketing channels will actually matter for my small local businesses?”

This is the most important question to ask yourself BEFORE you create your marketing budget. 

Besides just asking, you also need to take it one step further and analyze real data to understand which marketing channels are worth the investment

In doing so, you’ll avoid the #1 beginner budgeting pitfall, which is investing in channels that underperform.

To make things easy on you, here are the marketing channels every local business needs to find lasting success. 

Local search visibility (local SEO, Google Business Profile optimization) 

Since 80% of the population uses Google to find businesses in their area, local SEO is a must-use marketing channel. 

In particular, you need a fully optimized and well-managed Google Business Profile (GBP) listing. 

Why’s that?

It’s because GBP is essentially the heart of local SEO on Google

Want to appear in Google Maps searches that are crucial for generating visits to your store?

You need an optimized GBP listing. 

Want to start generating calls and leads straight from Google’s results pages (which is what 60% of smartphone users do)?

You need an optimized GBP listing. 

Wish you could get your business listed in the visually appealing local pack that snags 126% more traffic than results 4 – 10?

You guessed it, you need an optimized GBP listing. 

We could go on and on, but we’ll stop here. The point is that optimized and managed GBP listings are paramount for local SEO success. 

Need help perfecting your GBP listing for better local SEO? Our Google Business Profile Optimization Service is what you need!  

Trust builders (reviews, reputation management) 

You also need to build trust with your target audience, and the best way to do that is to generate lots of positive reviews on Google and other platforms

More importantly, you should respond to all your reviews, even the negative ones

While it may seem counterintuitive at first, users actually trust and respect brands that are transparent about occasional negative experiences. 

The worst thing you can do is ignore or try to bury your negative reviews, as that will draw the ire of the public (and cause them to not trust your products and services). 

As proof, a poll by Shout About Us revealed that 89% of customers are highly likely to respond to a business that responds to ALL its reviews, not just cherry-picked praise. 

So, you’ll want to designate someone to be in charge of your reputation management, mainly by encouraging loyal customers to leave positive reviews and responding to all your reviews across various platforms. 

You could try to tackle this yourself, but it entails a lot of work and upkeep, even for smaller businesses. 

Do yourself a favor and either designate someone in-house for reputation management or outsource it to an agency. 

Conversion tools (landing pages, local content, etc.) 

If you want your business to appear for lots of relevant searches, you need to consistently publish content that features trending local keywords

That means investing in content creation to:

  • Build your ranking authority 
  • Achieve thought leadership status 
  • Consistently generate lots of targeted traffic to your website

The final piece of the puzzle is converting the users you attract to your website via the other channels. 

To do this, you need optimized landing pages that contain convincing web copy and clear CTAs (calls-to-action)

Most small local businesses will use their service area pages and contact pages (containing their address and phone number) as their primary landing pages for conversions. 

For instance, a local pizza shop in St. Petersburg would want its contact page to rank well for local SEO keywords like ‘best pizza st. petersburg.’ 

At the same time, its contact page should be designed to convert. It shouldn’t hide the business’s contact information or make it difficult to read. Enticing web copy and social proof are also crucial, so the store could use something like:

Serving up fresh slices of heaven every weekday. Rated the best pizza in St. Petersburg by (blank) publication. 

The first sentence makes the reader hungry, and the second sentence persuades them that your pizza shop is the place to satisfy their craving. 

Optimized web copy like this will help you boost your conversion rates. 

The Core Pillars of a Local Marketing Budget 

Now that you know which channels matter most for small local businesses, it’s time to learn how to put together a budget. 

This means getting more granular by breaking down each channel into subsections and individual products. 

For example, improving your local online visibility can take several forms. 

You could choose to:

  1. Optimize your Google Business Profile 
  2. Build backlinks from relevant local websites 
  3. Accrue positive reviews and respond to negative experiences (with the goal of making them better, of course) 
  4. Create informative content based on local keywords 
  5. Upload your business’s contact information to localized directories 
  6. Do all of the above 

Whether you choose to do some or all of the local SEO techniques mentioned above will depend on your individual needs. 

Let’s take a closer look. 

Google Business Profile optimization 

We’ve already mentioned the importance of having an optimized Google Business Profile, but what does that entail exactly?

For quick reference, here’s what ours looks like:

There are also reviews, posts, and links to our socials further down the listing:

So, how much work did it take to achieve this?

Well, the core tenets of optimizing a GBP listing are as follows:

  • Verify ownership of your business (so that you can edit the listing)
  • Fill out every section of your profile 
  • Ensure NAP (name, address, and phone number) consistency across all platforms 
  • Add high-resolution images of your property, team, products, and services 
  • Include business attributes (like whether you allow pets) 
  • Write a concise and accurate business description 
  • Add commonly asked questions and answers in the Q&A section (great place to target keywords) 
  • Create regular Posts that inform your audience about special promotions and events 
  • Respond to Google Reviews 
  • Monitoring your profile interactions 

As you can see, GBP optimization is a full-time job, which is why we recommend outsourcing it

Local SEO and citation building 

Next, you’ll need to do some citation building and cleanup to ensure NAP consistency and online visibility for your brand. 

If your NAP isn’t consistent, it can cause confusion for your users and throw off search engines, which can cause issues with Google Maps results. 

So, ensure that your NAP is accurate and up-to-date across platforms like Yelp, The Yellow Pages, TripAdvisor, and other directories.

Boosting your website’s authority through link-building is also very important. 

Backlinks are how you build trust on Google, so your links need to appear on as many relevant, reputable websites as possible. 

Also, you need to use local schema markup to add things like hours of operation and your phone number to Google’s search results. It also helps with appearing in the local pack and other SERP features (like featured snippets). 

Do you want better local visibility and NAP consistency? Don’t wait to check out our Local SEO services, including Citation Building and Cleanup

Reputation management 

As we’ve said already, reputation management is a necessity for local businesses, and it’s incredibly time-consuming. 

First, you need to brainstorm ways to encourage repeat customers to leave positive reviews, like leaving review reminders with restaurant orders. 

After that, you have to watch your review profile like a hawk, quickly responding to any and every review you receive online. 

Yet, that’s the price every brand must pay for a solid reputation amongst customers. The good news is that, when done properly, the benefits outweigh the cost. 

Localized content creation 

The more content you create, the better your online visibility will be with your target audience. 

That’s why so many businesses engage in blogging and other forms of content creation (like videos and infographics). 

Here’s a simple breakdown of how you can use SEO-optimized content to reel in large groups of your target audience:

  1. You find topics and keywords your audience is actively searching for (like how to tie shoelaces, as a simple example). 
  2. Next, you create a piece of content (or create an entire cluster) centered around the keyword (The Ultimate Guide to Tying Your Shoelaces). 
  3. To generate leads and revenue, you include a CTA at the end that links to one of your service pages or contact page. 

Do this regularly, and your website will flourish with organic visitors who are in need of your products and services. 

Local SEO Budget Guide: How to Budget Based on Your Monthly Spend 

How much should you spend on local marketing products each month?

As we said before, it’s all about being smart with your money

Here’s what we recommend for different monthly spending levels. 

$500 – $1,000 per month local marketing budget 

If you’re stuck with $500 – $1,000 per month, fret not, because you can still make serious improvements to your online visibility

Here’s how to get the most bang for your buck at this level:

  1. Invest in Google Business Profile optimization to improve local visibility on Google ($150 per month for basic management). 
  2. Do some citation building to get your NAP out there and build authority ($150 for 30 citations). 
  3. Create some basic localized SEO content to generate leads and sales ($80 per 500-word post).

Here’s the breakdown if you want to spend less than $500:

GBP ($150) + 30 citations ($150) + 1 blog post per month ($80) = $380 total

Here’s a breakdown if $1,000 is your limit:

GBP ($150) + 50 citations ($349) + 6 blog posts per month ($480) = $979 total 

$1,000 – $2,500 per month local marketing budget 

If you’ve got a bit more breathing room, you can broaden your horizons a bit by adding backlink outreach, more sophisticated content, and review generation tools

For $1,000, you can stick with GBP and 30 citations ($300) while adding:

3 guest post backlinks (DA of 20 at $450) + reputation management ($200) = $950 total 

For $2,500, you can add more value with:

3 guest post backlinks (DA of 40 at $945) + reputation management ($200) + 50 citations ($349) + 6 blog posts per month ($480) + GBP ($150) = $2,124 total

$2,500+ per month local marketing budget 

If you can spend more than $2,500 on marketing each month, your budget could look something like this:

GBP ($150) + Digital PR backlinks ($1,000) + managed local SEO (hands-off service at $1,000 per month) + Technical SEO audit ($1,000) = $3,150 per month

Which Local Marketing Strategies are Recession-Proof?

Before we wrap up, it’s important to address which local marketing channels will help you thrive during a recession. 

As we mentioned in a previous post, pulling back on marketing spend during uncertain times is a recipe for lost revenue, so it’s crucial to keep investing in your visibility. 

In particular, local SEO and GBP optimization deliver compounding results that will continue to deliver beyond your initial investment. 

By this, we mean that all the content you create will remain online, so it will continue to generate traffic, leads, and sales for your business. 

For this reason, SEO is more economically viable than paid ads during uncertain times. 

Final Thoughts: Local Visibility Doesn’t Have to Break the Bank 

If you want to improve your local visibility, you don’t need to pay to win (i.e., using paid search). 

That strategy is largely unsustainable, especially during uncertain economic times. 

Instead, you need consistent traffic powered by great content and strong citations

That’s the formula for lasting success for local small businesses. 

Do you need help developing a local SEO budget that works?

Don’t wait to schedule a call with our team to develop the perfect budget for your needs!