The Local Marketing Handbook
Your Website
Four pages that do a job.
The first edition of this book spent sixty pages here. It does not need sixty pages anymore. The platform barely matters now, and any of them will build you a starting layout from a description of your business.
What matters is what goes on the pages.
Home
Above the fold, answer three questions in about ten words each: what you do, who you do it for, and where. "Same-day in-home computer repair for families in Sixteen Acres, Springfield." Then one obvious button. Call, book, or get directions. Pick one.
Below that: proof, your services, and your address with a map.
One page per service
This is where most local businesses lose. One page listing eight services ranks for nothing. Eight pages, each about one service, each naming the neighborhoods you cover and a real example of the work, will do more than any other change you make. Write them once. They work for years.
About
Who you are, how long you have been here, why you started. People buy from local businesses partly because they are local.
Say the quiet part out loud.
Contact
Clickable phone number. Address. Hours. A short form, five fields maximum. A map. No selling here, they already decided.
Two technical things worth asking for
- LocalBusiness schema. A small block of code that spells out your name, address, phone, hours, and services in a format machines read directly. Most site builders have a plugin or setting for it. Ask your web person for it by name.
- Identical name, address, and phone everywhere.
"Suite 4" in one place and "Ste. 4" in another creates doubt, and doubt costs you recommendations.
AI Assist: service pages in an evening
Use the below prompt to generate a service page for your website.
Write a 500-word service page for [specific service] offered by [business] in [town]. Audience: [paste your audience statement]. Include a short intro on the problem, what the service includes, what it costs or how pricing works, one realistic example of this job, the neighborhoods we serve, and a clear call to action. Plain language, no marketing fluff, no superlatives I cannot prove.
Then do the part the machine cannot: add the real job, the real street, the real customer's first name. That is the part that makes it yours.
Your 30-minute task
Look at your home page on your phone.
Can a stranger tell what you do, who for, and where, in five seconds without scrolling? If not, fix that one line.
Nothing else on the site matters more.
