It may not be surprising, then, to learn that 72% of local businesses funded community events in 2023. The Local Sponsorship Alliance shared this on social media. It just goes to show what a huge deal community events have become for local marketing.
You may be asking how all of this benefits you online, particularly your local SEO. Community engagement, such as corporate sponsorship of local cultural events, is essential to thrive for these businesses. It allows them to be seen and trusted voices in their local community.
By doing this, you support your community and boost your online presence. Sponsoring events is about more than branding presence. As a bonus, it boosts your local search rankings and drives more traffic to your website.
It prevents more potential customers from visiting your store. Let’s see how this can change your local SEO for the better.
Key Takeaways
- 72% of local businesses engage in community sponsorship.
- Through sponsorships, destinations have the ability to earn highly relevant, valuable backlinks to their sites and increase their online visibility.
- Producing community events can result in an average of 15 local backlinks per event.
- Local businesses can experience as much as a 30% increase in foot traffic by participating in these events.
- Local SEO combined with community involvement can boost online traffic by 40%.
- Additionally, sponsorships are shown to help increase brand awareness for local companies by 25%.
Understanding Local SEO and Its Importance
With 46% of all Google searches looking for local information, having a strong local SEO strategy is key in today’s digital landscape. Local businesses have an incentive to increase their SEO performance by reaching the customers closest to them.
After all, 76% of people searching for local services on their phones will visit a business that same day.
What is Local SEO?
An intelligent local SEO strategy can ensure that your business appears in local search results. It’s about getting your products and services in front of people who already want them.
Making the most of event partnerships and focused content matches are key to bettering your local SEO gains.
Why You Should Care About Local SEO
That’s why local SEO is incredibly useful. With 29% of Google search results showing local packs, your business has a great chance to stand out.
Leveraging cause marketing strategies maximizes the kickback to the cause while expanding your own local visibility and helping you connect with the locals whose values align with yours.
46% of local searches lead to store visits. 76% of Google search results feature the local pack. 29% of search results show local packs.
When you invest in local SEO, you’re not simply improving your online presence. On top of that, you’re building real-world relationships and attracting more people right to your business.
This highly targeted approach helps your business make more sales and build deeper relationships with their community.
Benefits of Sponsoring Community Events
Not only will sponsoring community events make you a more valuable player in your local SEO strategy, it’ll help you foster close connections in your community. Here’s a closer look at the top SEO advantages to backing nearby events.
Enhancing Brand Visibility
Sponsoring local events enhances your brand visibility, allowing you to implement a local SEO strategy through engaging content such as banners and virtual booths. Combining your brand with your community. This unique approach enables community-focused potential customers to more easily remember your brand.
Building Community Relationships
Volunteering with local nonprofit events shows you care about the local community, which will boost your local SEO strategy. Establishing trust and goodwill with local customers and employees is key.
This deep-rooted bond can significantly impact your SEO success while increasing customer retention and brand loyalty.
Increasing Local Foot Traffic
Not only is this great on a community level, it’s a great draw to your store. With more people wanting to shop local after COVID-19, sponsoring events can help you attract more customers.
Sponsorship Type Benefits
- Financial: Direct support, prominent branding
- In-kind: Product showcase, cost-effective
- Media: Increased exposure, content creation
- Community: Goodwill, local reputation boost
By taking advantage of these benefits, you’ll organically bolster your local SEO. Not only do you have a positive impact on your community with local event sponsorship,
Strategies for Effective Sponsorship
Reaping the benefits of a quality community events sponsorship takes deliberation and design, not to mention a well-thought-out local SEO strategy. With the proper local SEO techniques, you can better market your community events and rank higher in local search engine results.
Choosing the Right Events
Deciding which events to pursue is crucial for corporate sponsorship success. Prioritize events that closely align with your target audience. For instance, if your buyers are young tech professionals, then look to sponsor tech conferences or startup meetups.
Spend time in research on event prospects. Look at their websites, look at their past attendees, look at their marketing opportunities. This will allow you to better craft a compelling sponsorship proposal demonstrating the event’s alignment and relevance to your brand.
Aligning Sponsorship with Your Brand Values
Make your sponsorship reflect your company’s values and mission. Here are some options:
- Title Sponsorship: Offers maximum visibility and brand recognition
- Provide products or services instead of financial support
- Educational Workshops: Host seminars related to your industry expertise
Make your pitch relevant to specific event organizers. Outline how you will use your sponsorship to make the event better.
Follow up after the event, provide constructive feedback and talk about future possibilities. This deepens your connection to the community and increases your local SEO.
Measuring the Impact of Sponsorship on SEO
Since local SEO brings customers directly to your business, it’s essential to evaluate the effectiveness of your community outreach efforts and event partnerships for your local SEO strategy. Measure meaningful actions to determine how well you are engaging with local businesses.
This will allow you to find out if your business’s brand is becoming more visible online and supplementing your local SEO strategy.
Tracking Locally Relevant Keywords
Monitor your site’s performance to ensure local search engine optimization is attached to your events. Monitor progress. Use tools such as Google Analytics to check if your organic search traffic and rankings for these keywords are increasing.
PR Newswire reports that the sports sponsorship market will grow to $89.6 billion by 2027. This makes community engagement practices even more important to ensure you can objectively gauge the ROI received from your sponsorship.
Analyzing Web Traffic and Engagement
Monitor your website’s traffic leading up to, during, and after your sponsored events. This will allow you to judge the effectiveness of your local SEO strategy. Look to see if you’re getting more local traffic.
If they’re engaging more on your site, that’s a sign that your sponsorship activations are fostering trust and increasing your SEO, two big benefits to sponsorship dollars.
Leveraging Community Feedback
Watch what people say about you on social media, online reviews, and local citations after your events. This feedback can tell you a lot about how your brand is seen locally, which is crucial for your local SEO strategy.
Create a conversation with your audience that fosters creativity and innovation through continual feedback. You’ll create more enthusiastic brand advocates and enhance your local SEO marketing in the process.
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