Blog: Small Town Seo

When you think of rural America, you might often think of steep mountains with few people or large farms where your nearest neighbor may be several miles away. It is also easy to assume rural markets are unreachable and disconnected from most traditional and digital marketing forms, but that’s not the case in the modern era.

Take these statistics into consideration:

• 72% of Rural Area U.S. Adults have home broadband access (Source: Pew Research Center)
• 80% of Rural Area U.S. Adults have a smartphone with internet access (Source: Pew Research Center)
• 78% of North Carolina has internet as of November 2021 (Source: Statista)
• States surrounding NC:
  • Tennessee: 79.1%
  • Virginia: 80.5%
  • Georgia: 81.2%
  • South Carolina: 81.3%

According to a Gallup poll, at the end of 2020, almost half of Americans said that if they could choose, they would choose a small town (17%) or rural area (31%) rather than a city or suburb.

Given these statistics, it is evident that rural America is seeing a resurgence in the small-town and rural lifestyle. Rural small businesses can capitalize on these new faces by positioning themselves better through their marketing efforts.

Therefore, let’s look at the following tips and tricks to help rural small businesses:

As a small business in a rural area or small town, you know you have unique challenges. When it comes to marketing in general, there are several things that you can do to differentiate yourself from others and be found. One of the easiest and cheapest is to up your online marketing game! 

When it comes to local business online marketing, we have numerous unique challenges. As someone who grew up and still lives in a small town in a rural area, I get it, and it makes it even more difficult when I see businesses struggle. The main reason it is so difficult is that the search engines don't understand us.

Let’s look at several definitions of what is considered a rural area.