Last Updated on June 8, 2023
If you’re a business looking to improve your online presence locally, the benefits of local SEO should appeal to you. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an invaluable tool for businesses of all sizes to get found online through search engines such as Google.
In today’s world, we’ve seen the digital landscape grow exponentially. People are spending more and more time on their smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc. What this means is that businesses now have to ensure their target audience is able to discover their business online, just as much as outside while taking into consideration which devices they’re using for the best experience.
With local SEO services, businesses can target their local market through specific keywords and phrases that are tailored to the community they are serving. Ensure that local listing directories are up to date and optimized, and make sure all customer reviews are being represented well on the website to name a few. However, doing just one of these things is not enough, as it is important to have an overall local SEO strategy that will capture the attention of local consumers fully.
This article will discuss the various benefits of using local SEO best practices for small, medium, and large-sized businesses while helping you understand how it can help expand your local customer base and boost sales.
Schedule a free consultation with our team today if you need help optimizing your website for local SEO.
Local SEO Basics
Local SEO is an important factor in helping businesses reach their local customers and increase local visibility online. It involves optimizing your website, as well as claiming and optimizing local listings on key directories such as Google My Business (GMB), and building NAP (name, address, phone number) citations.
Consider this, ~46% of users searching Google are said to be searching with local intent.
When local SEO best practices are done properly, it can help to improve your website ranking within search engine results, as well as when people are searching for businesses related to yours within a local area. This helps potential customers find relevant information about your products or services more quickly and easily.
Consider this other stat from 2020, per Search Engine Journal: First-positioned organic search results in Google Search have an average CTR (click-through rate) of ~28.5%, while the second and third positions have a drop-off yielding ~15% and ~11% CTRs.
So think about your business being seen on a billboard at a heavy traffic intersection, and knowing that billboard is guaranteed to have ~28.5% of the traffic that passes through going inside your business. Safe to say that it makes sense to value that billboard. Well, that is the same for local SEO and the value it brings.
Why Target Geographical Areas?
By targeting geographic areas, companies can ensure that their products and services are visible to the consumers in those areas who are most likely to be interested in them. This is specifically important for businesses that offer services such as lawn care, or car dealerships for example.
Geographic targeting involves optimizing content and website structure for a particular region or area. This includes using local keywords, such as city or state names, throughout the content on the website and other online channels; making sure localized information is available (such as opening hours, phone numbers, and address); and creating location-specific landing pages that include detailed maps with directions.
The goal is to make your business more discoverable to potential buyers near you, so they know exactly where to find you and what services you offer.
Additionally, this type of targeted approach can help improve your visibility over competitors who aren’t using local search optimization strategies.
Improving Visibility in SERPs
Search engine results pages (SERPs) are one of the first places a potential customer looks when they’re searching for a product or service. Improving visibility in SERPs is essential for success in local SEO, as this will help businesses reach their target audiences and increase online sales by capturing more search real estate while loading search results.
Some common features you’d see as SERPs on Google Search are the following:
- Featured Snippet
- Local Pack
- Reviews
- Sitelinks
- Videos
- Top Stories
- Images
- Knowledge Panel
- FAQs
- People Also Ask
- Related Searches
- Google Flights Block
- Hotel Pack
- Job Listings
- Google Ads
- Shopping Ads (Product Listing Ads)
- Rich Snippets
Each feature pulls different content from your website to show on the search results page. Optimizing your website content to help search engine features will increase the likelihood that search engines better recognize your business and relevance for what the user is searching for, thus making for easy consideration. If you need help improving your website to show on SERPs, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
Reaching Mobile Customers
Reaching mobile customers is key for local businesses in today’s digital age. With the increasing number of people relying on their smartphones and tablets for information, companies must make sure they are optimizing their marketing strategies to reach mobile customers.
Think about it, when you’re looking for something specific by you, the chances you’re conducting your search on your phone are very high. This is why ensuring your website is mobile-friendly is important when looking to attract local customers.
The main things to understand when having a responsive website that is optimized for mobile use is ensuring easy navigation between pages and quick loading times. If your website is not set up to support mobile users the best it can consult with our team to see how we can best help you be prepared for all devices a visitor might be on.
What is a responsive website?
A responsive website is a website that uses dynamic format changes based on the screen size and orientation of the viewer’s device. For example, if you view your website on a desktop computer – the page will load to the screen size of the desktop. If you view it on a tablet, the same thing. To tell if a website is not responsive, load the website on your smartphone or tablet and see if you’re needing to zoom in or are not able to view the content at ease. If the website seems to not be consumed easily due to needing to zoom or scroll a lot, chances are that it is not responsive.
Conclusion: Benefits of Local SEO
In conclusion, local SEO is a great tool for businesses to increase their visibility in their local market and to be successful online. It helps them create content that is tailored to the needs of local customers, increases the chance of appearing in relevant search engine results pages, and drives more organic traffic to their websites.
Additionally, it helps build relationships with local customers and other businesses in the same industry. Tracking your local SEO efforts will also allow you to understand and measure performance and the impact each effort makes on local customers. A great tool to asses these efforts would be Google Analytics.
Now that we’ve gone over the benefits of local SEO if you’d like to know how your website is currently performing with SEO, we’re providing a FREE SEO Overview report that will provide insights to have a better understanding.
