Over the past few years, local SEO has grown to become a central part of digital marketing strategies. It is especially important to business organizations that want to grow their online audience in locations near the business. But what exactly is local SEO all about? And how can it positively impact a business? Here are some essential facts you need to know about local SEO and why it is vital for business owners in the digital age.
What’s Local SEO All About?
It is a search engine optimization technique that’s geared towards helping a business expand its online visibility within specific location targets. Basically, local SEO is a set of SEO principles that are aimed at exposing your business to audiences within certain localities. When you optimize your business website locally, it will help your organization rank higher in your local zone and other cities or regions you may be targeting.
The idea is to make it easier for search engines like Google to pick up the locations of your local audience and present them with results featuring your company. For example, when you optimize your restaurant business to rank for “restaurants near me,” allowing you to gain an advantage in local SEO.
The Importance Of Local SEO
Brick-and-mortar business owners must embrace local SEO. If you are a service provider who wants to dominate your local market, it’s the best way to go. A Forbes study noted that roughly 95% of people who use smartphones perform local searches. About 61% and 59% of those users admitted calling the company and visiting the company’s premises, respectively.
In another study also discovered that 70% of smartphone users normally call the business right away from the Google results (contact info) that are shown to them. Judging from these statistics, it means that local SEO has the power to boost the customer landscapes of businesses that optimize themselves to gain local advantages. You can generate leads and convert local audiences into paying customers.
Therefore, by failing to leverage local SEO to advertise your business organically, you may be hiding your business from the customers who need it the most. As time goes on, the number of online searchers looking for local results will only keep growing.
Another advantage of local SEO is that it has a high conversion rate because the leads come from audiences who are in dire need of the products and services they are searching for. So, instead of waiting for your customers to search for you in vain, start building your local campaigns to make your company stand out online on the local map.
Get Your Business To Feature In Google’s 3 Pack
At first, Google used to display the contact details of the top seven local businesses in its results. But when competition for local ranking became higher, the search engine giant reduced its snippet views to cover just three results. This is known as the local 3-pack.
A Moz study observed that 44% of audiences who performed local searches normally click on the top three results, and a small 8% checked out other local listings. That means if your local SEO is powerful, and you make it to the top three, you can drive a massive amount of traffic to your website to increase your revenue.
The Impact of Local SEO on Businesses
For small business owners, the benefits of local SEO speak for themselves. Here are some of the advantages of local SEO to business organizations.
Discoverability
Local clients will easily find your business at the click of a button if you optimize it to rank in your local area. However, local searches can also come from non-local audiences who are looking for businesses like your own. That means if you optimize your pages to rank locally, you can also capture foreign clients.
Informs Clients About Your Business
Local SEO can broadcast your business profile to customers without your physical involvement. So you can list your contact info, services, and opening hours, and Google will attract your target audience to you.
Gives Your Business A Competitive Edge
Customers like to purchase from brands that they can trust. Therefore, an organization that uses local SEO to share personal information about its services can gain a competitive edge in its industry.
Final Thoughts
Local SEO is one of the most important digital marketing tactics for business owners today. Thankfully, by working with SEO companies, business owners can increase their online presence in local settings.
Author Bio
This article was written by Conor O’Flynn of O’Flynn Medical. Conor is a leading supplier of medical products to the Irish market and has utilised Local SEO to grow his business.
