You might already be aware of the importance of SEO. After all, if you have a business, working hard into creating a strong presence online has become essential for success. What you might not know is how important local SEO is for a more targeted strategy for your digital marketing campaign. Before getting into its implementation and take advantage of this effective way of increasing the online visibility (and the engagement) of your business, however, you must have very clear what local SEO is and what kind of impacts it can have on your business.
To make things easier for you, we put together an essential guide on everything you should know about local SEO so that you’ll be able to benefit from it at best.
What Is Local SEO?
This type of Search Engine Optimisation strategy is aimed at promoting your online visibility based on the location of searches leading to your website. To put it simply, it goes a step further than your “classic” SEO campaign and its goal is to make sure that your business will be found by people that are locally closer to it.
Still not clear? Imagine you have a clothing store, located in a particular city. Local SEO will help your website to be reached by anyone looking specifically for “stores” in that particular city or searching for “near me” clothing shops. By doing so, people that are looking for the type of service or product you offer and that are closer to you will have a higher chance to find you. It comes without saying that this simple feature has the benefit of increasing the number of potential customers for your business.
Why Should You Implement Such A Strategy?
Local SEO is very important, especially when you have a physical store located in a specific geographical location. Indeed, it is getting increasingly common for consumers to use their smartphones to look for services or products and more than 95% of such users will opt for a local search, to find the best store closer to them.
Of those searches, almost 60% will be converted into actual sales, which is where the benefit of local SEO is more visible!
As you can see, leads from location-based searches have a greater chance to convert into customers. Using more technical terms, it is safe to say that with an up and running local SEO campaign, you’ll experience a higher conversion rate.
What’s more, is that local SEO is of great help in making your business visible on Google’s local 3 pack, which is the map of business around a user’s location, related to the particular search. The local 3 pack refers to the first 3 businesses that will appear first on the map resulting from a local search.
Statistics show that the 3 businesses listed first are the preferred final choices for purchases for the majority of online users. This means that only a lower percentage of people will choose to check “more local results”. Thus, making it to the top three can be an effective game-changer in terms of traffic and potential revenue for your business.
How Does Local SEO Work?
First of all, you should know that by definition, local SEO needs your website to be linked to a physical address or location, which should be up to date on Google My Business and other online directories, to show up appropriately.
You also must ensure to have your business name, address and phone number consistent across the web. Only without discrepancies and contradictions, will your business be eligible to be listed on the local 3 pack.
You can also improve your local SEO score using quotations and citations from other websites. This works just like with the off-page SEO and helps to increase your website’s reputation in the eye of search engines. For example, if an external website cites your store as the best option for purchasing a particular product, you’ll gain “points” and your chances of getting listed in the local 3-pack will be higher. Generally, the more authoritative the site that quotes you, the better.
Furthermore, reviews, whether positive or negative will make a difference in your SEO ranking.
Now that you know the benefits of this digital marketing strategy, start implementing it to your business to better manage your online presence and increase your engagement!
