Local SEO is mainly focused on ranking higher in a certain area. Usually, a website allows us to target the whole world online. At the same time, local SEO allows us to focus on the local areas. However, in this covid-19 pandemic world, it is worthy to invest in local SEO as people are trying to reach each other online rather than offline. Hence, it is worthy to invest especially now. Moreover, local SEO is the practice of optimizing your website for a specific area. For example: if you have a shop or some other local business and you want to rank for certain search queries, local SEO is the most suitable way to reach out to the local audience. Optimizing a local SEO allows you to ensure that people can reach you online and offline too. However, if you do not have visitors in the building, you can still target an audience that is located in the local area. So basically, a local SEO is a type of search engine optimization that helps your business to become more visible in the local area. Any business that operates physically can benefit from local search engine optimization.
Local search engine optimization (SEO) is proven to be the most powerful tool for small businesses. This strategy helps a business to become more productive physically or virtually. In case, you want your business to be found by local audiences in your area, you will have to deal with a local search engine optimization strategy. This strategy is an effective way to present your local business online to people who are searching for your offering products. In addition, it allows you to reach the maximum customer base. In this modern business world where people opt for social media marketing or digital marketing, you can hear about the term SEO. Basically, search engine optimization or SEO actions are designated to drive traffic to the website. There are many people who utilize the advantages of local SEO by strategizing the best practices of SEO. However, people are locally focused and utilize the advantages of local SEO and increase their business’s visibility. One of its examples is Brown Town. Brown Town resort has taken the advantage of local SEO and reached 4cr revenue. It is a luxury hotel located in Hyderabad.
It is a practical mantra in the U.S. to go local and buy local. At this point, there is no doubt that local SEO has become a hot topic for entrepreneurs. There are countless entrepreneurs who ask about local SEO and its benefits. In practice, local SEO is an act of increasing your business profile online so you can reach for the local searches. Local SEO helps a business to promote themselves virtually to a local audience within a specific local area. However, there is a huge difference between local SEO and organic SEO. In order to understand well, let’s take an example. Suppose my shower breaks and in this case, if I search for “plumber near me” in Google. It will come out with a bunch of options. I can pick the top one and can fix it. But if we want to know why exactly local SEO matters to your business, then it is because the local audience always relies on the internet to reach your business.
Overall, local search engine optimization usually allows you to rank on Google maps. And in this case, organic SEO is not sufficient. You must need a local SEO to increase the visibility of your business. It is about to 86% of people that uses map listings to search for a business.
How is it important for your business?
In this modern business world, there are large numbers of websites, so navigating the web is not an easy task. Hence, the search engine is meant to allow people to find the exact sites they are looking for. How local SEO is important for your business? After going through the behavior of the audience during a wide range of searches, Google has found out that people are seeking nearby businesses. Mostly, they are looking for businesses that are located in the nearby area. And this is the reason the local search algorithms of Google add a proximity factor. In other words, it is a fancy way of saying that Google takes your business location into account when people search for a local keyword. If there is a case when you want to get a pizza and you Google pizza delivery, the result will come out with a list of nearby locations. It works according to the area. With the growth in Smartphone internet access, mobile search has been explored and it gives rise to the importance of local SEO for businesses. In general, if your business has a local customer base, local SEO will benefit you. There are different types of businesses such as hospitality, local services, medical practices, law firms, private sellers, and many more that require local SEO. Local SEO helps your business in many ways. Even if you do not have a website, local SEO can help your business to stand out. Further, it helps to drive traffic to your business with the help of online leads. People who are searching for your offering products are more likely to give your business a high conversion rate. Local SEO is on the rise. 4 out of 5 customers are using search engine optimization to find information about businesses.
Local SEO helps drive decisions of customers in favor of your business. And you can become more trustworthy in the customer’s eyes. It ensures that your name, address, and phone number are consistent across all the virtual directories. It lists out all the information that your customers want to know about you. It includes location, address, services, etc. Implementing local SEO strategies mean that searches become mostly targeted for you. If it is implemented correctly, your business can stand in a better position to promote products or services. However, local SEO is cheap compared to organic SEO. The cost of advertising your business through traditional advertising methods costs hundreds and even thousands nowadays. But there are many local SEOs that are allowed to use free of cost. These local SEO strategies are free to implement and leave you more money to invest in some other SEO strategies that you wish to. Local audiences are mostly searching for details on local businesses, so having readily available information such as name, phone number, address, etc on your business website helps your business to grow and promote sales. By using local search engine optimization, you can improve the visibility of your business online. Most of the Google queries today are local searches. Even sometimes when someone performs a daily search, there is a possibility that Google shows local businesses. How it is important? Well, local SEO allows your business to meet the needs of its searchers. Along with better visibility, local SEO also allows some other benefits for your businesses. These are-
A cost-effective marketing solution: While it needs time and effort to make a business grow in online directories, you can easily set up a local business listing for free. There are some tools such as Facebook, Google My Business, etc that are free of cost and you can use these tools to set up your local business listings across the web. Further, these tools make a local SEO more cost-effective strategy for online promotion.
Helps local people to reach you: A study shows that there are 72% of customers who search for local businesses travel within five miles to visit a store. So, by focusing on this, if you are being searched and found by your local customers on Google maps, there is a higher possibility to increase the chance of getting maximum leads for your business. Hence, this is another way how local SEO is helping your business.
It helps to reach customers who are ready to make purchases: Local SEO converts 80% of local searches into sales. There is a fact that local SEO puts your business in front of the people at the exact time when they are looking for a product or service and it makes them much more likely to purchase your offerings. It makes customers at least inquire for more product information.
It delivers more qualified search traffic: Local SEO weeds out searches that are not likely to contact you. This is because search engines want to offer relevant results based on intent and proximity. So, someone who searches for products from 50 miles away probably cannot see your business pop up, but one who searches for it from 5 miles away can definitely get a pop-up in search. This is how your business can increase visibility and sales across the web.
By creating accurate and consistent local citations, you can allow your customers to trust your data. Overall, Local SEO increases traffic, reaches more customers, improves conversion rates, and bypasses your competition.
