Local SEO has become the life source for small businesses that are looking to make active sales. The statement might sound too obvious but it stands as a fact. According to WebFX, almost 80% of local searches convert to active sales. This means that regardless of the kind of business you are running if it’s not optimized for local SEO, you are missing out on a lot of customers.
When we say loads of customers, we really mean it. More than 45% of Google Searches are for local businesses. Having the handle of local SEO will give you the sales push your business needs. However, being a business owner, it is not possible to simply dive into SEO. There is a certain amount of know-how, expertise, and experience that you need to have on the subject. These are all the aspects we will be discussing in this article in detail.
Local SEO is optimizing your website and web pages in a way that they show up for local searches. Holistically, SEO focuses on generating organic traffic for your website and also helps it climb the rankings of popular search engines like Google. Local SEO stresses optimizing pages for local queries in specific areas.
It must be mentioned that local SEO is a part of SEO in general. In fact, local SEO optimization is looked at as one of the easiest things to conquer. Being the easiest is not considered one of the things that require little to no research.
Local SEO depends on various technical nuances and approaches that Google has to offer, Understanding these require the right personnel or Local SEO company.
Consider you are a store owner or a local business owner. If you do not optimize your web pages for Local SEO, your business will not show up for relevant searches made by locals who are searching for services or products associated with your business. In this case, you completely inhabit their blindside leaving room for your competitors to take over the market. A piece of factual evidence stands for the fact that searches on Google with the suffix “near me” has increased by over 500% in the past few years according to WEB Fx.
Also, according to WEB Fx again, over 55% of consumers use voice searches to look for local businesses online. Again a bulk of your business is online which you are losing out on because your web pages are not optimised per local SEO. It’s a common misconception that offline businesses do not require local SEO. In practice, the map pack pushes SERPs to showcase local results first.
Moving beyond generic benefits of local SEO, here is a list of all the detailed benefits to optimising local SEO.
Having a local business allow you to have a certain edge over national level businesses. When searches have a specific local intent about them, Google has the tendency to showcase local search results over national ones.
What this means is that local search intents will always showcase local results over national results. This is exactly why optimising for local SEO gives you an edge when it comes to local searches.
One of the biggest advantages of optimising for local SEO is preference when it comes to catering to specific niches. In other words if you improve your content and business for searches, there is a possibility that your business will be found by people who are specifically looking for services or products relating to your business.
Studies showcase that over 65% of user clicks are received by the first 5 Google page results. These do not include paid ads. What this means is that if your local SEO is optimized properly, you have the potential to be one of those top 5 searches when it comes to Google searches for specific niches.
Setting up a Google My Business account while including your business to as many local business directories as possible betters your chances of receiving increased traffic.
It is also necessary to use unique descriptions for products and services. It helps increase the visibility of your page Having relevant views increases the chances of conversions and sales. All of this positive activity accounts for increase in Google rankings.
It is also important to showcase accurate information about your business. Showcasing the right contact details, address, and business information becomes paramount for maintaining and increasing search engine positions. Incorrect information also leads to negative reviews.
More than 70% of local searches lead to actual visits from within a 5-mile radius. This showcases that a substantial amount of local opportunities for local businesses are related to optimizing their local SEO.
Due to the high concentration of competitors, it gets very difficult to trust the authenticity and quality of businesses. This is yet another problem that can be addressed and solved by local SEO. The entire idea of implementing a local optimization strategy is to attract more visitors while increasing brand awareness. This allows you to showcase your business. The more visitors your business attracts, the more reviews that are generated. This automatically helps gain the trust of your customers. The real competition is to get to the top 5 of Google because these businesses are the most trustworthy in accordance with Google. However, we have seen earlier that targeting specific niches can help your brand climb rankings to occupy these top spots on Google.
Trust in a brand creates brand loyalty and according to studies about 60% of active sales are generated by loyal customers who trust a brand with their money. Good reviews paired with optimized local SEO allows for more reach and helps your brand climb up SERP rankings.
Cutting down targeting parameters allow you to focus on more streamlined and effective marketing campaigns. Targeting specific areas allows you to decrease costs and generate active leads and sales.
Being a local business allows you the opportunity to have a better understanding of your potential customer base, which helps you create more effective marketing campaigns.
Speaking of targeted marketing; Google ads play a substantial role in them. Focusing on local SEO actually allows businesses to lower the cost of ads while generating more leads and sales. The reason stands to be very clear. More than 80% of mobile users choose ‘ near me’ options when looking for local businesses and the same survey showcases that 90% of this same demographic have the tendency to choose from the top results. Thus, focused ads with correctly optimized local SEO leads to better organic rankings.
Studies show that more than 70% of users do not scroll past the first page of Google. Optimizing local SEO allows your brand to be amidst this very number. This actively increases the chances of leads and sales. The important aspect of being on the first page of Google for local searches is that even if customers are not yet buying from you, they are aware of the existence of your business.
Local SEO helps facilitate returning customers. Owing to local listings, your business will pop up in front of potential customers. These potential customers might decide to enquire or even visit your business. These customers might like or even love your quality of service. Based on the first-time experience, the chances of these customers returning becomes more. In fact, the next time your business shows up for queries, they will definitely opt for your business over others. Studies show that returning clients are 50 per cent more likely to convert into sales deals than first-timers.
One of the primary ways of bettering your SEO strategy is understanding your competitors through research and analysis and figuring out what they are doing better than you are.
Using these opportunities allows your business to be on a more competitive footing. For instance, studying the reviews of competitors allow you to understand what customers appreciate about them and what changes you can implement in your own business.
It is not always about hiring the best local SEO company, we at ATop digital offer a streamlined approach depending on the nature of your business to ensure optimal reach and conversions. Here are the reasons why we are the right local SEO company for your business.
We steer clear of lofty goals. Google My Business is one of the main components of local SEO. Our team of experts optimize your company’s Google My Business page business address or service area, phone number, map listing, and business hours to better your discoverability. In addition to this, we also optimize your social media handles to better your local SEO best practices.
SEO requires a holistic approach to be successful and takes a certain amount of time to showcase results. There are no shortcuts to SEO. The only option is to watch it grow steadily over a period of time. Organic growth is the only healthy SEO-based growth. Black hat SEO techniques are not only obsolete but prone to penalties from Google. This is precisely the reason why we only project executable goals to our clients; this allows us to showcase promised results and also enables clients to observe steady growth.
Keeping track of tasks and progress is necessary when it comes to optimizing local SEO; from writing SEO-friendly content to targeting the right keywords, all parts of the process need to be functioning smoothly to showcase results. We provide a dedicated account manager who serves as a single point of contact to ensure all your tasks are completed per schedule. It is also your account manager’s responsibility to ensure you keep a track of your progress through relevant reports.
As a local SEO agency, we offer affordable packages in order to cater to businesses of all sizes. Understanding the requirements of your business, we come up with package deals that ensure maximum ROI conversion.
Understanding the importance of local SEO is paramount for any small business. Equipped with the right tools and personnel, ATop is the local SEO agency that can help you kick off your sales. Visit our website today to get more information on how we can optimize your local SEO.
