One of the biggest concerns for any local business owner is how to beat other local businesses when it comes to online visibility and attracting local consumers. Of course, the answer to this question lies in implementing a winning local SEO strategy! If you are going to make a bigger splash with the local community, things like local SEO optimisation have to be high on your to-do list. The local SEO benefits have long since been analysed by experts and proven to be effective in attracting potential customers. Are you considering investing in a local SEO strategy? You have come to the right place! In this article, we will look at the key benefits of local SEO for a local business. By the time you finish reading, you will be better prepared to make an informed decision that will lead to more organic search results in your local area.
5 Reasons Why Local SEO Is Important
Search engine optimisation is the digital marketing strategy used by businesses to improve their ranking on Google searches and other search engine results pages. It is one of the most important things when it comes to promoting more visibility online, which will ultimately lead to more sales. When we are talking about a local SEO (or Map SEO as it is sometimes called) we are referring specifically to a branch of SEO that is designed to help medium and small business owners get a better footing in local business directories and grow their pool of potential customers. This type of SEO is directly linked to more foot traffic coming your way. There are five main reasons why it is important, and these are:
- Improves online visibility on local searches
- Encourages the community to support local businesses
- Allows local companies to reach their targeted traffic
- Promotes link-building with top-ranking businesses
- Provides a platform to interact with your paying customers
How Can Local SEO Help My Business
One of the benefits of local SEO is that it can help your business to get more local traffic from people who live close to your business address. Before people can consider buying your products, they need to first know that your business exists! A local SEO strategy is one of the best ways of getting your name out there so that potential customers can not only find you easily on Google maps but also have all the key details, such as your physical location and business hours, close at hand. The following are some of the key benefits of local SEO to your business:
More Relevant Traffic
The more visible your business is to local searchers, the more foot traffic you will eventually receive. It’s not all about the number of website visitors you get! What you need is relevant traffic. These days, online visibility is very important because more customers are focusing on local searches than ever before. This is why a good local SEO results in new customers walking through your doors. If you can rank higher on local search results pages, it won’t be long until you start to see a boost in organic traffic that will result in more visitors to your page eventually becoming paying customers.
Lower Advertising Costs
An investment in advertising channels, such as TV commercials, banners, pamphlets, and many others is essential for the survival of a local business. The cost of reaching out to new customers using these traditional means varies from business to business but is often a significant portion of your budget. However, do you know that with a proper local SEO strategy, you can get the same, if not better, results for a small fraction of the cost of using ordinary advertising methods? With 80% of smartphone users said to prefer searching for products and services that are close to their physical address, this represents a huge incentive to put a lot more effort into improving your online visibility on local listings.
Long-Lasting Rankings On Search Engines
The benefits of local SEO are most clearly shown when your business ranks higher than other local companies on local listings and manages to maintain its position for a long time. While you would likely have to pay over and over for paid ads that keep your business visible in your local area, SEO rankings have greater longevity. Once you rank high on local search results, you will stay there until your competitors find a way to knock you off your perch.
More Local Reviews/Online Reviews
The more times your business appears on local search results, the more interested your audience will become. This translates to more local online reviews which are the main focus of more than 86% of web users. If you manage to offer good services to your local customer base, people will be more than willing to leave positive feedback on various review platforms. As more visitors see good local reviews about your company, they too will be willing to come and do business with you.
The Three-Pack Of Local Searches
Investing in a local SEO will help your business become more visible by allowing you to appear in the first three results of the Google search engine results page, called the three-pack. This type of “local pack” is the best way to display important information about your business, such as your physical address on Google maps, business hours, and business description. Any companies that appear in the three-pack have the benefit of appearing in 93% of queries that target local companies.
Grow Community Of Local Customers
Building a good relationship with the community in which your business is located is an important part of reputation management. It is important to get the word out to your local customers that you have the products or services that they require close to their physical location. This way, they will always know where to go for their shopping.
Better Mobile Search Engines Optimisation
More and more people are relying on their mobile phones to access Google and search for the things they need locally. That is why one of the benefits of local SEO is that it allows better optimisation targeted at smartphone users by making navigation on your site simpler.
Links With Other Local Businesses
While neighboring companies are your direct competitors, you still need to have a healthy relationship with them if you are going to work well together in the community. This is why link-building between competitors is encouraged. Both of you will benefit by improving each other’s visibility and making your area well-known for providing excellent services.
Beat Local Business Competition
If your competitors are still relying on traditional SEO strategies, just by tweaking yours to target local traffic you will immediately rank higher and attract more customers. This means anyone close to your location will see your company as one of the first results when they run a search, which translates to more organic traffic for your site.
Improved Conversion Rate = More Sales
How much of your website traffic is translating to sales and money in your pocket? This is what we mean by conversion rate. While it is nice to see a lot of people visiting your webpage, if those potential customers are too far away to access your services, it will not benefit your business in any way. Once you get the loyalty and trust of your local customer base, your business will have a strong foundation from which to grow. Serious buyers do not waste time searching for far-off companies, so when you get one of these on your website, chances are high that you will end up making a sale.
Get Local Search Engine Optimisation
If you haven’t already made plans to invest in local SEO, you are already falling behind and allowing your competitors to take customers from right underneath your nose. The benefits of local SEO are clear for you to see and it is also a very simple strategy to implement. Look closely at the relationship between your business and your community. If you are not reaching out to them as well as you would have liked, sit down right now and start working on a local SEO plan that will take your business to the next level. Want to learn more?
Contact the team at Perth Digital Edge to elevate your brand and stay ahead of the competition. Find your digital edge today.
