Local SEO Did What? [5] Underrated Benefits of Local SEO
Have you ever experienced taking out your phone and searching for "the best Japanese restaurants," and instead of redirecting you to the ones in another country or part of massive chains, Google showed locally-owned restaurants in your area? The primary reason for this lies in a specific Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy known as local SEO.
Most consumers nowadays rely on search engines to look for products and services in their local area. That's why searches like "near me" or "close by" increased by more than 900% over the past two years. Local SEO helps businesses achieve higher visibility to generate more leads and convert them into sales. So regardless of whether your company has the most high-quality products or refined services among your competitors, you will still rank low on SERPs if you don't implement local optimization in your content.
If you're a local business owner online or have a physical bricks-and-mortar location looking to optimize content for local search, we're here to help.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO is a part of general search engine optimization that improves your website and brand's presence in a particular location. Its main goal is to optimize anchor texts, backlinks, and all the data of your content to earn a high ranking for local search engines in specific areas that link to your products and services.
To put it simply, local SEO allows the business you've invested in to be seen and noticed by relevant audiences.
Among the branches of general SEO, local optimization is considered one of the most straightforward strategies to execute. Still, that doesn't mean it requires little effort. Marketers must focus on the following key factors to properly implement local SEO:
- Relevance: Your business must be well-listed to match the search results. Provide more detailed information about your business to make it easier for the search engine to locate your listing.
- Distance: This measures the distance between the physical location of your business from the search location.
- Prominence: How audiences view your business is vital to SEO results. It includes factors such as Google review count and an average rating.
[5] Underrated Benefits of Local SEO
Fewer Advertisement Costs
Aside from visibility, one of the great benefits of local SEO is making marketing campaigns simpler and cheaper. For instance, financial advisors spend thousands of bucks on leads, online advertising, paid search, and other campaigns to increase engagements. But when you start integrating a local SEO for financial advisors, there's no need to do any of those things, as this strategy has already helped you narrow down your targeting parameters.
Researching what a specific town or city wants about business propositions is more manageable than doing it nationwide. It also allows you to understand the locals while maintaining a competitive advantage in a business environment.
Enhance Trust and Authority
It is impossible to trust a brand you've never heard of before. You never know what you're getting into and the products and services they will offer. That's when local SEO comes into play. It attracts more visitors, enabling you to showcase your expertise in your field. This way, your customers will see that you know what you're doing and trust your brand more.
When done right, local SEO helps you retain your customers for years while increasing your ROI.
More Calls and In-person Visits
Optimizing your Google Business Profile helps in increasing its visibility on Google Maps. Since the main objective of Google Maps is to assist users in finding local services and organizing their itineraries, this could increase calls and in-person visits.
Any Google Business Profile optimization you carry out will immediately boost your Maps presence. So whether you own an online business or a physical store, you will attract more visitors and inquiries in your local area.
Better Sales
When choosing a local business, customers consult online reviews as a decision-making tool. More than once a week, nearly one in eight people look up local businesses online.
Reviews are an essential part of the key local search ranking factor. It is also crucial in building consumer trust, which precedes any business transaction. That's why positive reviews and high average rating helps businesses in making more sales while retaining customers' loyalty and trust.
Increase in Competitiveness
Understanding your competitors' actions and strategies is crucial in creating and fine-tuning your local SEO plan.
Your company will be much more competitive if you can spot these areas for improvement and implement what you have learned without going through the trial-and-error process to arrive at a winning strategy. For instance, reading through client feedback could help you better know what aspects of their service are valued by customers so you can adopt a similar plan for your own company.
Conclusion
Local SEO is a helpful strategy that promotes your products and services efficiently and effectively while preventing you from wasting resources on ad campaigns that won't yield results. While increasing visibility and web traffic are the more evident advantages of local SEO, the mentioned benefits above are often overlooked.
After understanding the importance of SEO for businesses, assess the strengths and weaknesses of your local optimization strategy. If you need help to get started, SEO Agency Birmingham specializes in search engine optimization services to help you increase traffic and brand awareness. Remember that the more optimized your content is, the higher your chances of generating leads.
Author: Chatty Garrate
Photo by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi: https://www.pexels.com/photo/l...