Successful business owners are known to walk extra miles to acquire clients. In case you have already decided to invest in search engine optimization, you would be bent on enhancing your ROI. Particularly, if you are running a localized business, chances are high that local SEO would fetch you clients!
Now, you might be wondering what local SEO is. This is the process for optimizing your website, so that customers in your localized area can find you online, and physically follow up if needed. Interestingly, as much as 46% of all searches on Google are local. This demonstrates why you should invest in local SEO. Partnering with an established digital marketing company would work wonders!
Why would you need local SEO?
If you run a business that has got a physical location, like a restaurant, consultancy firm, store, plumbing service, law firm, and so on, you should invest in local SEO. You must be knowing, that people often turn to Google to find certain services close to them. In this case, the most common keyword is the name of the service, followed by ‘near me’. When you integrate your website SEO with Google Maps, your customers would be able to find you locally. Evidently, this would fetch you quality leads to convert!
How does local SEO work?
Digital marketing companies offering effective local search engine optimization services stay abreast with the latest algorithms that Google uses for ranking websites. This is a complex program, that dictates search results. However, local search algorithms work differently, as compared to normal SEO. Here are three primary elements that Google considers while ranking your website on local listings.
- Relevance
- Prominence
- Proximity
Relevance: This is one of the prime components of the local algorithm in Google. Therefore, SEO professionals would carry out relevant keyword research and competition analysis to choose the primary keyword. Your business is likely to appear on local searches only when these basics are perfect. Established SEO companies deploy some of these strategies to inform your business’s relevance to search engines.
- Schema markup
- Linking your website to other sites related to the industry
- Using proper meta descriptions and tags
- Developing relevant content as per your industry
- Incorporating proper keywords in the description and content
- Choosing the most appropriate category on directories for your business
Prominence
Amidst stiff competition from local brands, you would want your business to stand out. Brands that have a better online prominence appear to be more trustworthy and credible to the local algorithms. Search engines draw data from different areas of the web. Therefore, you need to build a strong online presence at first to attract search engine crawlers. With strong prominence signals you would enjoy faster rankings. Here are certain elements that SEO experts consider while boosting prominence.
- Developing local links
- Listing your business in directories
- Relevant article and content development
- Mentioning your business online
- Building strong business reviews
- Getting mentioned by government or local media websites
- Being active on social media platforms
Proximity
The third ranking factor is proximity, on which SEO experts have a relatively lower degree of control. However, they would execute the relevant technicalities to ensure that your business shows up on Google Maps, when searched. Moreover, the proximity element of ranking is uniquely local.
Users perform local searches in three ways:
- Searching with ‘near me’
- Geo-modified searches
- Non-geo-modified searches
Established SEO service providers can optimize your website for all these three means of searching.
Collaborate with an established local SEO company
Local SEO involves a series of strategies to enhance your visibility on search engines. As soon as a potential client close to your physical location searches for relevant services, they would find your website and contact details on Google. Of course, hiring a reputed SEO company would bring you business! This justifies why businesses and individuals offering their merchandise and services physically count on established digital marketing companies for local SEO.
