There are a lot of online marketing tactics worth trying. Few are as universally valuable and powerful as local search engine optimization. Unfortunately, we regularly meet with business owners who don’t yet understand the importance of being visible in local searches. In today’s post, we break down the things you need to know in order to make it work for you…
Why Is Local Search Engine Optimization a Big Deal?
Years ago, the engineers at Google noticed something startling. While the internet is making the world smaller, it allowing commerce to take place across continents. Many people are using search engines to find local products and solutions. At the time, a full 25% of all search traffic was directed towards finding things like neighborhood restaurants, theater tickets, hotels, and so on.
Sensing an opportunity to make their search engine more valuable, the engineers made changes to Google’s algorithm that prioritized location, especially for certain search categories. As a result, it’s now much easier for buyers to find you if they are located nearby or use certain geographic keywords.
That can give small and medium-sized companies a huge boost, but only if their websites are optimized for local searches.
How Do You Optimize Your Website for Local Search Visibility?
This is where things start to get amazing. Search engine optimization, as a whole, can require a long-term investment of time and money. Optimizing a website for local traffic can be a better investment. You simply take your existing group of targeted terms and phrases and add geographic indicators. For example, content that emphasizes the term “business web design” turns into “Los Angeles business web design.”
Mobile compatibility is also a big part of local search engine optimization. This shouldn’t be a surprise, given that many searches for location-specific businesses originate from phones and tablets. If your customers are on the go, you need a website that works for them when they are mobile.
Modern search engines pull information from a number of resources. It can also be helpful to ensure social profiles and business directory listings are up-to-date. These give search engine spiders corroborating information that reinforces location data.
The other thing a business owner or marketer has to do is add certain elements to their website like maps, detailed contact information, and driving directions. These all make it easier for Google and the other search engines to understand where they are while at the same time giving real-life buyers the chance to call or stop by in person.
None of these changes are difficult or expensive to make. Get them in place, though, and you could see visitors from your geographic area start coming to your website almost immediately. That uptick in website traffic is always great, but even better is the fact that these local customers are the ones who are most likely to buy from you more quickly and keep generating sales year after year.
You Shouldn’t Ignore Local SEO
Any form of search engine optimization is worthy of long term attention and effort. Local SEO, however, is especially valuable because it’s easy, intuitive, and cost-effective. Plus, it can make an almost immediate impact on your bottom line.
If you haven’t already committed to optimizing your website for local search visibility this is your chance to take advantage of a nearly can’t-miss strategy. Contact us today so we can audit your existing web presence and come up with a plan that moves your business forward!
At The Marcom Group, we know from experience that clients are best served when they can call one phone number for anything–which is why we own all of our own hosting equipment and have on-site staff ready to handle everything from design and development, to management and marketing, to the ongoing security maintenance and hosting of your website.