Local SEO is an effective way to drive targeted traffic directly to your business, establish brand trust and drive sales.
An effective local SEO strategy requires both technical and creative approaches, such as keyword research, content marketing, citation building and review management. Furthermore, monitoring competitors to stay ahead is also key.
1. Increased Traffic and Conversions
Local SEO can be an invaluable way to increase traffic and conversions for your business. By targeting specific keywords relevant to local audiences, local SEO allows you to optimize your website for these terms.
Maintaining high-quality content on your site is also key to local search rankings, providing useful and informative material for the audience you are targeting.
Local SEO can enhance usability and navigation of your website. For instance, make sure that contact information remains consistent across your site, as well as making sure it is mobile-friendly.
Citations, or mentions of your business name, address, phone number and website (NAPW), on third-party sites such as review websites and directories is an integral component of local SEO. According to Moz’s 2017 Local Search Ranking Factors study, link signals and NAPW consistency were among the key ranking factors affecting both local pack and snack pack results.
2. Better Brand Presence
Consumers generally trust businesses appearing in the top three map-based results in local search. Establishing yourself through website content, Google My Business listings, citations and reviews is one way to achieve this visibility.
Local SEO strategies generate more targeted traffic at once, enabling you to turn visitors into customers faster. Furthermore, this approach means returning customers can find your brand when they require products or services you provide more easily than with advertising to attract new buyers.
Optimizing local SEO also provides your brand with a consistent presence online, thanks to tools such as Semrush’s Listing Management that monitor citations and remove duplicate listings. This consistency will help customers recognize your brand more easily when they’re ready to purchase, leading them to call or visit when ready.
3. Increased Trust
Local SEO puts your products and services in front of those searching for them – giving your business a significant digital advantage over businesses who spend money trying to reach customers who don’t care about what you have to offer.
Local search optimization tasks, like collecting and promoting reviews on Google Business Profiles, can help your business increase visibility in local searches while building trust among consumers. Consumers tend to enjoy reading online reviews just as much as personal recommendations from friends or family.
However, less scrupulous local competitors may try to game the system by leaving fake positive reviews on Google profiles. You can report such profiles and Google will investigate them, potentially leading to their removal from search results if evidence of bad practices are discovered.
4. Better Customer Service
Local SEO is an investment with long-term returns. Unlike ads, which provide immediate results, its effects are more lasting and visible results can last for months or even years afterward. By increasing the ranking of your website or profile it will appear for relevant search queries allowing more opportunities for customer acquisition.
Local seo is designed to attract customers nearby your physical store or service area, which means that you can provide superior customer service – increasing both brand recognition and your bottom line.
Local SEO makes it easier than ever before to collect feedback from real customers and share these reviews online, helping build trust among prospective buyers while improving your ranking in search engine result pages (SERPs). To maximize results from Local SEO it is imperative that all NAP information is accurate as Google considers this when ranking businesses.
5. Building Networks
Local SEO provides small businesses with an effective, cost-efficient strategy for reaching out to their target market and expanding their business.
Local listings also enable businesses to gather customer reviews that help build an excellent online reputation, which can increase the chance of repeat purchases from returning customers. This feature of local listings is particularly beneficial as these reviews increase the chance that a customer will purchase from that business again in future purchases.
Local SEO also allows businesses to collaborate with other local businesses. They can coordinate on providing services or products and promoting one another on their listings pages – giving them an edge over competitors as Google prioritizes local results over organic results; something which benefits all parties involved.