The changing dynamics of SEO have given a boost to the significance of local SEO. Around 97% of consumers look for local services when they search about them over the internet. Local search engine optimization (local SEO) connects a local business with consumers effectively. The old-school methods of finding a local business have become obsolete. Now people don’t buy phone books. They rely on the internet and search engines to find out about local services. Using this type of SEO, you can become more visible and also expand your business in a number of ways. As per statistics, 78% of local-mobile searches result in offline purchases, whereas the top 5 organic results receive 75% of the traffic.
What Is Local SEO?
Local search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of making a business visible to geographically related searches. It is more effective than other SEO as it helps increase local online visibility, and brings more qualified organic traffic to your website. By using local SEO, you can make your business outrank its local competitors which still benefit from the potential of SEO. Local SEO brings traffic that has a higher potential for conversion.
Local SEO can be seen as a modern phone book. It allows you to get more visible to a local audience and helps you generate qualified leads that have a higher rate of conversion. The idea behind local SEO is to enhance the chances of visibility in search engines. With local SEO, more clients and traffic is targeted to increase sales and profit. It is a domestic strategy plan for local businesses which makes your business rank higher in organic search when a local customer makes a query.
An efficient local SEO strategy can optimize your business and expand its reach by making it visible to a wider audience. Focusing on a specific service or a specific group will allow potential clients to connect with you promptly.
How Local SEO Helps a Business Grow
Local SEO has become a reliable method for growing a business, increasing its reach and visibility. Let’s see how it helps a business grow.
1. Increase Visibility
97% of people go online to find out about local services, whereas three-fourths of this traffic does not go beyond the first page of the search results. Using the power of local search engine optimization, you can improve the organic ranking of your website and gain more visibility. Local SEO helps drive more traffic to your website and skyrocket sales by focusing mainly on local visitors.
2. Gain Qualified Leads
If your business deals with a local audience, then it is pointless to gain visibility from people in other parts of the world. Getting visibility in front of people who are from a different city, state, or country will not contribute to your business development and growth. With local SEO, you target only that group of the audience whose response will mean something for your traffic and sales.
3. Targeted Campaigns
Local SEO does not add to your struggle to get noticed by making you part of the global competition. It narrows down the area of competition for you which then provides a basis for having a better chance of getting noticed. With more targeted campaigns, you can offer a hyper-personalized online experience, which your customers will find relatable to them. So you target a small, relevant, and localized group of people for a higher conversion rate.
4. Better Chance of Standing Out
Despite its promising results, less than 50% of businesses use local SEO. As there is still a lot of potential in the market to establish your business’s authority, you can use it to stand out from your competitors. Consider it another huge opportunity to get to the top of your industry and remain noticeable in directories, maps, local searches, and social media.
Need for Local SEO
There are some indicators that you can use to identify if your business needs help with local SEO. For example, if you deal in an industry that relies on local customers for purchase, then you need to target only that group of population. A company or business providing services to particular areas such as a specific neighborhood, town, city, etc. would require local SEO. Also, being a franchisor or franchisee of an established business chain will make you stand out and attract traffic from your area of service by harnessing the power of local SEO.
Local SEO can also be used as a tool for attracting more traffic and gaining more leads for boosting sales in designated market areas (DMAs). It can help you appear as an authority in your desired niche or market because by going picking a local SEO strategy, you can make your business claim a higher ranking and authoritative position on directories such as Google My Business, Yelp, and the Better Business Bureau (BBB).
Local SEO also allows your business to become visible on maps, other navigation apps, and also in Google’s local pack. Above all, if you have set up offices in different cities or in different locations of the same city, however, you don’t offer services nationwide, then you might want to pinpoint that area services using Local SEO.
ESP Inspire
Local SEO is not a ready-made solution that can be implemented for all businesses with just one or two modifications. A unique niche and industry in a particular area require SEO implementation with that specific mindset. At ESP Inspire we design SEO for your local business, based on your individual needs. You can get a high-performance and efficient local SEO at an affordable and cost-effective rate. Beware of the companies which lure you into hiring them for local SEO by charging too little, however, present you with ready-made solutions. This is a clear indicator that you will receive poor-quality services. At ESP Inspire we provide customized and personalized services starting with a market analysis of your service areas, and finding those local competitors which are performing better than you in the digital world. By analyzing search terms, search frequencies, and market saturation we build, implement, and monitor local SEO plans. ESP Inspire is a one-stop solution for all digital marketing and local SEO needs. Our services extend to auditing, editing, and creating citations across all relevant online directories.
