If you’re like most people, chances are you open up your Google Maps app on your smartphone to search for a local business’s location regularly. You may have done this several times in the past few days alone. Looking up the address of a new restaurant in town or searching for a local mechanic’s phone number are all examples of local searches. If you’ve done a few local searches in the past week, it’s likely the people around you have also made several local searches. People are continuously conducting local searches on their smartphones, tablets, and computers. If you want customers to find you, you must create a local SEO strategy for your company. Want to learn more about Digital Information Management and how your business is performing online locally? Quickly scan your business to see how your business measures up against your competitors and what you can do to improve. It’s Free!
The Importance of Local SEO
The truth is that about 75 percent of search engine users never click past the first page of the search results. A solid local SEO strategy is essential if you want your business to land a high spot on the first page of the keyword search results. If you manage to get your website to the first page of search results for many local keywords, you can expect your website’s traffic to increase significantly. Most people use search engines several times a day. Working on your website’s placement when it comes to search results can make a significant difference.
How Will Local SEO Help You
A solid local SEO strategy is essential for small businesses. SEO refers to search engine optimization. Optimizing your website for search engines like Google and Bing is an effective way to attract new customers, increase traffic to your website, and create a name for your business within your community. One of the best things about local SEO is that it’s unnecessary to invest a significant amount of money to get good results. Especially when your small business is in its “infancy stage,” a good local SEO strategy is imperative when it comes to helping your customers learn more about your new business.
Here are a few statistics that should help convince you of the importance of local SEO:
- 50 percent of all consumers who do a local search on their smartphone end up visiting a business within 24 hours
- 18 percent of all local searches on mobile devices lead to a sale within 24 hours
- 87 percent of all smartphone users conduct a search in Google or another search engine every day
- 60 percent of all Americans depend on smartphones to look up information about products
- 50 percent of users who conduct a local search are looking for business information like a phone number or operating hours.
Based on these statistics, one can conclude that local SEO is a huge opportunity that one shouldn’t miss. Also, optimizing a website for mobile is a significant aspect of local SEO. Users often conduct local searches on their smartphones while they’re on the go. Therefore, your website should be search-friendly.
What Do Customers Search For?
The vast majority of all online experiences start with a search engine. Every day, people conduct local searches to find restaurants, stores, and other businesses in their location.
Most customers search for information like local store addresses, business hours, directions to local stores, or whether a product is available at a local score. 80 percent of customers rely on search engines to lookup local information.
Keywords are essential when it comes to search engine optimization (especially optimizing for voice search). One example of a keyword is “bookstore.” If you own a small bookstore in a rural town, chances are it’s not in your best interest to rank for this keyword. This is because the keyword “bookstore” is incredibly competitive and universal. Instead, you should try to have your website rank highly for keywords like “Farmington, Pennsylvania bookstore” or “bookstore in Farmington.”
Of course, there will be people all over the United States searching for the universal keyword “bookstore.” However, chances are, the people searching this keyword won’t be located in Farmington. Not only are local keywords more realistic, but they also tend to be the most effective when it comes to attracting customers. After all, most of your customers will be coming from your local area.
Final Thoughts – The Importance of Local SEO
As you can see, there are many reasons why you should make local SEO a significant aspect of your online marketing campaign. Local SEO will give your small business a strong head start as well as a solid foundation for success. Even local businesses that are established and on the larger side can benefit significantly from local SEO. LOCALSYNC has a suite of tools to help small businesses do business online, from free Local Business Online Toolkits, Location Performance Scans, Business Link Marketing, Local and Professional Directory Marketing, QR Menus for Restaurants, Website Builders, Private Business Social Networks, and Complete Digital Business Training.
For more information about the importance of local search engine optimization, don’t hesitate to contact us.
