Why You Need Local SEO for Your Small Business

Why You Need Local SEO

Do you want to rank higher, gain more customers, and build your business’ brand? If so, it is time to start considering SEO for your business.

SEO requires an ongoing process that will help businesses rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Local SEO helps bring attention to your company and brings potential customers in your local area through maps services and online searches.

In this blog article, we’ll be talking about why local SEO is so important and how your small business can use it to get ahead of the competition.

Local SEO

Many people search for local products and services online, including using maps to find the closest businesses near their location. Local SEO is a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that helps your business be more visible in local search results on Google.

A study by Google reveals that 50% of individuals who use their smartphone for a local search visit a store within the same day. This is important because this leads to more purchases than non-local searches with “18% of local searches on smartphones lead to a purchase within a day vs 7% of non-local searches.”

Online search connects users to local businesses, ensuring that people who are looking for a business nearby will be directed towards relevant results.

SEO services help customers find local businesses. It ensures that potential clients can easily locate your business through the use of keywords that reveal more intent to meet a user’s needs and links to rank higher than other competitors online. 

Here are a few things that can help you rank for local searches:

• Google My Business listing
• On and Off-page optimization
• Keyword Targeting
• White Hat Link building
• and more

If you aren’t on the first page of the search results, then it’s time for some SEO. Ranking highly is a huge advantage and that takes investing in this marketing type. Investing in SEO creates long-term value for your company that will continue to grow over time, almost like a 401K. 

Why Ranking High Matters

If you want your company to be successful, it’s important that people can find your business online. This is especially true since 95% of internet users only look at first-page Google results when searching for something specific.

If a person doesn’t go beyond the first few pages in their search on Google, then there are chances that your website will not show up as an option – which could mean less interest or sales from potential customers. This is why it’s important to incorporate an SEO strategy to rank higher.

A way to boost your business’s visibility online is by adding relevant content that aligns with what potential customers are searching for and sharing your website from other pages (such as social media). This will help people who need your product/service find you.

Utilizing Local Search

Registering your business at a physical location will help boost local searches and increase the attention you receive. Even if your business is entirely online, choose a central place where customers can find it easily on sites like Google Maps or Facebook.

By integrating Google maps and creating web pages for any specific locations you serve, even if your business is nationwide, potential new customers can find their way to the most popular cities where they live. This will increase traffic from local search results as well as improve relevance in search engines.

When your business has multiple locations, it’s important to list each location on the website and create pages for each one so that customers can decide which is closest or most relevant.

Free & Paid Online Marketing Tools

We know that Google and other websites have a multitude of SEO tools to help businesses optimize their website. Although it can be daunting if you are unfamiliar with marketing, many experts (including us) use these tools to increase web traffic, rank higher in search results and understand trending searches with different demographics.

We recommend using some common free or paid digital marketing resources such as:

• SEMrush for competitive analysis on your online competitors’ keywords
• Google Search Console
• Google Analytics
• Yoast WordPress Plugin
• and more

Paid tools tend to offer more services that help businesses get ahead faster, but if you can’t afford them or are just getting started with SEO, free tools are absolutely worth using. There is so much information out there about optimizing your website for search engines that it’s hard to know where to start! Luckily this isn’t an issue since both paid and organic options exist. Paid tools may be able to provide a greater variety of features than some of the free ones available today; however, they won’t always fit everyone’s needs – especially those on limited budgets who find themselves starting from scratch in their online endeavors.

SEO Tips

If your business hasn’t optimized for local search, or you aren’t sure why it’s important, we’ve put together some quick tips to help customers find you online.

Try these local SEO strategies to help your business right away:

• Google My Business Account – Google My Business is the result panel that appears on the right side of search results and describes a business. You can set up Google My Business to increase your rank in Google’s search engine and credibility with searchers, which helps you attract more customers to your website or brick-and-mortar store.
• Relevant Keywords – If you have a business but don’t provide an accurate description of it or the products and services that are offered, Google’s search algorithm along with others won’t be able to grab pieces of information around your website. To find the right keywords to target, use free keyword research tools for choosing words (or terms) within specific industries so they’re used correctly on product descriptions as well.
• Local Citation Fixing – While it may seem repetitive to have the same information on every page of your website such as name, phone number, location, etc., having these details consistent is necessary for local ranking. Google also pulls contact and business data from URLs listed in search results.
• Google Search Console – Google Search Console is a free tool to help understand your website’s search traffic and performance. One of its best features provides an excellent explanation of why local SEO is important for business, giving tips on how to improve performance in Google results. Search console also helps you learn about optimizing appearance on the web and increasing organic site visits too!

Want Local SEO for Your Business?

Decisive Design provides impeccable local SEO services to ensure your website sends the right message and attracts more customers. We use real-time analysis, KPIs, and reporting in our marketing campaigns for optimal efficiency.

Our digital marketing campaigns focus on constant optimization to ensure the best results for your business. From web development and traffic analytics, we make sure every aspect of our work is giving you the most opportunities possible to bring in new local customers!