Go Local with Your SEO

You have a business that serves a specific community. You’re lucky to have a fantastic location that gets plenty of foot traffic. You buy some occasional radio spots. You even do a little paid advertising on the Internet and bought some SEO services from a guy you found on Craigslist.

But what are you missing?

The quick and easy answer to that question is your business’ marketing plan is missing high-quality local SEO work from true industry professionals.

What Makes Local SEO Different from Just SEO?

First, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with traditional, or national, SEO. Getting eyes on your business’ website is great for your brand, even if you don’t have the opportunity to turn every visitor into a customer because they aren’t located near your business.

What local SEO does that traditional SEO doesn’t is steer your digital marketing strategy in a direction to specifically target potential customers in your geographic location. Instead of thinning out your marketing resources optimizing your site on a national level, you can instead get more bang for your marketing buck with local SEO.

How Can Your Business Benefit from Local SEO?

Aside from getting more out of your advertising budget as mentioned above, there are some other serious benefits to going local with your SEO.

Ranking in Google’s Local Snack Pack

If you’ve ever searched for a restaurant or a car dealer in your area, you’ve definitely seen this special section in Google’s search results affectionately dubbed the Snack Pack. It exists right under paid ads but above all other search results.

It only shows businesses local to the area that you’re searching within (your actual physical location at the time of the search) or targeting via keywords (ex. Philadelphia car dealership).

Getting your business in the Snack Pack means tons of visibility to shoppers in your area, and that means a better ROI for you. But you need to focus on local SEO to do so.

Showing Up in Google and Apple Maps

With more and more people using their smartphones to find businesses while they’re out and about, having your business correctly listed in Google and Apple Maps means more customers. Many traditional SEO services neglect focusing on this kind of citation. However, by overlooking the setup and maintenance of such listings, you’re leaving money on the table.

Overall Greater Mobile Visibility

To anyone working in the SEO industry, it’s no surprise that search engines are putting more of their efforts into updating algorithms to factor in the location of the person searching. One major way that’s done is by using the location data from a person’s mobile device.

So for your business to get in front of the eyes of someone searching on their smartphone, you must focus your SEO efforts specifically on local SEO. It might seem like extra work, but the reward is amazing, as the ROI margins of a well-run local SEO campaign can be massive.

In Summary

The SEO landscape is always changing. Over the last few years, the importance of having a well-planned and executed local SEO plan for local businesses has become exponentially important. Stop missing out on all that valuable local traffic. Download our How Stream Does SEO eBook now to see how you can get your business ranking locally and earning more money than ever.

 

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All the best,

Tim

—Tim Backes is a Digital PR Coordinator at Stream Companies, a full-service Philadelphia-area advertising agency.