All You Need To Know About Local SEO

There is no doubt that SEO is an important part when it comes to online business. A huge number of people flock the internet to find local businesses which is suitable according to their needs, Google alone handles more than 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) of searches per year. The numbers are enough to prove that Google has a massive impact on what people see when they search for something. This is the game a company must play in order to see happy clients and most importantly, a healthy bank balance. If you are a small or medium level business owner every top Digital Marketing agency would suggest you opt for Local SEO practices. So today we are going to talk about what exactly is Local SEO and how important it is for your business.What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO is basically about the things which are required to be done in order to optimize your website to rank for a better local audience traffic. So if you are having a local business like a barber shop or perhaps a grocery store or even a pharmacy the first thing you need to do is to make the local audiences know that your business actually exists and is ready to serve people in real life. So even if you are not getting any visitors to your building where your business is located you are targeting a crowd that is in the same area as your business. In order to do such a thing, it is necessary to optimize for that area. This is called as local SEO.

"To keep it short we can say that Local SEO is the SEO done for a specific geographical location in order to attract people from the area targeted".

Why Do You Need Local SEO?

Local SEO is vital, especially if you are having a business that provides service in a certain locality. According to a recent study by Forbes, there are over 4 billion mobile phone owners(And just 3.5 billion people use toothbrushes). This example is enough to prove that a mobile phone is no more an addiction but a necessity. And about 95% of these smartphone users perform local searches and out of this 61% of them have either called the business or have paid a visit to the shop. Most of the people are quick to click on call a business option directly google search result page. 70% to be exact as found by a study conducted by the team of SearchEngineWatch.

So, what do all these stats tell you? These stats are the concrete evidence that the searches conducted by the local audience act as a major platform for potential customers. These numbers are growing every year at a rapid pace and are meant to keep on growing for the years to come. These results can also be termed as relevant and qualified leads as the audiences have searched for a business which provides them the products they need and you happen to be the one on top of the list because of you have availed the Local SEO services perhaps from the best Local Seo service provider. And it is also safe to assume that these are qualified leads that will definitely have a higher conversion rate as well.

So How Does Local SEO Impact Your Business?

Following are the ways in which Local SEO impacts your business:

1. Provides Information To Customers:

Local SEO enables visitors on the web to know exactly what they are dealing with. Minute pieces of information about small things like the availability of Wifi, special offers and much more could be easily known. These points might look minor ones but these prove to be the major Selling Points for some customers.

2. Helps People Discover Your Business

Many web searches are done by people who want to find the products or services required by them, and if the local optimization is done right then your business will be the first business they see on the search page and you might get a visit from them soon. Most of the searches are even done by people who are not from your place, hence you might also get attention from people from other areas too gaining popularity and growing your business rapidly at the same time.

3. Can Perform Without A Website:

The website is a very good medium to promote your business, But suppose if you are not having a website then also Local SEO will help people find your business by other details you provide like the NAP (Name Address and Phone Number). This will allow a lot of people to get knowledge of your existence and number of people could contact you or perhaps view your address and pay you a visit soon.

4. Provides Quality Leads

People do perform a search when they are in need of something. And when they do find out that your business provides the solution to their problem, then they automatically are liable to become your customer. So most of the leads that come through Local SEO are legitimate.

5. Builds Trust Amongst The Audiences

The more the information you provide on the web the more your business is likely to be deemed trustworthy by the people. Once this foundation of trust is built you will definitely have a beneficial relationship with your customers.

What You Can Do To Improve Your Businesses Local SEO?

So, now that we are done with what Local SEO is and why is it needed let’s move on to another chapter within our blog which will educate you as to what you can do to improve your business’ Local SEO. Following is the three-step procedure to do so:

1. List Your Business In Business Directories:

SEO is a location-based search which all Digital Marketing Enthusiasts must have known till now. What it means is that your physical address is actually required for the services which need a location. And hence if your address of the place where you are doing your business is not updated in Google My Business and other online business directories then it would be very difficult for customers to actually find your business especially when they filter it to "near me" search.

2. Mention Your NAP:

After making sure your location is known to the people it is time to make sure that people also come to know your Name Address and Phone Number. Mentioning these three across various directories is very important and more important is to make sure that the NAP’s you mentioned across all the directories is the same throughout to avoid any disputes in the future.

If there is any trouble over here than Google will avoid listing your business in the local three pack. (Google’s Search Engine Ranking Page responds to the searches done locally by showing them the businesses which are the most relevant in the form of a snippet. The businesses mentioned are three in number hence it is called local three pack and may or may not contains links to the website of the business depending if the business owners have a website or not). Going to each and every directory you have entered your business details to correct your mistake of entering incorrect information will be like a huge task. But, there are some tools that will help you manage all your listings at once for hassle-free manual updating on each and every directory.

3. Citations:

The citation is nothing but a third party website listing which uses your business as a referral point. This citation would contain a lot of things like the name, the location of your business or the contact info. The perfect example would be a blog on the top digital marketing agencies in Pune mentioning your name. This may, or may not include a link to your website. What this does is that it lets Google know that your business is trustworthy and promotes you in ranking. This will increase your chances of getting into the local 3-pack gaining your business a lot of visitors.

Conclusion:

Business, be it of any type is generally attracting people to buy your products or to lend your services in order to gain some profit. But in today’s date, there is a lot of competition in the market and there is no scarcity of business owners selling the same products as you are. Hence to get a competitive edge over your competitors it is necessary to exploit the treasures of Digital Marketing. Search Engine Optimization at a local level would not only help you be visible on the web for local searches but also get you a lot of customers in return. We at Enlyft Digital Solutions provide the perfect Local SEO solutions and help your business get the attention it deserves. We will help your business to grow and be discovered locally and globally by becoming your 360° web & digital marketing partners.

Sumit has more than 5 years of Marketing and Content Writing experience under his belt. Being from a technical background, he chose his hobby of Content Writing for his career ignoring the lucrative field of Engineering.