Have you taken the time to consider how you can reach your local audience? While many marketing teams focus heavily on their broader audience, there are many local SEO benefits worth considering as well – no matter how big or small your brand may be.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO is an SEO tactic that is highly targeted and allows you to target the community around you instead of a broader audience.
With 35% of consumers having at least one smart device in their home and approximately 3.8 billion individuals (globally) using smartphones, local SEO has never been more important as it is now, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. This is especially true given the fact that nearly 40% of the U.S. population utilizes voice search terms such as “near me,” “show me,” and “by me.”
Who Benefits the Most from Local SEO?
Brands across most industries can benefit significantly from the use of local SEO. In short, if you have a physical location that consumers can walk into and visit – then you will benefit from implementing local SEO best practices.
The only people that will not benefit from local SEO are those in e-commerce that do not have a physical shop to visit or brands that offer digital-only services/products. Again, if there is nowhere to go physically, then chances are, you won’t see much improvement in your user engagement by implementing this particular SEO tactic. Instead, you’ll want to focus your attention on your on-page and off-page SEO.
How to Implement Local SEO into Your Strategy
While larger businesses can benefit from the use of local SEO, this particular SEO tactic benefits smaller businesses, especially if they don’t have the resources necessary to build a large online presence quickly.
One of the best ways to use local SEO is to claim your online business listings, such as a Google My Business page, and complete your profile. That means including your business name, your physical address, and all contact information. You’ll also want to optimize your business’s description with appropriate keywords to help tell consumers and search engines what your brand is all about.
Another excellent tactic is to encourage your current customers/clients to leave reviews on your social media pages, online business listings, and your website. This not only helps to optimize your business listings, but it helps you build authority in your niche as well.
Local SEO Benefits: 3 Reasons You’ll Want to Implement This Tactic
Local SEO, when implemented correctly, can benefit your brand in many ways. Here are three of the most profound reasons you’ll want to start implementing this SEO tactic immediately:
1. Allows You to Attract More Leads at Little Cost
Whether you choose to invest in a marketing agency’s help or choose to take on the task yourself, implementing SEO best practices can give you the results you desire cost-effectively.
Remember, proper SEO practices help tell search engines who you are, what kind of information/services you have to offer, and help you get noticed by the desired audience. Your local SEO strategy can help you attract more leads simply by filling out those online business listings, most of which are free to claim!
Optimize your social media profiles to include proper keywords and your physical location. These profiles are free – you usually only pay to sponsor specific posts or create ads. Since proper SEO tactics typically focus on organic results, that means little spending is necessary if any at all.
2. Helps You Grow a Local Following
Recent research shows that when it comes to voice search, most requests include the use of the term “near me.” When you properly optimize your website, social media profiles, and online business listings, it allows you to become physically “findable,” allowing consumers to see you as a “near me” result. This helps you build brand awareness, and if you’ve collected some consumer reviews, you continue building a local following, as most consumers use these reviews when deciding which businesses to work with.
3. Increases Your Authority Within Your Niche
Finally, when you combine all these factors, local SEO helps you build local authority within your niche. This year alone, 32% of consumers stated that they read more online reviews for local businesses than they have in the past. Research also shows that in the last year, 93% of consumers used the internet to find a local business, with consumers preferring to review Google My Business customer testimonials to help them determine who was trustworthy and reliable enough to do business with.
Local SEO Done Right with CadenceSEO Consulting
While local SEO seems simple enough, you must weave it into your overall SEO strategy. That’s where many businesses tend to flounder a bit. Here at CadenceSEO Consulting, we have the expertise to help you build an SEO strategy that gets you real results.
Are you ready to get started? Then contact us today to see how we can help you!
