As a company, whether you have one location or 500 spread across the country, you have to reach people locally for your business to succeed. Today, there are thousands of different local marketing strategies ranging from offline to online. It can get overwhelming trying to figure out the best approach to reach your goals. But the good news is there is one method that you should prioritize if you want to reach more local customers. While social media, paid advertisements, public relations, and other marketing efforts can generate traffic to your website, search engines drive most online traffic. If you want to promote your local business, you need a local SEO service. This article will discuss how to find the best SEO services for your business goals, what SEO tools you will need, and expert tips to help you develop a winning local marketing strategy.
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Local SEO Service
When looking for a local business that will solve one of your problems or fill one of your needs, what do you do? How do you find a top-rated chiropractor in your area to help with your back pain? Or the best interior designer in town to help add more feng-shui to your home? Or how about when you are searching for a baker to make a custom cake for your significant other’s birthday?
Chances are, you probably go straight to Google on your computer or your phone. Well, your customers do too. In fact, “near me” or “close by” searches have increased by 900% in the last two years. When people are looking for a local product or service to fit their needs, they log online to find out their best options. To be seen online as the best option, your business needs to leverage the power of search engine optimization (SEO).
Local SEO increases foot-traffic to your store, and that means more revenue for your business. Studies show that about 50% of all searches on Google are looking for local businesses and information. About 80% of potential customers who perform a mobile local search visit or call a store that same day! This is why SEO is so essential when you want to promote your business locally.
What is Search Engine Optimization?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is the non-paid method of increasing the quantity and quality of your website traffic. Through search engine results, it advances your brand exposure and helps customers discover your business online.
Search engines like Google analyze billions of online content pieces (web pages, blog articles, videos, images, PDFs, etc.) and determine what content is most likely to answer online queries through an organizational process known as “indexing and crawling.” Through SEO, you can ensure that your local business is showing up in your potential customer’s search results.
Local SEO Services
Ensuring your website is optimized for search engines and that customers can find your business and services online is the key to your local success. You can have the most aesthetically pleasing website and the best business offering in town. But if nobody sees it, it’s all pointless.
Local SEO strategies have a proven track record of increasing online brand exposure, generating more traffic to local business websites, and more lead conversions. When you work with SEO experts, like SEO Design Chicago, they will help you implement on-page SEO, targeted content creation, and keyword research, increasing traffic to your website; all tailored to specific cities, towns, suburbs, or neighborhoods based on your geographics and demographics.
Below we have listed some of the primary services that your SEO agency would provide to help you dominate your local market.
Local Search Engine Optimization
Local SEO involves optimizing your website and web presence to increase visibility whenever a local-based search happens. A team of SEO experts can help you reach more customers in your area in various ways. Some of these ways include improving your web rankings, implementing keyword strategies and local citations, optimizing your digital business listings, and performing maintenance to ensure your visibility via search engines grows every month. As you reach more customers online, you will increase inbound leads, leading to an increase in sales.
Google My Business
A Google My Business account helps ensure that you show up in search results online when people are looking for you. It’s free, so it’s one of the most affordable marketing tools. Data shows consumers are 70% more likely to visit a business with a Google My Business listing. Another study found that companies with optimized listings on Google are twice as likely to build trust when customers are deciding to make a purchase.
Localized Content Creation
Creating content for your community that inspires engagement is a huge part of a thriving local SEO strategy. Expert content writers can help you create content that targets specific areas and influence local consumer behavior, with the end goal of increasing brand awareness and sales.
Citation Setup and Optimization
Citations are essentially any online reference to your company that features your business’ name, address, and phone number. As a local business, what is more important than letting your customers know where you are located? Google My Business is an example of a citation. However, you’ll want more than just one citation platform to maximize results. When set up properly, citations are easily manageable and improve your local SEO rankings.
Below we have listed out some quality citation platforms that your local business can get listed on:
- Google My Business
- Bing
- Apple Maps
- City Search
- Localeze
- Superpages
- Yahoo!
- Yelp
- CityGrid
Your local business should create and manage accurate and optimized listings on all of the above platforms. Still, you should research other opportunities for citations based on what category your business fits into.
Local SEO Tools To Help You Harness The Power of SEO
SEO tools analyze the potential of your website and provide helpful information on backlinks, keywords, content, ranking, traffic, and social media. There are a lot of great SEO tools out there, below we have listed some of the most popular ones.
Google Analytics is something you have to set up correctly and monitor regularly if you want to succeed at using SEO to attract more customers locally. It provides high quality data and information to help you see how your SEO efforts are going. Not to mention, most SEO tools and data platforms pull information directly from Google’s data using their API.
Google Search Console enables you to check your web page’s indexing status and provides analytics that helps you optimize the visibility and awareness of your website(s). This tool actually tells you what and how to improve how Google views and ranks your site.
SEMRush is an extremely popular SEO tool for local, regional, and national marketing efforts. Along with various digital marketing tools, it includes keyword research, competitive analysis, backlink reporting, local rank tracking, PPC and on-page analysis, traffic data, and many other reporting tools crucial for SEO success.
Moz Local is used by both large and small companies to help boost the local awareness of your business by ensuring all of your listings are set up properly, complete, correct, and visible.
Three Local SEO Tips
Below, we have listed a few tips to help you find local SEO experts. They can help implement the proven SEO strategies and tactics we have discussed throughout this article. Once you find a local SEO agency to work with, leave the heavy lifting to them. However, there are certain things you can do to help them succeed.
Local SEO Tip #1: Find a Great Local SEO Agency
When looking to partner with an expert freelancer or local SEO agency, you will want to find someone that serves your area and knows your community already. Searching for the perfect SEO agency to partner with may come from a referral. Or, it could start with a search like “Local SEO Chicago.” First, just like any relationship, you want to make sure you find a team that you connect with. The first step in any successful partnership is working well together as a team. You also want to gauge if they are just as interested in the success of your business as you are. A good SEO agency will learn about your business, your customers, and your goals.
Local SEO Tip #2: Get Reviews from Your Customers
A productive way to spend your time after you hire a rockstar SEO team is gathering reviews from your customers. According to TrustPilot, nearly 90% of consumers read reviews before buying products. When your SEO team starts completing citations and business listings online, it’s important to have reviews ready to promote.
Local SEO Tip #3: Start creating content
Content is king. While your SEO agency can help you write blogs, social media posts, and website copy, you know your business and customers more than anyone else. You can even have your employees write blog posts! Or, you can take notes to provide to your freelance writers to help them create content that speaks to your audience. Take pictures around the store with employees interfacing with customers or showcasing new products. Film videos on your phone with experts talking about your products and services. Content is one of the main methods to help attract more customers to your website and find your business.
Every business wants customers to find them via a local search. The methods and tricks listed throughout this article are really only the tip of the iceberg. Our local SEO experts go beyond the basics and dig deeper to make sure when a customer performs a local search they find your business first. When you work with us, you get a team of specialized experts. We will help you execute local SEO and search engine optimization tactics that are data-driven. We have a proven track record of delivering exponential local business growth.
Contact Us Today!