Local SEO: Is It Worth Integrating Local SEO Services To My Digital Marketing Strategy?
- 17 February, 2016
- Jason Ferry
- Local SEO
With the popularity of mobile device usage, Internet search is now focused on local SEO. This change has brought upon a new challenge for SEO experts and that’s to keep up and stand out in the search engine competition. Unfortunately, very few entrepreneurs recognise their need for local SEO. In fact, 80% of customers nowadays search for business in their locality. It is a huge percentage that entrepreneurs will be mad to neglect. They are potential customers within the vicinity that could show up in your physical store any time.
You could reach this customer base by integrating local SEO services to your existing digital marketing strategy. This post will provide you with several tips for this purpose.
Let us begin with the simplest strategy, and that is setting up a Google My Business page. You will only need a Google+ account for your business and then setting up your own business page would be just a breeze. Remember though to keep this page always updated. Any changes there may be with the address, contact number or working hours should be reflected onto this page.
Google My Business provides information of your address, product offerings, opening hours, reviews, and relevant photos appearing on Google search results. It helps customers easily locate you, write or read reviews, and find other pertinent details about the company.
Whether you hire the assistance of an SEO company or opt to do SEO on your own, setting up a “Google My Business” is not enough to maximise online visibility. Your business must also be present in famous local listing sites such as TripAdvisor, Yellow Pages, Yelp, and many more. This could provide you with free advertisement and business opportunities.
You do not have to be present in virtually every local listing website though. You just have to see which site is relevant to your business together with your target audience and enlist your business there. Also, to improve your local rankings, be consistent with the information you provide. Again, in case you have changed your phone number or address, make sure to update each of the listing to build trust and authority.
With the use of local SEO services, your company will also benefit from customer reviews. People nowadays are greatly influenced by online reviews in making decisions on what to purchase or where to purchase from. Encourage and give incentives to your present customers so they would write reviews about your offerings on search engines or in TripAdvisor or Yelp.
Despite being not very widely utilised, local SEO proves to be a very important feature of digital marketing. It provides your company with opportunities to improve your online and community presence. As more and more customers are supporting local businesses these days, optimising your local SEO will allow them to easily find you.