Never Underestimate the Power of Local SEO

By: Submissions

Maria Taylor writes: Most business owners have aspirations of expanding their company from a local presence into a global corporation with numerous locations and outlets around the world. While global expansion may be the end goal for many small to medium-size enterprises (SMEs), every endeavour has to start somewhere, especially when the company does a lot of business in a brick and mortar shop.

After getting online with your own website, it can be easy to start feeling like you've already gone global, even though most of the revenue is still coming from local clients/customers. Consider the following paragraphs highlighting how the importance of starting with local SEO is commonly overlooked, and a few tips on starting a local SEO campaign for your company:

Putting Your Company on the Map, Literally

Listing your site in the Google Places directory, will automatically put your company on the list of map results that appear when a searcher is looking for terms that are mentioned on your company's website, or in the company's Google Places description. A primary benefit of doing this is that it will allow your business and website to pop up in Google Maps when people are trying to navigate to a local business on their mobile device. For example, someone could search for “automotive mechanic in [town name]” to quickly pull up directions to your local auto shop.

Dominating Local Keywords and Attracting High Quality Leads

The simple initial steps of targeting local keywords (e.g. - “company name” and “name of town,” or “name of specific product/service” and “name of town”) can do a lot to boost interaction with local leads. Local keywords are simply the phrases people use to search for service providers, retailers, and other companies within their region.  So, if you run a bike repair shop in London, and the content on your site and in your company description targets the terms “Bike Repair in London,” you could easily rank highly for such terms and thereby attract a great deal of local business.

Using Company Directories to Boost Local SEO

One way companies boost their local SEO efforts is to list the name and contact details of the business in numerous company directories online. For example, InfoIsInfo is one of the more popular company directories in the UK. You can list your company on sites like this within specific categories and geographical regions. This will help Google and other search engines further associate your site with the name of your city and the niche you operate in.

Is Local Traffic Better than Global Traffic?

The answer to that question depends largely on the source of your company's revenue. If most of your clients are local, and you provide a product or service that is primarily distributed in your local region, then having visitors from your area would of course increase conversion rates and provide more valuable leads. If, however, your company is a retailer that does business globally, then local traffic might be relatively worthless in the big picture. Ultimately, it's up to the business to decide whether they need to be targeting local traffic or a broader audience.

By Maria Taylor

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