Local SEO for Local Businesses
What’s your day like? If you’re like most people, you’re constantly on the go… driving to and from work, school or appointments. Remember the days before smart phones when we had to consult maps or (gasp!) print out directions from MapQuest before we left the house?
We’re not just looking for directions on the go anymore. We’re looking for the nearest coffee shop or lunch spot. If we’ve got time between appointments, we might be shopping online, looking for the perfect outfit for an upcoming event.
Think about how many times a day you consult your smart phone for information. Yep, a large percentage of local searches are done when we’re on the go as we search for something in a neighborhood near us.
You can see how important this info is to us consumers… but what about local business owners? Don’t you want to be showing up in these searches?
Rhetorical question… of course you do. And that means you need a solid local SEO campaign that includes geographic-specific content. Local SEO is much different than an overall SEO campaign and it’s evolving more rapidly.
The whole point of local SEO is to help your business stand out and rank high in search results against your local competitors. There are some basic things you need to be doing to claim that prime real estate, and we’ll get to those in a second… but first…
Some Interesting Statistics on Local SEO
If you’re not convinced that local SEO goes a long way toward the success of your local business, consider the following statistics gathered by GO-Globe in a 2016 survey:
- 50% of consumers who do a local search on their smartphone visit a store within a day. Same with 34% of consumers who searched on a computer or tablet.
- 18% of local mobile searches lead to a sale within one day.
- 87% of smartphone users use a search engine at least once a day. (I’m surprised this isn’t 100%!)
- 60% of American adults use smartphones and tablets to search for local products and services.
- 50% of local mobile searchers are looking for local business locations.
- 78% of local mobile searches result in off-line purchases.
- 71% of people surveyed say they confirm the location of a business before going there for the first time.
- 68% of searchers used the “get directions” or “click to call” links in a mobile ad.
- 1 in 3 smartphone searches were made right before a store visit.
- 89% searched for a business on their smartphones within a week’s time, with 58% searching daily.
- 46% of Google searches are for local businesses.
- 86% look up businesses using Google maps.
- 76% of local searches result in a phone call to the business.
We could go on with stats… but I think you get the picture. If you’re a local business, you need an effective local SEO strategy to succeed. So let’s get to work…
Setting Up a Local SEO Campaign for Your Business
There are a number of things that you can do to improve your local SEO, but the most important thing to remember is, be patient! Organic SEO takes time and effort to monitor and track what works and what doesn’t.
Here are the basic tactics that should be included in a local SEO campaign:
- Optimize your website for local search. This involves including your business location in website elements like page titles and URLs. Your Name, Address and Phone Number should be clearly visible on every one of your web pages. Content should be optimized with long-tail keywords for local search.
- Use schema markup. This inserts geographic information into your HTML code via tags.
- Sign up for local directories and get citations and links from other local sources on the web.
- Create local places pages on Google, Bing and Yahoo.
- Generate and request local reviews.
- Optimize for mobile.
We’re oversimplifying to make a point… these tactics aren’t necessarily difficult, but they do take some online know-how and decent amount of time to perform them correctly.
Get Your SEO Audit Today
The first step is to see how your business measures up now. Las Vegas SEO for Growth offers a free SEO report that will show you how you rank. Type in your information and get your results instantly.
Once you know where you currently stand, Las Vegas SEO for Growth can help you rise in the local rankings by implementing the critical factors that will improve your local SEO. We are ready to help you to succeed in today’s competitive online market. Contact us today to learn more!