In the modern world, local search engine optimization is paramount for the success of all businesses, ranging from small to huge corporations. The companies that do not use professional marketing agencies for help with online marketing did not incorporate local strategies. They are lagging behind the competition and can even go out of business.
Local SEO was introduced by Google in a major algorithm and there are still numerous companies that do not realize how important this is. At the end of the day, not using local SEO practically means that you are losing business every single day. You are missing out on a large part of the local audience you might have. Search engines try to offer the best possible results for users and the users want answers to questions. For instance, they want to know what restaurants are close to where they are. If your restaurant does not appear in search engine results at the top local spots, business is lost. When local SEO is properly done, the restaurant appears among the first and is considered by the local people.
The Basis Of Local SEO
Many different things can be said about local search engine optimization. The truth is that it evolved to a really high level and nowadays there are countless strategies that can be used. However, the focus is put on location instead of general keywords. For instance, instead of optimizing content for “buy shoes”, the specialists work on optimizing for keywords that have a local interest, like “buy shoes in London”.
Keywords are paramount for local SEO, just like they are vital for regular SEO. They help the search engines to identify location and understand what the page should be ranked for.
Making Website Changes
When a website is built, the focus is normally put on a really wide audience. This is not a good idea. What you need to know about local SEO is that the focus is practically changed towards building content and pages with a focus put on the local markets.
The most common website change made in local search engine optimization is adding company address, email and phone number to every single page. Just having a simple contact page is no longer enough. Then, other local elements have to be added to site content.
Local SEO And Social Media
As opposed to regular search engine optimization, local SEO does work together with social media as a main point of focus. The social media campaigns that are built will incorporate local SEO practices in order to make sure that accurate location information is present. This goes way beyond adding content to the About section.
Final Thoughts
To sum up, local SEO is something that you should always think about when you have an online presence. We can go even further and say that you need local search engine optimization whenever you rely on a geographic area as the base of your customer persona. Never underestimate the importance of local SEO since your competition will surely not make this mistake.