Both national and local businesses have its own share of woes, just like anybody who strives to stay on top of the online market competition. As more information are being entered online, challenges continue to rise as well. Businesses are left wondering how to push their strategies further in order to keep up with the pace.
This is where SEO takes over the scene. It is like a guide that allows businesses to learn how search engines work so it can optimize the way it executes its online strategies for maximized results. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization will make sure that you get aligned with the best practices to ensure that your online efforts are not wasted and you achieve online visibility that produces tangible results.
The fundamental goal of launching a general SEO campaign is to increase the web traffic that a business site is getting. In local SEO, however, where small businesses usually take part, is focused on optimizing a web page listing for better visibility within a localized area. Yet both approaches aim at maximizing the benefits of online visibility, that translates to lead generation and ultimately, to sales.
In order to establish a better understanding about how local businesses are thriving on the world wide web, it is best to learn about SEO – its importance, the ways to implement it, and how to it relates to local SEO practices that are starting to become more prevalent in internet search activities at present. In the meantime, let us begin with a definition of SEO and the reasons why your business needs it.
SEO Definition
SEO refers to the “behind the scenes action” that take place to make sure that your website are recognized well by search engines, and returns it to a higher spot in the Search Engine Results Page, or SERP. So how is this possible?
Effective SEO strategies should be able to drive web traffic to a business site, so that search engines will recognize its popularity, that translates to usability and relevance, to every query it is associated to. Search engines make use of a complex algorithm, that effectively measures different criteria such as relevance and accuracy of information, in relation to the nature of the search.
SEO vary in methods and practices, wherein the good thing is that it drives a lot of advantages over offline and online means. Online methods in SEO pertain to the technical aspect of building a solid foundation for sustaining relevancy and accuracy through content and information supply. It complements the strategies offline, where it is used primarily to create a business profile or brand image by driving increased visibility for marketing purposes.
It is also important to note that there are two types of search results, organic and paid up. Organic results naturally come up upon the input of keywords, while the paid up results are the ones that purchased a top spot in all related set of results, which ismentioned that is paid for,located below the link.
So Why Does a Business Need SEO in the First Place?
Search engines are intelligent tools that make use of sophisticated and complex algorithm that ranks a business website according to some measurable points against the others within the same industry or category. Optimizing your website with the same principles behind how search engines doe the indexing and ranking will get you to an advantageous spot in search results, which is in the higher pages. One of the important aspect to achieve in SEO, is to increase its web traffic.
In a study conducted by Conductor.com about the relevance of organic search to web site traffic, it concluded that 47% of about 310 million visits were accounted to be generated in performing organic search while 29% came from direct visits.
If your website is present in any of the higher pages or spots coming from organic or natural searches, the rate of success in increasing your web traffic, which consequently adds up to the point to account for higher rankings, will be significantly higher. As you see, one can conclude that web traffic and page rankings complement each other in a cycle-like fashion, where one is impacting the other, and both can be achieved in varied ways, which is through an effective SEO implementation.
Brief Background of Local SEO Evolution
Local SEO is a natural evolution of offline business listings and advertisements which used to be found in newspaper listings and directories. In the past, customers rely on these printed materials and do the search manually. Today, the same search principle has turned into digital and electronic, wherein customers can just conveniently type a keyword in a search engine site, and it automatically returns relevant and categorized results for convenience.
The increase in popularity of online local business listings has lead to the decline in the use of its printed counterpart. The transition came as a natural consequence, that businesses are also migrating to digital as a result of this shift in market behavior.
Search engines have since then evolved its algorithm to better cater to the growing demand for accurate information about everything, which includes local businesses. The significant growth of internet users and its data contribution to the world wide web has also affected the way search engines return poor results. This lead them develop a more complex search algorithm for better filtering. These changes were also concerned over the increasing issues about spams and other irresponsible methods used in SEO. Now, search engines are starting to penalize these acts by “cleaning” up those sites and pages that doesn’t follow the rules imposed.
Effective Local SEO Tips
Differentiating local SEO from general SEO isn’t that complicated to point out. But in general, both are important set of strategies that enables businesses to gain that visibility online for their sales and marketing needs. Search engines also benefit from SEO, because through it, it can yield more accurate search results which lead to user satisfaction, further discovery and continuous patronage of its services.
Local SEO focus on returning search results that are location related, which specifically applies to establishments and businesses of interest. Basically, local SEO strategies focus on web page listings, which act as directories for businesses to take part of. These listings act as the electronic counterparts of local business directories in print, which was used before everything went digital.
Small businesses have less resources to utilize, and most are not taking the option to invest on professional looking website. This is logical, but neglecting all possible ways of gaining online visibility without a website is a huge missed opportunity that shouldn’t happen. This is the situation where local SEO techniques can help small businesses.
Basing from the 12-Point Local SEO Checklist article, I handpicked those that are related better to utilizing local SEO given that a business doesn’t have a website. Here are some local SEO tips and best practices that a business needs to include in its foundational SEO strategies:
- Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)
Your business’ NAP information is a fundamental and important part of your local SEO that a search engine looks at first in order to return your listing accurately.
Search engines gather all your NAPs across all sites where it was indicated – whether on your initiation or some form of link or list. It is important that you take responsibility to make all the mentions and citations of NAP be consistent, accurate and updated. Your business rankings depend on both the quantity and consistency of all your NAP mentions, so this is something that shouldn’t be neglected.
It is best that a business will enlist itself in many popular, local web page listings, and includes added information aside from NAP like product or service overviews, product and establishment photos, and user reviews.
- Customer Reviews
A consumer review survey conducted by Bright Local revealed that in 2015, 92% of customers are now reading online reviews prior to purchase, versus 88% that did from the previous year.
Both the quality and quantity of customer reviews that your business receives impact the way you are ranked in SERPs. Logically, the more higher star reviews you get, the more that you imply a sense of trustworthiness and effectiveness with your services. Search engines can intelligently sense these signals through its algorithm, thus logically placing you with higher rankings.
- Image Optimization
As a part of your local SEO guide, it is also valuable to enhance a customer search experience by including experiential elements like photos, videos or other interactive elements. Photos significantly improve any web page listing – but all the more when using only the original and SEO optimized ones. By making your images SEO friendly, it can help complement your listing in a more effective way by being aligned with the information about your business that you initially supplied. Being SEO optimized means that your images have:
- Keyword based file names
- Keyword based title names
- Keyword based Alt text
- Is properly sized
- Social Media Profiles and Mentions
General SEO campaigns utilize link building as its fundamental strategy which aims at associating a website to authority sites and content that can drive more traffic they need. In local SEO, social media profiles act as a business default “website” that holds the important information about a business to highlight, which also acts as a central platform where customers can also express their satisfaction or disappointment altogether through reviews and ratings.
Conclusion
Being consistent and accurate with your general and local SEO strategies enables a business to maximize the benefits of online visibility. Using only the best practices in implementing SEO can also establish your good relationship with search engines like Google, which altogether can make customers that engage online achieve optimum experience for their benefits too.
A local SEO firm may have the right combination of strategies in order to help your business begin with its SEO. It is better to get one of the best local SEO firms in the market today, which have an established reputation that endured years of experience alongside every evolution stage that SEO encountered. For an up to date and detailed client ratings and feedbacks, see CrowdReviews.com’s reviews of local SEO firms to give you better insights about its benefits and usefulness of local SEO services based from actual experiences.
Jeev Trika
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