The Importance of Local SEO

Picture this scenario: a local customer in the need of your product or service. These days, the first thing they are likely to do is to pull out their phone and type in “enter your business here near me”. Maybe your business is the hot new bagel shop down the street, the movie theater with the best seats, or the legendary pizza spot, chances are your customers are going to use Google to find the best businesses near them.

The trick is landing your business’s webpage near the top of the search engine’s results. This not only grants exposure to new customers in the area but allows you to retain existing customers who are indecisive about a local purchase decision. You do this by optimizing your webpage among other things in accordance with a search engine’s guidelines. Thus we have Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short.

This is important because 75% of customers never scroll past the first page of a search engine like Google.^4 That is a lot of money (and potential) left on the table if you don’t rank near the top. That is the importance of local SEO.

In this article, we will discuss the importance and impact of local SEO for La Habra businesses and things you can do to optimize your site and content to attract more patrons.

Who can benefit from local SEO?

The beauty of SEO is that almost any type of business can reap the rewards of being placed at the top of Google search results. This is especially good news for local businesses because 46% of Google searches are local ^1 and 76% of local searches result in a phone call^1.  

The aim of this article is to…

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is similar to general SEO but the difference is searches with certain geo qualifiers, such as city, state, zip code, etc., and ‘near me’ searches, where Google picks up the geo-location of the person and provides search results from that area.

The Basics Of Local SEO

Now that we know what Local SEO is, let’s take a look at how you can create an actionable gameplan to improve your business’s SEO efforts.

The first thing a business owner needs to do is make sure that their business address is updated in Google My Business as well as other online directories. Without this, the business will not show up any time someone searches for something “near me” or for a business in La Habra.

The second thing you can do is make sure that all your information is accurate and consistent across all online directories you have registered your business under. Any discrepancies found by Google may result in your business not showing up in the local 3 pack, which we will talk about later.  

Now that the basics of the locality have been covered, we need to look at your business’s on-page and off-paged SEO.

On-page optimization is making sure that the content and HTML source code is up to date with the search engines’ latest guidelines. If you’re a business owner in La Habra, be sure to consult with Morales Design in order to improve your on-page SEO strategy.

Off-page SEO refers to backlinks and other external indicators that make your website reputable. These indicators can include the domain, overall look and design, and sharability among other internet users. Off-page SEO can also be improved with the right approach from a professional with experience.

How Does Local SEO Impact Your Business?

Many brick and mortar businesses tend to underestimate the impact of local SEO whether good or bad. According to Hubspot, here are just a few important findings that you may not have known:

• 50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visited a store within a day, and 34% who searched on computer/tablet did the same.
• 18% of local mobile searches lead to a sale within one day.
• 60% of American adults use smartphones and tablets to search for local product and service information.

As you can see, local SEO, especially on mobile devices, can affect your business’s bottom line in more ways than ever.

Getting Your Business On Google’s Local 3-Pack

As discussed earlier, appearing on Google’s local 3-pack can be lucrative due to the prime real estate on the top of Google’s search page. Here we will break down how to get your business on Google’s local 3 pack in 6 steps.

1. Make sure your Google+ Local page is completely filled in and up-to-date.
2. Cultivate reviews on your Google+ account. Receiving multiple positive reviews can be beneficial when it comes to boosting your visibility, especially since Google reviews and stars will be plainly visible on the 3-Pack.
3. Make sure your listings throughout the web are accurate and consistent. This includes business name, address, and phone number.
4. Cultivate locally relevant links to boost your visibility. There are a number of ways you can accrue reputable links, such as sponsoring local nonprofits and events or joining a Chamber of Commerce.
5. Build standard backlinks to raise your organic rank. Backlinks are best gained through outstanding, well-distributed content that attracts readers.
6. Build a strong presence on social media and other platforms to establish yourself as a local business with loyal followers.

SEO success will attract new and existing customers to your business by ranking high on Google. For many businesses, their search result position will make or break successful profit margins and a successful local business.

Sources:

https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/local-seo-stats

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/local-seo/what-is-local-seo-why-local-search-is-important/

https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/inbound-marketing-stats

https://www.brightedge.com/glossary/optimize-google-3-pack

It’s very important for a business to have a great website! If a business has a high-quality website, they’ll likely attract new customers and keep their current audience engaged with their content, brand, and services. Small businesses ask us all the time, how to better prepare themselves to do business online and how to get the amount of website conversions that they’re looking to achieve. Today we discuss the top three things that businesses should do for their website, what small businesses should do to maintain their website, tips on social media, and insights on what local businesses need to be doing online.

Small business are really tight on time and resources. These stats are pretty astounding in terms of what people aren’t doing online and what they need to tune into. Check out some of these facts.

Ninety-three percent of small business websites are not mobile ready. That’s from a very reputable research source. Sixty percent of small businesses don’t even have a phone number listed on their site. Three-quarters of them don’t have an email contact address. Forty-three percent of business listings are missing or have incorrect addresses.

These are some basic things here, and I think if you want to do better online as a small business you have to understand how people are searching for you. Four out of five consumers use search engines to look up local information. This is addresses, hours, directions.

They also use local search on their smartphones, and the behavior is really shifting quite a bit here. People are now starting to do a research process before they purchase something. They might include time on their tablet, time on their smartphone, and time on their desktop. In fact, another study shows that the average consumer will utilize over two different sources from a different platform before they’ll zero in on a local business that they’re going to visit.

What’s critical for our local business customers to be doing?

There certainly is a lot of stuff. There’s the bare minimum, so let’s hit that first. There are always ways to grow from there.

The first one is to really start with your website. As you mentioned, your website is and still will be the hub of your online presence. It’s essentially your online storefront. You need to make sure that your website is a well kept, clean, and an inviting place for people to come and learn about your business.

A couple of things there. One is that you want to make sure that you test your website on these different mobile devices. Many websites are not ready for mobile. You should always look at your website both on a tablet, as well as at least an iPhone and Android device. Maybe you can leave some of the more obscure platforms out there, but check them out to make sure your website content is visible.

Make sure that your contact information is visible on your website. Usually, the best practice is to put it at the top of the page. Certainly make sure that you can find it on a mobile device as well as a desktop.

You also want to take care of your basic onsite SEO for your website. Instead of being less specific and forgetting to mention what cities and places you service, make sure that you go back over your website and identify the keywords that people might be using when looking for your business. Make sure those keywords exist on your website.

One of the other things that’s really important these days is testing the speed of your website. Google has actually shown this many times, that fractions of seconds, and certainly seconds, make a difference. People aren’t that patient, so if they sense that your website is taking too long to load they’re going to hit the back button and go to the next one.

Make sure all those things are in place. Once you have that, certainly make sure that you claim the local listings. That’s usually the low hanging fruit for many businesses. Go to Google. My Business is what they’re calling it now. Make sure that you’ve verified and claimed your listing there. We also recommend using services like Yext which gets you all of the other directories that are important other than Google My Business. Those are certainly important things to start with.

The last one is to look at social media, but be realistic about what you’re going to do with it. It’s more important to pick one social media platform and stick with it than going out and claiming all of your social media profiles, putting icons on your website, and then never actually doing anything with it.

Aside from those three, once you get all that in place, you need an ongoing strategy for keeping your website up to date and putting out fresh website content and relevant information for your audience. That’s how you’re going to get those conversions.

Content us today for your free website and marketing review.