How To Establish a Local SEO Plan for Business?

As internet penetration increases around the world, the role of SEO in business is becoming more crucial. SEO, or search engine optimization, helps a business by improving search results and making them more accessible to customers who are on the lookout for related information.

 

SEO then essentially increases traffic to a website and improves visibility. More importantly, it drives targeted leads since these are people who have expressed interest in the category or industry that your business is involved in.

It is a process that promotes a company's website to the top of search results through managing its links, content, and keywords. It benefits both the company and its potential customers because it eliminates content that is not relevant to the specific information that the user is searching for.

 

With SEO being a helpful tool in marketing, some businesses see it as a means of reaching audiences from far and wide, as the internet has the ability to cross borders and break boundaries. However, it is not just useful for a global campaign, it can be beneficial in terms of local business promotions as well. In fact, almost 50% of Google searches are seeking information on products and services that are within the users' vicinity, and more than 80% who did so claim to have visited or called a store found in the search results on the same day.

 

 

When To Get a Local SEO Plan

While not everyone may need a local SEO plan, certain types of business would benefit the most from it, particularly the kinds of businesses that are limited geographically such as food services, repairs, real estate, or medical services. Brick and mortar stores would also gain an advantage if the local SEO results would recommend them to users instead of nearby competitors.

 

Local SEO helps refine search results and limits the recommendations within the user's neighborhood. This is managed through a set of algorithms that consider the user's location and proximity once a local keyword search is applied, even without specifying the actual name of the town or place. Such a process has become more popular in recent years with the increased use of mobile internet as people got used to using search engines while on the go.

 

 

How To Set Up a Local SEO Plan

If you feel that a local SEO plan would be beneficial to your business, you can reach out to a service provider who can help map out a plan for you based on your objectives. You can also do your own research before talking directly to a service provider, so you can determine in advance the amount of investment needed and the type of local SEO service pricing that is best suited for your business.

 

There are also simple steps that you can do to optimize local SEO search results. The first is to properly assess what you can offer and identify which of these can be highlighted as your hero product or service. This is particularly necessary if you are selling multi-category products or running a multi-service business.

 

Your hero product or service should be the most differentiated among your competitors and one that you are best at. This will be featured in most of the keywords and content on your site. Doing so will place you in a competitive advantage and make your offer more appealing, so once your business pops out in the search results, the user is more likely to choose you over the other recommendations.

 

Make sure that your website is fully functional and is user-friendly so as not to drive away users who have been lured there by search engine results. SEO can only drive traffic to your site, but it cannot make the user stay there. Issues such as lags, broken links, lost pages, poor security, missing information, complicated web design, and difficulty in website navigation can easily make a user exit your site and go to your competitor's page instead.

 

Having engaging and targeted content on your website will also help pull in web traffic. Observe your target customers and identify their search behavior, so you can get an idea of the topics they are usually interested in. Find ones that are closely related to your product or service and work out a content plan around them. Include location-specific keywords with high search volumes in your content before posting them on the website.

 

It would also help to check out what keywords are benefiting your close competitors, so you can edge them out in the search results. Find out what keywords place them at the top of the search results and what they have done to get them these results. Match your product or service with relevant keywords as well, then take measures to improve your search rankings. These can be location-specific, product-oriented keywords, or both. Use different variations and combinations of these keywords to ensure that you cover as many search results as applicable.

 

There are also free tools that you can use to improve your search results. Enrolling in Google's “My Business” listing and signing up in local business directories are some examples. Positive customer reviews are also quite relevant in improving your search results, so coming up with ways or incentives to encourage your previous customers to write reviews on your website will not only generate healthier customer relationships but will also create more web traffic for you.

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