SEO is a must for a local business no matter how big or small it might be. In the internet age, visibility matters a lot in marketing your products and services. In addition, consumers are inclined to get the types of businesses they are looking for at the right time and this is where local SEO gains its importance. Whether you are a florist or dentist, an accountant or a plumber, as long as you have a business that has an interest in the local market, local SEO is just meant for you. You are able to create two-way communication with the target consumers that build relationships that leads to improved sales.
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Why go for local SEO
If you are wondering what would happen if you do not have a local SEO then be sure that it won’t be long before you are out of business. Despite all other means of publicity that you adapt to let people know about your business, your efforts are no match to what you can get from local SEO for dentists. The reason is that more and more consumers are now turning to the internet before they buy any product or service. At least 64 percent of consumers search the internet to locate the companies that they look for. So, if you are not there, you are losing out on this enormous opportunity of being seen by others.
Read Morea: Avoid These 5 Mistakes Before Starting An SEO
Speedy business can happen
Being seen easily is just the beginning. Many of the consumers that happen to see you would perhaps generate business leads that you can latch upon. Knowing about their interest in your products or services, you begin to roll out the red carpet for them. What happens next bears enough evidence about the abilities of local SEO in garnering business quickly. About 47 percent of people who generate leads interacted with business owners and got the deals sealed just within an hour. This is the finding of a survey.
Read also: Understanding Search Engine Optimization
With so much potential to increase sales, it is no surprise that the popularity of local SEO is growing at a very fast pace. In addition, by listing in business directories like Google Places and by placing an advertisement on the platform you are likely to get a much higher ranking in search results outscoring many other localized keyword phrases. The advertisement also links consumers to the business website, company address, and hours of business of the stores, phone number and business reviews that can drive consumers in taking a positive decision.
Have a responsive website
Having local SEO is of no use if it is not properly optimized for local conditions. Measures have to be taken to ensure that the local emphasis remains in the optimization efforts and the majority of the audience is reached. This means that you need to have a responsive website that is viewed with the same ease on desktops as well as mobile devices. With the widespread use of mobile phones, it is imperative that the majority of searches are triggered by mobile devices. The most encouraging fact about mobile users is that of all the leads generated from mobile devices 82 percent users have got back to the sellers to follow up the leads. This provides a big opportunity for converting leads into sales.
Local citations are important
Pay attention to citations on directory listings. Citations increase the reliability of your business for search engines. Citations mean the mention of your business name and address on some other web pages that are not part of your website. If your business is listed on an online directory, make sure that the citations are correctly mentioned. The ranking algorithms of search engines like Google and Bing consider citations as a key component. Therefore, the higher the number of citations, better rankings you are likely to get provided other factors of a business are all equal. To add more power to citations, add incoming links to it.
Increase customer reviews
Customer reviews are critical for better rankings and the SEO campaign should target more and more customers who are willing to review and publish their views about the products and services. The reviews create a positive impact on prospective consumers who become confident about buying the product that has many satisfied users. The majority of consumers depend on reviews to decide about purchasing any particular product or service. The reviews also impact search rankings hence it acquires more importance from the SEO perspective. The reviews are equally important for all kinds of search engines and directories and not Google alone.
Social media engagement
As part of a local SEO campaign, make extensive use of social media to connect closely with consumers. Present interesting and relevant content on the pages of social networks that would ensure that more and more visitors are attracted to it. Google pays a lot of importance to social media feedback about your website and this can influence search rankings.
Use localized keywords
Localized keywords are critical for local SEO even though Google can do even without it. The keywords phrases are made more specific for the locality by adding a geographical dimension to it. This is of more help to searchers who are able to narrow down the searches without much effort as they are guided by the keywords. Localized keywords throw up more accurate results that searchers are looking for. This increases the possibilities of being found out very easily in search results.
Google has its own ways of detecting the location and even if localized keywords are not used, Google can throw up the results that pertain to the area from where the search is generated. However, it is not always necessary that searchers would prefer to find businesses in their own areas but would also like to go beyond it. This is when geographical locations attached to keywords can work wonders for you.
What has been discussed above are only some of the ways that can strengthen your local SEO efforts. There are many more things that can be done. However, these are some of the most elementary steps in optimizing local SEO that should never be missed out.
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