The fact that this is a bit complicated is good news because if it were very easy, everyone would do it correctly and you would have no advantage. Take 10-15 minutes to understand the goals and get ahead of the competitors that won’t pass the time. Worth it!
If you are a small business owner, you are likely to be very familiar or a general business owner is very familiar with Google and with search and search results. All are. But local SEO is a bit different and many business owners are still confused about what it is and especially why local SEO is so important to the success of their online business.
Here is how Google searches operate:
When you do a Google search, there are usually paid ads and ten results (organic results) that always appear. This will include a list of different websites for those searches that are involved with PPC and those that are ranking high naturally. Once again, everyone is familiar with this process and these results. However, when a person performs a search for a particular service or product within a given geographical area, for example, city, state or county, state, above those ten organic lists there will be 2 to 3 local results and that they are separated from organic results.
For example, if you perform an oil change search in a particular city, county or state, you will see local results. 2-3 listings of companies that will only have the address name, phone number, a link to call them, reviews, star ratings, and a link to the website. Well, those results are not “arbitrary”, they need to be optimized just like organic searches need to be optimized, because only two or three appear on Google. The rest of them are hidden. These hidden listings can be seen by clicking on the small box with small bullets. If you click on this box, it will provide all local listings to view. This box is rarely noticed, much less clicked on. Due to this fact, depending on how competitive your company is if it is not among the top two or three visible positions in the initial local listings, your business is invisible to visitors. Most visitors will see and call or click on the website of the two or three that appear. In fact, local SEO results are becoming more important than organic results in some cases due to their appearance on Google and the emphasis given to them.
Local SEO is important to be an optimization strategy that will help you increase your ranking compared to all other competitors so you can appear on the first page of Google for those 2-3 very important places. There are many techniques and strategies that make you climb in those first 2-3 places and that is what local SEO Local Optimization is all about.
It is important for you, as a business owner, to know the importance of this and make your business go the right way. It is possible to upload first or second in local listings and appear in organic results. Sometimes, in certain searches we have clients that appear 2-3 times on the first page of a Google search, which is great because the more times it appears on the first page, the more opportunities visitors will have to click on your link.
It is also important to keep in mind that local Google listings also have comments on them and that it is important that you increase, respond and verify periodic reviews to keep it updated. That is also part of the local SEO.
The main objective is to obtain high results by ensuring that your name, address and telephone number (NAP information) are correct throughout the web. Do not correct your NAP information only on Google plus and on the Google list, but on all lines of company lists across the web. Also to make sure that the different listings and names of your company and phone numbers are exactly the same as those found on your actual website. Make sure you have pages of locations on your site that match business listings so Google can track each location and add it to local lists in each city you’re in.
Also, keep in mind that: about a third of all the clicks that local businesses get local results and increase every year. This is worth the time for small business owners to do well. If you don’t have it right, take a look and if you don’t have the time or patience to work on this, call a Digital Marketing Agency that specializes in local SEO to do it for you. Just make sure you get someone with a great reputation.