How Small Businesses Benefit from Local SEO
Today, people use their mobile phones to search for relevant information within their locale. And more and more people are using geographic keywords. Small businesses should take advantage of this to win the race against local competitors. Local search engine optimisation is a tough marketing strategy to master, but it comes with many long-term rewards.
How Local SEO Works
In marketing and advertising, location is everything. These days, when people need services, they scout for such on their phones and desktops first before they leave the house. The point of local SEO is to appear on the first results page of search engines once a person sends a query according to location data. People nowadays don’t have the time and luxury, or are just plain lazy, to go far to get what they need.
Say, if you have a pet store in Perth, how will you make people choose you over a competitor? There are probably many pet stores in Perth. The key, according to
Seoperth.com.au, which provides SEO services in Perth, is to build your users’ trust through local listings and reviews or hire a local SEO company to do all the work for you.
The twist is that, although people have a bias for whatever’s nearer, poor reviews or no reviews can send negative signals. If you are nearby and have a sufficient number of average to excellent reviews, you won’t have to worry about your competitors. Investing in local SEO or doing it yourself effectively will put you ahead of the game.
Why It Matters
Local SEO is a powerful tool for small businesses because competition is smaller and limited to the location, which means that your business has a bigger chance to appeal to search engines. Category and geography are powerful aspects of local SEO. If you appropriately categorise your business in your location, people will more likely find you.
The goal is to make people talk about you online. There are many ways a small business can generate a big local fan base. Your business should have a listing in the most popular online directories or crowd-sourced review app sites, such as Yelp and Google Places.
If you have plenty of good reviews and you provide relevant information on these sites, such as location, business hours or contact details, you will have better visibility on a search engine results page. The amount of reviews your local page has is just as important as the quality of those reviews. They don’t have to be excellent reviews for Google to appreciate your worth.
Having a social media page for your business will also boost your chances and offer a venue for customers to interact with you directly. People would have a few questions about specific services, so it is important to be immediately reachable.
