What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the branch of SEO (search engine optimization), which deals with the SEO for local businesses.

It is largely dependent on the location of the business and focuses on attracting local traffic. Having strong local SEO on your business will help you get to page 1 of Google’s search results.

It will get you rank 1 on Google Maps and Google’s Organic Listings.

Local SEO pertains with location-specific queries such as:

• Coffee shops near me
• Petrol pump nearby
• Libraries in Mumbai
• Maternity clinics in (area)

It focuses on the optimization of local businesses’ (brick-and-mortar) efforts. As it is a branch of SEO, most of the practices remain the same. The difference is of intent and goals.

All of the local SEO efforts focus on making the business easy to find on the web, improve its visibility and make it more accessible.

Why is Local SEO important?

Local SEO makes your business visible on local searches. When people search for your business (or your services) it is important that you appear in the search results.

Take a look at the following statistics about local searches:

• 78% of local mobile searches lead to an offline purchase
• 18% of local mobile searches result in a sale within a day
• 60% of American adults conduct local searches on mobile devices
• 50% of people doing a local mobile search visit the physical within a day

Apart from these stats, local SEO is essential for keeping up with the competition. You can get ahead easily when you’re leveraging technology.

 When you have effective local SEO in place, your businesses rank in the first page of the search results, which is a great thing for any business.

You will surely want to rank in the first page because it gets more than 72% of the search traffic clicks. In some cases, it can get 92% clicks as well.

Second-page rankings get around 6% of the clicks which is far less than the first page.

Who Benefits the Most from Local SEO?

Before you indulge more on this topic, you should know if local SEO is your thing or not.

Who Benefits the Most from Local SEO?

Before you indulge more on this topic, you should know if local SEO is your thing or not. Lawyers and Doctors:

Are you marketing a law firm? Or a dental clinic? Because if you are, you’ll want to invest in local SEO. Suppose a person wants to hire a lawyer. He or she will quickly unlock the phone and search for ‘(the type of) attorney near me’ or ‘lawyers near me’.

That person, who is a potential client will then browse through the results and choose a lawyer. The same goes for doctors and medical professionals.

Someone suddenly gets injured or falls sick and searches for ‘doctors near me’ or ‘(type of) clinic near me’. You will want to show up in their results.

As stated before, the higher you rank, the more are the chances of you getting the clicks. If your business would have high-quality local SEO, with a clear call to action (call us, message us, etc.), you will easily get clients like this.

Local SEO will begin to generate leads for your business automatically. That’s because it puts you where your customers are.

Service Providers:

Blue-collar workers, florists, interior designers, owners of coaching classes, these all benefit greatly from local SEO.

When a prospective customer searches for ‘plumbers near me’ or ‘hire a decorator’, your name will be the first one they see. That’ll happen because of your effective local SEO implementations. It not only ensures you get maximum exposure but also puts you ahead of your competition.

A crucial thing for service providers is brand reputation and when prospects will see reviews on your services, they will trust your services more.

Retail Shop-owners:

People search for local shops regularly. Buying offline is still a popular thing. Many retailers believe the digital market is bad for their business whereas it is a great opportunity for you.

In fact, 92% of retail purchases are still happening offline. All you need to do is to grab their attention.

Google also suggests retailers provide helpful and valuable information about their business. It not only makes your business more visible but also helps your customers.

With effective local SEO, you can rank in the top results for people’s search queries. If someone wants to purchase an item, which you sell, he or she will see your business at the top.

Mobile Search and Local SEO

Mobile searches are quick, and they are constantly looking for fast solutions. They search for nearby businesses and shops so they can quickly get what they want.

According to a survey, 82% of mobile shoppers perform ‘near me’ searches. 90% of the respondents said they were likely to click on the results they see first.

With powerful local SEO, you can easily get mobile traffic and as a result, boost your customers.

The Difference between Local SEO and Traditional Marketing:

Traditional marketing is great but it is costlier than local SEO.

That’s why many modern businesses opt for local SEO in place of traditional marketing implementations.

Due to its name, local search engine optimization, some people feel it’s too technical and so, they get scared.

However, it is not as much technical as it seems. The search engines have made sure that anyone can get started with local SEO by putting in a little effort.

Local SEO is Cheaper:

How will market your business traditionally?

You will send out adverts, flyers, brochures and get a newspaper ad. All of this costs a considerable sum. Plus, these are not one-time investments. You will have to keep investing in order to get the results.

On the other hand, local SEO doesn’t require any (or much) investment. You can set up your Google My Business page without any expense.

Even if you have to invest a sum in local SEO, you will not have to make many recurring ones. Paid advertising is a different branch of marketing and local SEO is a different one. What you invest in local SEO will yield you recurring results. Moreover, its results are measurable.

Local SEO gives you More Control:

You can control where you want to market yourself, and how you want to market yourself. It gives you full control of your business’s marketing.

With traditional marketing, that’s not possible. You can’t control where your flyers go, who reads them, who reads your newspaper ads, etc. Traditional marketing, in most cases, is out of the business owner's hand.

Local SEO gives you Knowledge:

Search engines and SEO tools can give you valuable insight into your local SEO campaigns. You can find out a lot of information regarding where your audience is, who your prospective customers are, what do they like, and what do they want.

Such information can help you develop better marketing campaigns and get ahead faster. You can keep learning more as you go and enhance your business’s growth.

In the upcoming chapters, you will learn the basics as well as advanced concepts of local SEO. By practicing the tricks mentioned in this guide, you can get your business to the first page of search results.