Search Engine Optimization local (SEO local) is just like SEO on the national level; however, it affects the visibility of your site or a particular web page within the unpaid results of a search engine called the Google. When we say “local”, it simply means that your web page or your site can be visible and ranked in the organic or the paid results of Google. Organic results are the ones that are shown after a user has clicked on the link to a particular site from a search engine or a Pay-Per-Click advertising network. These results include sponsored listings. Paid results are the ads displayed by websites and companies that pay Google for displaying their ad on a particular search result page. So when someone types in “How do I increase my Google Places rank” in Google, he or she will see results that include advertisements from the companies and businesses who pay Google to show their ads on that very page.
Naturally, the results of this kind of search are not always positive. If you have the proper content, you can be successful at ranking high in the paid results. Your site needs to be optimized so that it can be easily found in these searches. Therefore, you need to focus on keywords and keyword phrases relevant to your industry. You also need to build links to your web site, so that people searching on Google can find it easily as well.
However, SEO local SEO is different from these other strategies. Its objective is to get your business listed in Google Maps. This is how you can be found by potential customers searching for products and services within your locality. Your listing will appear right beside the Google Maps icon on any Google search result page. If someone searches for “Cleveland sushi restaurant” in Google, he/she will see a listing of the Cleveland sushi restaurant on the first page of the search results.
So why should you care about SEO local? The first reason is that you can target your local customers. People who live in the same area as you do are more likely to use the search engine results to find your business. That’s why if you have a product or service that solves a particular problem for people in your local community, you need to focus on SEO marketing so that more people will find it.
Another reason to consider SEO local is that you can get better search rankings. If you can show up on the first page of Google when people are searching for a particular business, you can draw more customers to your door. This means more sales and more profit for your business.
On the flip side, SEO is less efficient if you don’t target your local audience. In other words, it won’t do much to help your business. A large portion of customers looking for a particular product or service will go to organic listings, which means that they will search for businesses based on location. If you don’t target your keywords to local citations, you won’t be able to benefit from the benefits of SEO.
SEO can also cost you money. For instance, if you submit content to directories that don’t feature your business name as the first result, then you’re not going to benefit from the boost in traffic that you’d get if you optimized for your business’ local citations. Those directories don’t have to pay for the right to display your business’s listing. So you’re not actually saving anything there. If you’re going to spend money, make sure you’re not wasting it by not targeting local SEO.
It may seem like there are a lot of negatives about SEO local. But in reality, there are just as many positives. Remember that the most important thing for your business to succeed is attracting visitors. Local SEO efforts allow you to do that, while search engines are always improving their algorithms to give better results to their searchers.
