Local SEO Is About Bringing
Customers Through Your Doors

For years, SEO was focused just on a global level. The only thing that separated search results between countries was the language that the search term was entered in. With the advent of maps, local business listings and an integration between the two, local searches that pertain to a certain area have become more commonplace. This means that local SEO has become an integral part of any good marketing strategy for a business.

These local results can bring in business and customers that would never have heard about a company in the first place. These results are also localized, which means that they benefit stores with an actual physical location. That means less worry about competition with every other website on the internet and a greater focus on walk-in customers.

The main issue with local search results is that businesses don’t take advantage of it. Even when they do, they tend to miss a few key points that render their efforts less effective.

On the other hand, an intelligent business owner who is able to fully harness local searches, which have less direct competition because they’re not worldwide, can see a dramatic increase in traffic.

To understand how local searches work, it’s vital to realise that they’re different from the traditional global results. Not only are the results different, but also the way that this SEO is organized by search engines is different.

Naturally, this means that there are a variety of details that must be addressed before the actual optimization part can begin with a business’ website.

The very first thing that needs to be understood by any business looking to perform this type of SEO is that search engines display local results differently than they do global results. The name, website, address and contact information for a business are all displayed in a local search result. The point of this is to allow a customer to either walk in to a business or contact it directly. Some customers will actually prefer this due to the problems that outsourcing and globalisation have caused them previously.
That also means that a business’ information needs to be listed on their website in order for it to be found by search engines. A business’ name, address and phone number should all be located somewhere on its website. This makes the issue of a dedicated page about the business more important than ever before.

The second thing to understand is that local results often times show a map next to them. This allows the visitor to know how far away a business is in relation to where they are and decide a number of other things. The best way for a business to get displayed on one of these maps is to add a listing in each respective search engine.

The third thing is to realise that local search results mean that local keywords need to be targeted. That means a textile business located in Tampa Bay, Florida should aim for the keywords textiles and Tampa Bay, Florida on one page. Depending on local competition, this step can be enough to rank first for many local results. Sometimes it’s not enough and requires a SEO firm that specializes in local SEO to attend to it.