Why Business Needs Local SEO?

For the past few months, I was struggling to get my restaurant business in Denver, Colorado on the initial pages of Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing. I finally found a solution to all my difficulties - Local SEO. I contacted a professional SEO company offering local SEO services. After evaluating my business and its visibility issues, the SEO team offered me with an SEO package that included a wide range of strategies designed to enhance the search engine page ranking of my website and drive more traffic and sales. Let's look at how these strategies worked to promote my business.

Local Business Listing Sites: Local SEO makes use of local business listing sites (e.g. Yellow Pages, Yahoo, Google, Bing etc) that target geo targeted terms, for optimizing local search results. The SEO Company provided strategies that helped increase the ranking of my local business listing on these sites. Now, when someone searches for Denver-specific data relating to my business, the information on my business that is stored on all these sites appears as a top search result.

With improved online visibility, I found that more local customers have started to visit my website, which is working to promote my brand. My SEO service provider took care to choose only local listing sites authorized by Google for promoting my small business.

Back linking:  Local SEO services include building inbound links to a business website. In keeping with Google's latest Penguin update, my SEO service provider took care to build backlinks to my website from reliable websites with content relevant to my business. I understood that relevancy was important because the search engines identify keywords on the basis of the backlinks. Another significant factor is link speed or the speed at which backlinks are created. The SEO team built backlinks slowly and systematically, as any unnatural speed could make Google look at my links as spam. In addition, they also employed tactics such as social bookmarking, article and forum submissions and other off-page activities. Keyword variations, branded text, and other strategies were adopted to improve results.

Social Media Promotion: They also used effective social media optimization strategies to drive target audience to my website. They built my business profile on popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and more and created posts in them which helped draw local customers to my website. They spread the posts via 'Share' or 'Like' buttons. As search engines, particularly Google, show search results from social media sites (Facebook, Google Plus, Twitter, and more) these profiles are also helping to drive more organic traffic to my site. The SEO team also promoted my business by creating videos and images of my restaurant and sharing them through YouTube and Pinterest.

Social media marketing involves the maximum utilization of marketing potential with the features (paid advertising facility, contests, business pages in the case of Google+, and more) in social media sites. In my experience, focusing on a particular social media site for marketing purposes (Facebook Marketing, Twitter Marketing) is the best way to promote your business online.

Online Advertising

Pay per Click advertising (paying money to search engines to display your website on top search results) is observed as a powerful way to promote business online due to easy implementation, high ROI and better traceability. The SEO team provided my business with PPC advertising services, also known as geo-targeted PPC. The advertising was focused on the Denver area, which resulted in more local customers visiting my website. Both open-ended keywords and focused keywords were used in my geo-targeted PPC.

The local SEO services provided by the SEO Company help to attract more local customers to my website and helped in the online promotion of my restaurant - something which I definitely couldn’t have achieved on my own.

Local SEO Strategies for Business

If you want to grow your business in your local area, you need specific SEO strategies to be found easily by potential customers in that area. Local SEO combines the best practices of general search engine optimization with special techniques to help your business get noticed in your local area.

Growing Importance of SEO for Local Business

Local searches have assumed increasing importance in recent years and are critical if you sell your services or products to local customers. More people are searching for local products and services online. For example, if someone wants to find a Chinese restaurant in their area, they would turn to the Internet rather than a phone book to find it. Moreover, with the increasing usage of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, people are searching for what they need even when they are on the go. That’s why it’s important that they can find you online.

It pays to target customers who are searching locally. For instance, someone who types just “Chinese restaurants” in a search bar is simply looking for general information on such restaurants. However, if the search is conducted with specific local terms added, such as “Chinese restaurant Brooklyn area’, it means the potential customer has advanced along the buying cycle and is more likely to make the decision to visit one.

Search engines provide great local SEO services for promoting your local searches. For instance, Google has Google Maps and Google Places. Local search services can guess where searchers are and provide them with results based on that location. Leading search engines have two indexes that provide data for a local search – regular organic search results and local results which provide information from an entirely different place. If you do well in Google’s local results for instance, your site will appear high on the page next to Google Maps.

Professional Local SEO Services for Promoting Local Searches

Getting your website optimized on leading search engines for greater visibility is not child’s play. Google is constantly changing its algorithms. Moreover, there are lots of competitions out there and only the right SEO strategies can help you rank well on the search engines and attract targeted traffic.  A local SEO company will evaluate your website and business goals to fix on what specific steps have to be taken to optimize your site for locally based search.

A competent SEO service provider would first conduct an effective needs analysis to

• calculate your site’s ranking for business type and your geographical location
• calculate ranking for each web page
• see where is your search traffic coming from
• know the type of visitors you need to attract
• achieve your business goals
• look at your competition to see what phrases they use to rank high.

The SEO specialists would also have to know if you have more than one location and where you typically do business. All this information is then used to optimize your local presence in local search results and business listings using the right combination of on-page and off-page SEO techniques,

On Page Optimization

On page optimization techniques for local SEO would include:

• Choosing the right business-specific and geo-targeted keywords using the free Google Adword tool, Wordtracker, and find the best keywords, including long-tail keywords
• Improving your website’s page titles, geo-specific META tags, title tags, citations, and more: META tags on every page of your website gives search engines a summary of page’s content and also appear in the search results to induce users to click on it.  A title tag with the following structure can get the results you are looking for:

main keyword/city and location first, your business name, and then an additional supporting keyword or information

With right kind of title tag optimization, your business would show up on the first page of search results easily as in this search for “hi definition liposuction New York City”

• Improving your website’s pages and creating search engine friendly content is another important on-page optimization strategy. A search engine optimization company provides you with fresh, informative content that uses local keywords. Several informative content pages are included to your site to create relevancy between your site and your keyword terms. For instance, a healthcare center that hosts a page title “Gerristen Beach Pain Management Services” and uses the right keyword strategically on it is sure to attract prospective patients from that area.
• Put contact info on all pages of your site. Build your local SEO pages and gets traffic to the right pages of your website with your address, phone number and a map. Putting searchers on a page that includes contact information is very useful especially if they are using a mobile device to get information in their local area.
• Other strategies include submitting an XML sitemap to Google and Bing Webmaster tools, insertion of social media buttons on site pages for sharing, and more.

Off Page Optimization

Off-page opt techniques for local SEO would include conventional techniques such as registering your site with top search engines, listing your products in product directories, getting local business listings, article and blog marketing, getting local reviews, and more. Blog commenting, guest blogging, testimonials and forum discussions are great link building strategies. Google+ local is a great place to push for reviews.

Social networking is one of the most significant ways to optimize your website and boost the authority of your business. Being active on Google+ offers many advantages for local businesses:

• Using local tab with personalized and social recommendations for specific Google+ Local pages
• Creating valuable backlinks to their business
• Zagat review data to get your business ratings
• Google+ Local business pages are being integrated to Google Search, Google Maps, and Google Mobile.

Finally, a professional SEO company would provide you with ongoing reports to measure visitors, traffic source overview, landing pages and conversion tracking. This will help keep track of how well you are faring and if necessary, revision of your local SEO strategies for the best outcome.

Role of Local SEO in Website Optimization

All businesses are familiar with the term ‘local SEO’ and its role in optimizing any website for a particular and targeted geographic area. Maximum local exposure is significant for such companies and the right local SEO strategies make this possible. This article provides you with extended information on how to promote your business in the specific location and enhance your sales in that area.

Local SEO Building Blocks

Your website’s layout and content should be user-friendly and well optimized to catch the interest of popular search engines and to make it accessible for visitors. Make sure that your website is content-rich and provides people with the right information about your business. Contact information on your website should be clear and comprehensive allowing customers quick and easy access to the information they need so they can get in touch with you. Website content needs to be fresh and up-to-date and any outdated or incorrect information has to be fixed without delay. Be active on social media by providing and sharing great content and build your presence in local community networks to promote yourself and allow your consumers to promote you.

How to Generate Leads with Local SEO?

A professional local SEO company can provide your business with the right strategies to enhance you local leads, conversions, and sales:

• Your website is optimized for leading search engines. Your business is listed at Google’s Local Business Center to help your targeted visitors find the locality you want to be seen in. Optimizing your website to enhance your search results in this area will give you a competitive advantage there.
• How is your business optimized for local search? Keyword research plays an important role in your local SEO campaign. The reason why keyword research is important is because a site seeking to grab much qualified traffic must first know which phrases to focus on to achieve search engine rankings. The service provider performs keyword research to find geo-specific keywords and phrases relevant to your business and area. For instance if you are a physician targeting Tulsa, OK, keywords targeted would be those specifically relevant to the Tulsa area such as ‘doctors in Tulsa’, ‘physicians in Tulsa’, and so on. 
• Geographic preferences are correctly entered in the Google's Webmaster tool and your website gets submitted in local search engines
• Rich locality-based content is developed for your website and efforts are made to continually update it with the necessary information.
• Local SEO strategies would also include link building services and the submission of press releases, articles and blogs.
• Google Maps is used to generate an HTML embed code and include a location map on your website. This lets Google find you and allows your customers to understand your physical location.
• Social media optimization is performed so that your business has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social media channels. A local business profile is created on Google+ with your local and correct contact info. Conversion rate and metrics analysis are other search engine optimization services.
• Local mobile SEO solutions are also provided so that your business shows up on mobile phone and tablet searches. Google Now, an intelligent personal assistant that aggregates information from location may be used optimize local search for your business on iPhones and iPads.

Most people use search engines to get info on local businesses. So local search engine optimization is an affordable option for small businesses compared to expensive traditional marketing strategies such as ad campaigns and television and newspaper ads. Choosing the right local SEO company is the key to successful local SEO.

Enhance Online Business with Local SEO

When it comes to online business, you will hear a lot about SEO services and its advantages for a business. In fact, the strategies of SEO are discussed in every forum or area with respect to online businesses. Repairing broken links and obtaining links from other sites are important with regard to the development or progression of an online business. Search engine optimization involves employing different kinds of strategies for creating a lasting impression on the target audience although the effects of these services can be felt only after a certain time. Before reaching the big targets, a business needs to rope in the local clients.

Why Local SEO Is Vital For Small Business?

Local SEO is beneficial in targeting the business clients that exist within a particular geographical area. New and struggling online business owners can hire local SEO firms for employing the techniques that will allow them to know what their position or status is in the region in which they exist rather than in the international market. To enhance local presence, the name of your business should reflect the localities of the state or the city in which you reside rather than the entire country or the international market. A local SEO company can help you to acquire better visibility of your website locally, consequently giving you an increased return on investment.

 
The techniques of SEO are bound to differ for large businesses when compared to the smaller ones. Whether it is link building or any other significant technique of SEO that is being applied for your business enhancement, the links must be procured from those websites with a strong local presence so that the people are able to identify your services that are available in their city or locality.

If you try to level your SEO work with those companies with a worldwide presence, you will never get the desired benefits; rather you will be lost in a vast sea of uncertainties. Therefore, it is true that local SEO services are excellent for the development of small business entities. After all, you cannot afford to ignore the requirements of your services based on demography because there is a huge population within a particular segment of a city.

On the whole, local SEO attempts to bring into the loop those customers or prospects of your business who are residing in your city. For instance, if you are a local firm offering plumbing services in Nashua, NH, a similar firm in New York may not have any interest in serving the people of that area. Local search engine optimization techniques are not only based on zip codes, but counties as well and allow the customers to partner with a business concern offering the services they are looking for in their geographical region.

Local SEO Services to Dominate Your Business Locally

Local SEO services are the smart way to increase business from a local audience. If you are a business based in Tulsa for instance, and provide services or goods that meet the requirements of customers in the region, it is definitely sensible to target web searchers from the city. 

Local Search Engine Optimization– Often Ignored

Many online businesses wrongly believe that having a beautifully designed and pleasant website is adequate to handle their business and customer concerns. However, without a successful geo-centric SEO strategy, it is a challenge to attract prospects, however well-constructed your website is.

Getting yourself a good place in the search engine rankings is not an easy task and therefore, getting local SEO services from a professional SEO vendor is a worthwhile option.

Several Distinctive Elements

Local SEO has certain distinctive elements. The first and probably the most imperative of all is the need to develop and claim a local Google profile. Your local listing is typically what would appear in localized search results.

The second most essential requirement is a citation. A citation refers to any online place that utilizes the name, address and phone number of your company all on the same page, in the style of a local listing. It is best to have the same format for both the local listing and the local citation.

The third important thing is to have reviews, preferably a lot of really good reviews. The quality and quantity of reviews that people provide for your business on your Google Places page is an essential local ranking factor.

Another important factor is on-site SEO. It is imperative that at least a couple of the links built have your target state/city combination. You can even have some zip codes in your anchors.

All of the above would be taken care of by your professional SEO Company.

Solutions You Can Benefit From

When you approach a company that performs these services, they would work to blend different marketing and online SEO techniques to meet your distinctive business requirements. As a result, your brand presence would increase and so would your sales and profits.

Local SEO services would be based on LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) with importance given to the target location. Page titles, page names, Meta tags, keyword density and so on would be optimized to ensure a high page rank. Among the solutions you would benefit from are the following:

•  Website optimization
•  Google Maps SEO marketing
•  Local city search
•  Google Places optimization
•  Analysis of analytics and metrics
•  Site submission to local search engines
•  Local promotions and maps
•  Extensive SEO and SEM solutions
•  Mobile search
•  Content development
•  Back links and other kinds of link building
•  Website updates
•  Social media optimization
•  Personalized solutions
•  Conversion rate optimization
•  Landing page optimization
•  Submission of company listings and press releases in local directories

Keep in mind that the company you choose for local SEO services should attach importance to site architecture. In addition to possessing a well-defined hierarchy, your website should be properly maintained. As part of the service package, the keyword should be positioned in the URL.

So why neglect such an important part of your SEO campaign? Get assured of increased business from a local audience with professional local SEO services.

Relevant Questions to Ask SEO Companies

Today, lots of upstart SEO companies flourish in online marketing. So, you are hard put to find a suitable SEO company to do ethical, effective search engine optimization services for your website. You need to ask several questions to an SEO company before hiring them. You have to ascertain important points such as if the company will deliver what you want and what their price is like. It is advisable that apart from asking general questions, you also ask for information on the various aspects of their services.  You better ask them questions such as what search engines they target, their mode of traffic enhancement, their content management system, their linking methods, and their reporting and traffic measurement system. Here are few relevant questions that you should ask SEO companies to decide if they are the right team for you.

Important General Questions to be Asked

•  How long have they been specializing in the SEO services?
•  How many successful SEO clients and portals do they have?
• Do they have long-term satisfied clients?
• What are the services they provide?
• What are their professionals and logistics like?
• What background technical expertise do they have?
•  Do they have detailed case studies to prove their worth?
• How do they measure your overall Return On Investment (ROI)?
• Do they provide local SEO services?

Ask for Search Engine–Related Information

In addition, you should also seek information related to search engines: 

• What search engines do they optimize you on?
• What percentage of their clients do they bring to number one on Google?
• Do they give you any assurance on your Google ranking?
• Do they adhere to search engines’ proclaimed practices and stick on to the strict no-spam policies to avoid your website being punished?
• What will they base their keyword recommendations on?

Seek Details of Web Traffic Enhancement

It is highly advisable that you ask for information on their traffic-related services:

• What web traffic promises do they offer for your site?
• Do they make a difference between ‘traffic’ and ‘qualified traffic’?
• What methods will they adopt to increase traffic?
• How do they measure and monitor your web traffic?

Ask about their Content Modification Strategies

You should also learn as much as possible about their SEO content management system:

• Will they develop content for your site on a regular basis?
•  Who will write the content and how?
• How often will they update your site with new optimization?
• Will they add new pages, or possibly restructure your navigation to make it more visible?
• What keyword density do they use in 100 words of one of your web pages?

Gather Details of their Linking Practices

There are a number of things you need to know about their link-management:

• Will they modify your web page coding or will they just be altering meta tags? 
• How many web pages will they optimize on your site?
• Do they employ the strategy of pay-per-click advertising?
• Where do they buy links for you from?

Seek Details of their Traffic Measurement and Reporting

Also ask questions to elicit information on their traffic measurement and reporting system:

• Will they do an analysis of your competitor websites to learn why they rank high?
• What kind of reports will they provide you and how often will they send the reports?
• How often do they send you a performance report?

Beware of SEO's that guarantee you top-rankings!