Seo Marketing Help Local Businesses

Many businesses are now thinking about digital marketing to improve their sales. You have probably heard of SEO marketing, which is an important facet of digital marketing. However, you may not have a concise idea of what SEO marketing is. It is only fair that we provide vital information about what SEO marketing is and how to use it to propel your business to success. This article breaks down information on what SEO marketing is to show you why it is a dominant online marketing tool to grow your business.

What Is SEO Marketing?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO marketing is an effective way of marketing your business online. It is an essential tool that helps companies promote their products and services to local clients at the exact time they are looking for them. It uses location-based internet searches and is aimed at ensuring that your business will be easily found online by customers searching for what it offers at that locality.

SEO marketing includes internet searches comprised of certain geo-qualifiers, such as zip code, state, and city just to name a few, and “near me” searches where the Google location service picks up the geo-location of the individual and provides search results from that area.

SEO uses various strategies to get your site ranked on search engines like Google and business directories: for example, Foursquare, Superpages, Yellowbook, and Yelp. Other strategies include marketing to Bing Places for Business, Google My Business listings, online reviews, and localized content. Millions of business clients use local searches daily to find the best local businesses in their area. Essentially, SEO allows you to increase your chances of potential clients finding you, which makes it one of the handiest marketing tools available today.

SEO marketing follows a very targeted online marketing approach. It is not like paying for adverts on newspapers that clients may not see; rather, it ensures that the client sees your business when they search online. SEO companies are vital for propelling sales, and we would recommend using their services since they will position your business on search engines along with other available digital marketing platforms. Potential customers will see you and buy your products or use your services.

How Does SEO Marketing Help Local Businesses?

SEO helps market your business online through:

Citation Building

SEO ensures that your site features are available on online business directories and citation sites. This helps clients find your business and allows you to feature your company’s name, address, and phone numbers (NAP) on the citation sites along with extra information on the business directories, which helps improve your site’s search rankings.

SEO also ensures your NAP is consistent across all online directories you are enlisted in. This way, your customers know where you are located and what products or services you offer. They can even call for any clarifications they may need.

Website Localization

When you localize your website, it implies that you include your city, county, or region name throughout your site. Businesses with different locations can benefit from this by creating separate pages for their individual locations and other specific content strategies that reflect their branch localities, such as getting involved with local community events and featuring them on the site.

Managing Reviews and Ratings

When showcasing your product or service quality, genuine and honest reviews are vital for signaling search engines that your site and products or services are trusted. This improves your clients’ confidence when using your services or buying your product. Therefore, the number of reviews you receive, the quality of these reviews, and the authority of the review site are all important factors for improving your business’s local search ranking.

Claim your Site’s Google My Business (GMB) Listing

Once you claim your GMB page, your business will be displayed on important Google services, such as Google+, Google Maps, and Local Search pages. Note that Microsoft’s GMB equivalent is referred to as Bing Places for Business. These listings should always be the first online directories you take ownership of to improve your business’s online visibility.

Getting Quality Backlinks

When you get backlinks from well-regarded websites, the search engines will recognize your site as trustworthy. This implies that the information on your site is viewed as trusted content. Links from business associations and bloggers and local newspapers will also help improve the visibility of your site.

Should You Consider SEO Marketing for Your Business?

SEO marketing is important, especially if you have a business that provides a service in a specific locality or if you run a brick-and-mortar store. SEO marketing makes it more likely that customers will see, locate, and use your services. Forbes conducted a study which established that 95% of smartphone users have used their devices to perform local searches, out of which 59% visited and 61% called the business they searched for.

Another study conducted by SerachEngineWatch revealed that 70% of all mobile device users click to call a business directly from Google search results. These statistics reveal that location-based searches are a major avenue of landing potential clients. In addition, there are the following reasons you should incorporate SEO marketing in your digital marketing strategies.

SEO Builds Trust and Credibility

The primary goal of SEO is to establish a strong foundation for a site with a clean and effective user experience that can easily be discovered in search engines. Higher-ranked sites are more trustworthy and credible, which makes it more likely that clients will choose those websites. Many factors are considered when establishing the authority of your site in search engines. These include:

• Positive user behavior
• Machine-learning signals
• Quality backlink profiles
• Optimized on-page content

When you establish authority, you will do more for your brand compared to when you use other digital optimizations. The problem is building trust and credibility overnight, which is not practical. However, you will build them over time. It takes effort, commitment, and patience, and you also need to offer quality products and services.

SEO Leads to Increased Traffic, Engagement, and Conversions

If you use SEO, know that you will see increased web traffic on your site. People will find you quickly and easily, which brings them one step closer to a transaction. Your clients will engage you more through phone calls and visits, which increases the likelihood that they will make successful purchases.

Local Clients Are Increasingly Turning to the Internet

Local clients use both desktops and mobile devices to find local businesses. This trend has increased significantly, as shown in the statistics below:

• 96% of PC owners conduct local searches
• 78% of local mobile searches result in an offline purchase
• 64% of local clients use search engines and directories to find local businesses
• 50% of local mobile searches are looking for business information
• 46% of all Google searches are local

 

Great Return on Investment

Compared to traditional advertising, for example, direct mail, leaflets, and local newspapers, SEO has little wasteful exposure. You will conveniently reach potential clients only when they need you. This makes SEO cost-effective and efficient.

Only 44% of Businesses Have Claimed Their GMB Listing

GMB is a free listing that Google makes available for almost any business. Getting listed on GMB increases your chances of showing up in most of the local searches. You can also use the Microsoft version of GMB, Bing Places for Business. You will have a competitive edge since many local businesses have yet to figure out the importance of SEO.

Many of the Best SEO Opportunities Are Free

It is free to get listed on GMB and Bing Places for Business and on many other online directories, at least for now. For now, this is a free promotion of your business.

Local Clients Use the Internet to Find Information about Your Business

Many people depend on the Internet to find information about many services and products. If your business is not found on the local search results, you will miss out on new customers. Therefore, we recommend using a variety of SEO tools to get your business on the Internet for clients to see.

SEO Is a Long-Term Strategy

SEO has a noticeable influence within the first year of implementation, and this has an impact that lasts more than several years. This is because you will gain trust and garner honest and decent user experiences. You can only achieve this with considerable time, effort, and budget.

Conclusion

SEO marketing is an essential tool that helps companies promote their products and services to local clients at the exact time they need them. It uses location-based internet searches and follows a very targeted online marketing approach. It is more effective than traditional marketing. It is not like paying for ads on newspapers that clients may not see as it ensures that customers find you whenever they want your products.

SEO strategies include citation building, website localization, managing reviews, and ratings, claiming Google My Business and Bing Places for Business listings, and getting quality backlinks.

SEO marketing is a very effective and efficient strategy. This is because you will build trust and credibility which leads to increased web traffic, engagement, and conversions. Local clients are increasingly turning to the internet and it is a great opportunity to attract them and gain a competitive edge since most businesses have not started using SEO. Besides, many of the best SEO opportunities are free. We hope that this article has adequately addressed what SEO marketing is, how it helps business, and why you should consider it.