Industry research has indicated that 78% of local-mobile searches result in offline purchases This means that almost 8 out of 10 customers will buy the product at a later time all because of SEO (search engine optimisation). In simpler terms, businesses who invest in local SEO, helping to propel their business to one of the top results in a search engine, have the potential to turn these clicks into sales. The digital market is growing and local SEO is showing clear signs of being the way forward for firms wanting to stand out from their competitors.
Why local SEO?
Local SEO is based on finding the best results to an online search in and around the area of the person who is searching. This allows local businesses offering the requested product or service to be accessed faster for the customer, whilst attracting more local customers to a firm. An example of this would be if someone searched ‘digital marketing croydon’ in Croydon, the search engine would offer top results near the location. It’s been found that 40% of all mobile enquiries were relevant to the local area, highlighting the importance of local search and that to not capitalise on this through implementing a local SEO campaign would be to lose a large and active customer base, seen with two in three people taking direct action as a result of a local search.
How can local SEO help?
SEO uses features such as local listings such as Google My Business in order to rank websites on search engines. Put simply, if you’re searching via Google it will try to find you the best results that you’re looking for. So, if you’re in need of a local plumber, it will look for plumbers on local directory listings, the most relevant being Google My Business, but also includes others such as Check-a-Trade, Yell or Thompson. Therefore, when a firm has very good reviews on these directories, the website listings on search results will be better. So, if you’re an SME wanting to get exposure and build brand awareness adding your details to local listing directories enables your customers to provide reviews to help lift your search ranking.
Local SEO optimises word choice to suit the location, for example if your business is near The Shard, having ‘The Shard’ in your description tag is often an easy way to gain customer interest rather than using up characters to explain the business function, lowering cost of Pay Per Click campaigns in this way (read more about PPC here). Other benefits of Local SEO can be found on our website.
If you need any help understanding SEO or wanting to improve your current digital marketing programme by implementing local SEO please get in touch.