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Why Every Business Needs Local SEO

Published on 22 July 14
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It is human nature to think in terms of large goals. If being well known in your city is good, being well known in the state is better, and well known throughout your country even better than that. World famous is something that some people will dream of their whole lives.

However, when you're running a local business, especially a brick and mortar operation, it's not always best to be world famous when you can be locally well known. Local search results are not only much easier to come by than larger scale ones, they are also much more likely to produce active customers and returns on your investment.

What is Local SEO?

When you do a search in any of the major search engines these days, the odds are highly in favor that you will see a number of different "types" of links appear on the page. The most common style of link is the organic link which is developed and placed based on the search engine algorithm and takes a number of different factors into account to determine how relevant a website is to a particular query.

The second style of link you will see are the pay per click advertisements on the top and sides of the screen. These are placed there based on an entirely different type of algorithm and usually charge companies every time somebody actually clicks on the link provided. They pay for premium space, but part of that is a segregation from the rest of the links to indicate that these are paid-for placements.

Finally you have local search results. These are usually two or three organic links down from the top and accompany a map that will point out where the businesses listed are actually located in the physical world. Getting placed on the top of the local links not only lets potential customers know where you are, it also helps move you up the search rankings to an effective position of three or four with much less competition that you would need to engage in if you were trying to struggle globally for spots.

Local SEO is the process of adjusting a website and its contents to make sure that it appears in these results. The reason why this is important is twofold: first, it gives you a better rank with people who are searching in your physical area and second, it targets locals who are most likely to become your customers.

How to Rank Locally

The easiest way to rank locally is to make sure that your content is targeted at locals. That may seem obvious, but most people don't know what that actually means. For starters, make sure that your meta tags and code mentions the city and state that you're focused on so that search engines know without a doubt where you are located and who you want to target. You don't have to put every city in the surrounding area down like you used to, so just the main city will do.

You also want to make sure that you mention your city and state often. Don't over saturate the page with a flood of mentions, but make sure that your content is focused on your location and the landmarks that people are likely to be looking for around it. For example, if your business is located in the Orlando Metro, talk about Orlando city events, discuss things on International Drive, mention Lake Eola, etc. The more a search engine knows where you are, the better your local rankings will be.

Finally, consider hiring a high quality link builder to help you develop the local links that will most benefit your company. A professional service can find out exactly what is wrong with your site and the best ways to correct those issues quickly.

It's worth the time and effort to try and rank locally. It not only raises your ranking in a functional way, it also targets the customers that are most likely to form the core of your business. Start working on developing your local search engine optimization today and it won't be long before you start seeing the boost in business that you've been waiting for.
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This blog is listed under Development & Implementations and E-Commerce Community

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