If you own a small business that primarily serves customer in your local community then part of your online marketing strategy should in include “Local SEO.”

What is Local SEO?

“Local SEO” or local search engine optimization refers to the tactic of targeting your website content so that it performs well in location based searches on the major search engines.

For example:

Let’s say you are a lawyer located in a suburb of Cleveland, OH. You probably get most of your clients from the surrounding area. If you enter the term “lawyer” into a search engine your site might get buried by thousands of listings for other lawyer websites from around the country.

Check out the example below:

Google SEO

In this example I have prevented Google from using location as a signal in my search query. The result returned only those sites that have a high ranking for the term “lawyer” and they include results from all over the web. Notice that no results for an individual lawyer are returned on the first page.

Next, I will let Google know about my location. This is the default behavior for most users. Google can determine your location by tracking the Internet address of the devices used to perform the search.

Google Local SEO

Notice the listings of various individual lawyers in the middle of the page and the map on the right hand side. Google calls this a “blended search”. It’s blended because it includes the organic search results, the first two links on the page (Wikipedia and Lawyers.com), and a list of local results. There is also a map.

You have a much better chance of appearing in the local results simply because you are only competing against similar businesses in your area. This is where local SEO comes in. Local SEO targets this type of search result.

Reasons your small business needs Local SEO?

There are four main reasons your business needs a local SEO service.

  • One, if your business does not show up in the local search results for the community your business address is located in it is like having an unlisted phone number. Your potential customers will never find you. This situation is the easiest to fix.
  • Two, just showing up in the results shouldn’t be your only consideration.  Like any other search query, research proves that most users click on one of the top 3 results so your goal should be to show up near the top.
  • Three, you need to consider click through. Click through is how many people click on the link in your listing and visit your website versus how many times your site shows up in the search results. There is no point in having a website if no one visits it.
  • Four, most business do not draw all their customers from one community so; does your business show in search results performed in neighboring communities?

How Wi-Phye Can Help!

If your business doesn’t show up in local search results for your own community we can help your search engine optimization efforts by submitting your business and address to the major indexes.

If your business isn’t listed at the top of the results we can help you target the relevant keywords people use to find your products or services. For example, most law firms would naturally target the search phrase “law firm” in their website content. If they had performed a little keyword research they would have discovered that most people use the term “lawyer” when searching for this type of service so their web design content is targeting a less relevant search term.

Once your business shows up in local search results how do you get to the user to choose your site? Reviews, reviews, reviews. We can help you setup a strategy to get more customer reviews.

Finally, if need help appearing in local search results performed in neighboring communities we can help you create content that will target those individuals.

Call at Wi-Phye (a Cleveland SEO Company) now and we can get to work bringing more customers to your website.