What can local SEO offer my business?
Introduction
There is now so many forms of digital marketing that a business can invest in. This ranges from investing in social media advertising, right through to organic SEO.
So with all these different forms of marketing a business, well its no wonder that some business owners can often get quickly confused as to where they should spend their marketing budget.
So, we thought what was really needed was a blog post explaining what local seo is and how it can be used to help your business.
So here you have it, our comprehensive guide explaining what local SEO is.
What does local SEO mean?
Simply put, local SEO allows you to advertise your business on a local level. So when people are looking for the goods or services that your business offers locally, well your business can appear right in front of them on the first page of Google.
This is achieved through investing in SEO, which can mean that time is spent working out which phrases your business should appear for.
Then often a white hat seo company is used to optimise a businesses ranking signals.
Ranking signals can range from backlinks, right through to adding content marketing onto your website.
So for example, let’s say you run a law practice, and you specialise in family law. By working with a white hat digital marketing agency, they can get your website to appear for “family law solicitors + the name of the city or town” for example.
Google My Business (map listings)
Here’s the great thing about local SEO, your business could appear twice on the first page of Google.
That’s because your business could appear within the Google My Business results, and also within the organic business listings.
So a really good SEO company should be aiming to get your business to appear within both.
Why do SEO agencies keep referring to an “Algorithm”
Well, its Google’s algorithm which decides where a business ranks. That’s to say Google’s algorithm could place your website on the first page, that’s if the seo is really good, if its not then your business may appear on say page 10.
A really common question that we get asked is this, when a business gets to the first page of Google, can the business then stop paying for SEO?
So this means some businesses believe that once their business has climbed the ranks, it can then stay there and some businesses think that its no longer worth investing in SEO.
However, when a business does get to the first page of Google, well this is often when the business has to start working harder than ever to retain that position.
The reason being is there will often be a large amount of businesses that will want to take that position, so if their SEO is better than your businesses, then your business will be forced to move down.
This is often why seo businesses like ours, charge a fixed monthly fee.
Onsite SEO
A really important part of local seo is making sure your business onsite SEO is correctly optimised.
Although onsite SEO is often an ongoing process, i.e adding blog posts to the website, there are still many areas of a company’s website that need onsite seo implemented to improve the website.
For example, meta title and meta descriptions should be written for each page. Your seo agency should be able to recommend many ways that your companies onsite SEO can be improved.
This may well include:
· Adding Schema mark-up
· Alt tags
· Meta titles and meta descriptions
· Internal backlinks
· Changing product or service descriptions
· Adding blog posts
Keep it white hat
When shopping around for an SEO company to partner with, often all the various seo agencies will return a wide range of prices.
Some agencies may well be very cheap, yet some others may be so expensive that the quotes may come as a surprise to the business.
Yet, one thing is for sure, that is whichever business you choose, you have to make sure that the seo work implemented is white hat.
If the work is not white hat, then your business may incur an algorithmic or a manual penalty.
A penalty, such as a Google Penguin penalty can mean that your companies website drops, so where it might have been on the first page of Google, it may drop to say page 11 of Google.
Also sometimes a business that has been hit by a penalty, can be removed altogether.
What are business citations?
If you invest in local seo, then you should hear your marketing agency talk about business citations.
This sounds complicated but in matter of fact it is not, business citations are just mentions of your businesses NAP information.
NAP stands for name of your business, the businesses address and also the businesses phone number.
Now this information should be on your website, then the same NAP details should be written for your business’s citations.
What are backlinks?
To help improve your businesses SEO, you will often need backlinks. The business will therefore need high-quality backlinks, these backlines must also be relevant to your business.
By relevant we mean that say for example you run a dental practice, well there’s no point in obtaining a backlink from say your accountant’s website, as this would not be a relevant backlink.
Can we help?
If your business requires further help with your SEO, then why not give us a ring?