Why do I Need to Bother With Local SEO When I’m Only Looking For Customers Near Me?
What drew me a non-marketer into the nerdy world of local SEO services for locally focussed businesses? It was a long convoluted story, with more than a fair share of bloodied noses along the way!
When I first got involved in local online marketing; I was appalled by the lack of attention given to expensive websites by designers who had tremendous talents in the visual arts, incredible technical knowledge to make a website work; but were oblivious to simple search engine optimisation techniques. These were completely overlooked or even willfully ignored as if designing to ensure the sophisticated shop windows actually showed up in front of some eyeballs was beneath them! If a website is going to be an effective local or national marketing tool, it’s got to be visible to the target market, to appreciated… and bring customers to the client businesses.
Local search engine optimisation involves understanding what your customers are looking for and that stems from a knowledge of the keywords that are essential for your service and location. These keywords are the questions that potential customers are asking when they type a search query into one of the engines and understanding those words, the searcher’s intent behind them and the actual data relating to them allows a business owner to step into the shoes of his customers. Judicious choice of keywords based on levels of competition, numbers of searches and an understanding of the customer’s needs (or pain as so many marketers like to dramatise it) allows the designer and writer to build web pages that answer the customer’s needs and also show you up as the authority in that field. Those words are then woven into the fabric of the website in such a way that they are engaging and informative for the people in need and also reassure the search engines such as Google and his brethren that the page is relevant to what it claims.
Beyond the page itself, there are the multitudes of links from other websites, directories and social media channels that need to be generated to give the third party seal of approval to the website. Within local marketing these extras are still vitally important in getting a website ranked and therefore seen by your potential next best customer! Using some quite basic techniques that come under the umbrella of local SEO, gives you a perfectly fair and reasonable edge on the less knowledgeable competition, without stooping to questionable tactics. In many cases the competition is low enough within local markets that even a tiny improvement in the many factors that help you to rankl can put you in a locally dominant position.
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