SEO is a unique monster for many businesses because contrary to most vertical market it does not require products, distribution channels, vendor relationships, or even starting capital. Presently, SEO is increasingly becoming a crucial part of any type of business and is not only for small local businesses anymore.
The importance of SEO has grown tremendously over the last few years, and many businesses are focusing on various strategies, but some forget to consider their local tangent in the marketing campaign. Nonetheless, those that have been optimizing their local SEO see it as a chance to improve their results even more. SEO will continue to be useful and important for businesses in the coming years for a number of reasons.
1. Google Loves Local Businesses
Google has been showing some favoritism towards the smaller, newer, and more agile businesses. Although its ranking biases often have to do with the brand’s authority and history, Google now want to offer people exactly what they want. This entails showcasing the more popular, and nimbler brands.
This has quite a lot to do with allowing the smaller local businesses, which often have limited resources to increase their potential in breaking new ground. With its long history of offering quality tools free of charge such as Webmaster Tools and Analytics, Google aims at helping small business owners increase their visibility online. Since Google loves (yes, I dare say “loves”) local businesses, then you should expect the upcoming updates to be more locally focused.
2. More Individualized Results
As a search engine, Google aims at providing people individualized results. Its customized predictive search features are quite limited for now, but it’s already capable of generating some seriously specific results suited for the individual user. As long as the user is signed into their Google account, then their geographical location and search history play a huge role in the results they are likely to see. Since Google will continue to improve on its already sophisticated algorithms as users demand more individualized results, then local optimization will increasingly become vital for businesses.
3. The Growing Number of Mobile and Wearable Devices
The number of searches performed on mobile devices has seen a definitive growth each year, and as you would probably expect, most of the searches are performed on the go. The introduction of wearable devices like Apple Watch means that more users will be using the on-the-go searches much more frequently to fit their immediate needs.
Consequently, location and proximity-based searches are very likely to become popular. The local searches will no longer be based on a neighborhood or regional specific basis but on hyper-specific locations. This way, the wearables will provide more relevant information to the specific geographical regions, and even eliminate the existing barriers between the physical and digital worlds.
4. Increasing Competition
Millions of new websites are created every year, and similarly, thousands of businesses become stable as enterprises. As a response, the potential visibility in search is dynamically decreasing in many areas, especially considering how features like the Knowledge graph are taking over the results pages, and that the big blue chip brands are quite dominant in the national landscape of online search.
Because competition is ever increasing, business owners will have to look for suitable smaller target niches for them to achieve relevant visibility in search results. Local SEO optimization is one of the most efficient ways to do this, which means that the importance of local SEO will continue to grow as competition in the industry increases.
Tips For Getting Started With Local SEO Campaigns
1. Correct local Citation
You need to ensure your business is properly listed throughout the web. Check your business profile on local directories and review sites including TripAdvisor and Yelp, making sure important business information is accurately formatted across the platforms.
2. Building Local Relationships
Next, you need to optimize your content and external links to make them locally relevant. This is quite easy for articles, as you only need to include the details of your city, neighborhood, and region in blog titles. Guest posting on local external blogs is a great idea, and you can also try getting published on the local news outlets.
Taking these measures as you implement your ongoing SEO strategy, and being committed to seeing it through will certainly provide positive results. Your efforts in optimizing your business locally will soon start showing within a few weeks, and your business stands at benefiting even more in the coming years.