Search engine optimization (SEO) strategies are integral to any business that’s looking to establish a strong online presence in this day and age. Without the right SEO strategies in place, it becomes difficult to gain more website traffic, especially organic traffic. Therefore, investing in SEO is of utmost importance as part of your overall digital marketing strategy.
When optimizing for search engines, however, many businesses fail to consider the impact local SEO can have on their digital presence. As local SEO is a more targeted approach compared to your usual SEO strategy, it can generate more local traffic and better leads than its counterpart. Yet, many businesses struggle to understand its necessity and end up suffering because of it.
Thus, you must understand the importance of local SEO and the impact it can have on your business. With that in mind, we’ll share with you a few signs that will tell you that it’s high time that you invested in your local SEO strategies.
#1 When You Fail to Appeal to a Local Audience
Winters in Boston can get really cold. Temperatures here during this season can get as low as 20 degrees. Therefore, it’s easy to assume that during winter or right before it, people will rush to stores and e-commerce websites to buy winter clothing. You, too, can expect high traffic to your online store during this time if you’re selling quality winter products, specifically in Boston.
However, if that’s not happening, you’re clearly failing to appeal to your local audience. Otherwise, there would’ve been more people visiting your site to buy your products. This means you’re failing to show up on their search results and are being deprived of potential local customers.
This could happen for many reasons. Perhaps your website is not ranking high enough on Google Search, your Google Business Profile is missing, or Google is not showing your business on Google Maps to those who search for winter clothing in Boston. All these problems can be solved with the right local SEO strategies in place, and you’ll be able to sell more products to your local customer base.
#2 When Your Revenue Growth Becomes Stagnant
A Charleston-based dental school needed help with its internet marketing and SEO strategies, and for good reason. As South Carolina’s largest city, Charleston has its fair share of popular dental schools all around the place. Unless this particular school worked out a way to increase its online visibility, it would potentially lose out on revenue.
Hence, the dental school reached out to a Charleston SEO agency called Mr. Marketing, which helped the school rethink its strategies. Soon enough, the school’s website was performing much better. In fact, it was bringing in 300 percent more traffic than before. As a result, it can be estimated that the school did see an increase in revenue.
This case study can be analyzed to understand how local SEO can impact your business revenue. Like the Charleston-based dental school in question, if you, too, notice your revenue growth becoming stagnant or realize that your online visibility is somewhat bland, don’t hesitate to invest in a local SEO agency to help you out with your strategies.
As was the case with the example above, you might be in for a big surprise when you see how local SEO can improve your website traffic and lead to more revenue.
#3 Local Competitors are Ranking Higher
SEO is all about ranking higher on Google Search and other search engines. Local SEO is very similar to this, except that you’re comparing your position on the rankings with that of your local competitors. Thus, if you’re a local seller of designer clothes, your comparison will be with other sellers working in this industry, not with globally recognized brands like Gucci or Prada.
In this situation, you’ll know that something is wrong with your local SEO strategy if your competitors are ahead of you in the search rankings. You are clearly selling the same type of products or services and, naturally, targeting the same clientele, so why are they ahead of you?
This is also a sign that your SEO strategies need work. You have to bring in experts to see what your competitors are doing in terms of SEO and what you’re missing out on. Through such local SEO audits, the experts can help you understand how your competitors are outranking you and how you can revamp your local SEO approach if you want to outrank them.
#4 There’s a Lack of Representation and Relatability in Your Content
If you’re catering to a local audience, your website content must be relatable to this local group and must also ensure representation of this local community. Otherwise, the content will come off as tone-deaf and might not attract decent traffic.
Ensuring local SEO will automatically help incorporate representation and relatability in your content. That’s because local SEO by itself incorporates localized keywords, news, and trends. As a result, it will somewhat force you to make sure that your local community, whom you’re selling to, is represented fairly in your content.
That’s all for this post. The next time you feel like questioning your local SEO strategies, turn to this post and see which of these signs are visible. Then, you’ll know what steps you should take to revamp or completely overhaul your local SEO techniques.
