When it comes to businesses, making every small or big decision matters. One such critical decision is investing in the right marketing tactic. From small enterprises to large businesses, digital marketing has become an important part of marketing strategy for all types and sizes of businesses. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most sought-after digital marketing techniques that businesses rely on for their company’s online success. SEO is a major component of a complete digital marketing strategy, but you might not know that SEO is also of different types. Enterprise SEO, Local SEO, and National SEO are some common types that businesses need depending on their specific marketing goals.

SEO is a broad term that aims at improving a website’s online traffic. Enterprise SEO that works best for large organizations may not best suit small firms that operate locally. Local SEO is a type of SEO that aims to optimize sites for local searches.

Meaning of Local SEO

As mentioned above, SEO involves multiple practices that help sites rank higher on the search engine. SEO is the lifeblood of any online business. However, SEO involves several different strategies that help websites to appear higher on search engine result pages (SERPs).  Local SEO, also known as Map SEO, is a type of SEO that particularly works for small and medium-sized businesses. SEO, both on-page and off-page, involves steps that makes web page appeal to algorithms of search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Traditional SEO focuses on ranking sites for niche-specific queries, while local SEO aims to drive traffic for geographical location queries.

How Does Local SEO Work?

Search engines like Google have a mission of providing the best results to users for their queries. To provide relevant results, Google crawl, index, and rank online content. Local SEO use tactics like optimizing for location-specific keywords and backlinking to local pages to increase ranking for a local pack. When a user searches for a location-specific query, such as a product or service nearby, Google shows a local pack result. Local firms or businesses with brick-and-mortar stores such as restaurants, salons, or retail stores, need to optimize their site for local searches. Some techniques used for local SEO include:

• Creating and optimizing Google My Business Account
• Optimize the site for Voice Search
• Mobile optimization
• Location-specific landing pages
• Reviews from Customers
  
  

Benefits of Local SEO

Small businesses often feel discouraged to invest in digital marketing because they don’t have a huge budget to compete with large companies. A small store owner with a limited budget may feel useless spending money on online marketing. However, even if you have low chances of competing against Walmart and Amazon, small businesses have the opportunity to rank for local searches. For instance, a salon in LA or a hotel that has branches at multiple locations can optimize their webpages for local searches like “best hotel in Toronto”, “salon near me”, etc. As more and more users are making location-specific searches, optimizing sites for local keywords helps in increasing visibility and gaining more leads. With nearly half of Google searches consisting of localized searches, ignoring local SEO means missing out on this quality traffic. The major benefits of an effective local SEO strategy are:

Improved Online Visibility: Local SEO practices include link building, citation, and content creation that increase a business’s online visibility. Appearing in Google Map results make your business easily discoverable by new customers.

Increased In-Store Foot Traffic: Brick-and-mortar stores not only need online traffic but also foot traffic in the physical store. Local SEO helps in bringing more foot traffic which ultimately increases sales.

Lower Advertising Cost: Most users prefer organic and “near me” search results as compared to paid ads. Local SEO helps your site rank organically in Map results which makes your business look genuine to users. Besides building trust, it also saves money on paid advertising.