What’s So Special About Local Search?

Local SEO

It’s the Opportunity Most Companies Are Missing

Are you sick of missing out on the potential business that’s right in your own neighborhood? So many companies come to us with this complaint—they’re just not seeing the local traffic they should be getting.

The good news is that there are some simple local SEO tools that are easily accessible and can make a big difference for your company’s exposure online. While traditional SEO relies heavily on producing original, organic content and maintaining thought leadership to drive organic search traffic, local search is more systematic.

Think of local SEO as a sort of “cookbook” approach to getting found online, whereas organic is very much an art and science approach. If you’re a local business, you should certainly go after organic traffic, but you absolutely can’t miss the opportunity to get the traffic that’s right in your backyard (local SEO).

In conjunction with traditional SEO and a comprehensive marketing strategy, local search optimization can:

• Maximize your business’ visibility
• Promote brand consistency across the web
• Capitalize on geography as a selling point
• Contribute positively to an overall inbound marketing campaign

All About Local SEO

Consistency is the Name of the Game

Citations

A User’s First Interaction With Your Brand

In the digital age, the concept of having accurate, up-to-date business listings (citations) in online directories is just as important as it always was for the old Yellow Pages entries. A citation is anywhere that your business’ name, address, and phone number is published on the web.

Consider how often you conduct your own local search, and one or more of the following common directory sites pop up in your top results:

• Google My Business
• Facebook
• Yelp
• Bing Places
• Apple Maps

More often than not, a citation will be the first interaction a user has with your brand. Inconsistent citations and a poor setup of listings tend to drive users away, making them less likely to click through to your website to engage with your brand.

Citations can be found all over the web, but most are strategically added as business listings to online directories. A well-constructed citation should have the look and feel of a high-quality visual advertisement with intriguing ad copy.

Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP)

Building Domain Authority With Local SEO

In addition to guiding users to a physical business location, each citation acts as a backlink to your website as well. Inconsistency in NAP across multiple citations will not only confuse users who attempt to call or visit a physical location, but it also hurts the image of your brand as being reliable and professional.

Well-constructed citations result in an increased click-through rate, which in turn, provides a greater chance for converting users into leads or customers. More importantly, citation backlinks contribute to increased domain authority of your website, which directly affects your site’s ability to rank for high-competition, high-difficulty keywords.

Reviews

If you’ve worked hard to get citations up on major directories, and, if your NAP is consistently correct across the web, you’re off to a great start. This gives you a good chance of showing up in Google “pinpacks.” Pinpacks are groupings of local listings (usually three at a time) that appear at the top of search results pages above website results.

Local is all about pinpacks and a lot of it is based on geography. However, Google reviews play a role in ranking as well. We understand that customers are more inclined to leave negative reviews than positive ones, so we leverage our Local SEO & Reputation Management software to help you:

• Increase the number of positive online reviews for your business
• Thank customers for positive reviews
• Actively respond to both positive and negative reviews in real-time to show you are listening to your audience

Getting Started

A Local SEO Company You Can Trust

Hubspot’s annual report found that over a two year period, there was a 900%+ growth in mobile searches for “___ near me today/tonight.” Local is a huge opportunity for increased traffic and sales if businesses learn the methodology and “cook” the recipe right.

Free Offer: Click here to request a customized local SEO audit!

This free resource includes:

• Comprehensive review of citation sites to check for your business’ listings
• Cross-checking of all listings to discover any inaccuracies
• Customized report of findings, complete with a resulting local SEO score
• Recommendations for how you can improve your local SEO efforts

If you’re not feeling confident about planning and implementing your SEO strategy on your own, the team here at Farotech can help. Contact us for a free SEO consultation so we can talk through your marketing and growth goals!