Local SEO Is the Rising Sun for Search Engine Marketing
If you had any doubts in Local Search Engine Optimization then prepare to doubt yourself. Google is going to shine some light on the subject. It’s true that local SEO will not gain your company national exposure even though it can help your nationwide search rankings. However, there is a big change sweeping across web searches on Google for local businesses.
A few weeks ago we announced the search engine’s optimization to personal location settings, making it easier for anyone to change their local search results on the fly. Now Google has completely changed the face of its searches. If you search for a local service or product now you will see a large map on the right side of your screen, see for yourself.
We could not duplicate the new search on every search but it seems as though your screen size and browser could be the determining factor for displaying the new search results page.
That is not even the most interesting part of the change. Local business directories like Yelp, Citysearch, Insiderpages and more are now displaying with how many reviews have been made about a business. It seems that reputation management is now becoming a bigger part of online marketing for search engines.
Search engine marketing is changing every day and I am not saying that nationwide SEO is not important, it just may not be necessary if your business cannot reach out that far. For a small pizza delivery restaurant it is great to have an optimized business listing and some local exposure because that is where people are looking, especially nowadays. Google has made this very clear with these huge changes including its recent optimization of location settings.
Even though it does not make a direct impact on your nationwide traffic optimization of your Google local business listing can have an indirect impact. Organic search engine rankings are based off of a few things including how many new visitors your site is getting monthly and how long they are on the webpage. So sending all of this local traffic can actually boost you up nationally which can be considered a form of branding.
Why is branding important for a small business? Certain businesses can actually become known within their area by name, resulting in a large amount of searches. One reason this could be is word of mouth about quality products and services, another could just be a catching branding campaign. Whatever the case may be, any company that is getting searches for their name and not being displayed number one on the search engines is losing out on extremely targeted traffic.
We as a Local SEO Company our looking forward to more changes to Google’s local searches in the future because they benefit our clients the most. Although we do optimize for nationwide keywords and have plenty of companies doing nationwide business with us, but it is always nice to see the little guys get a boost and have a chance at competing.
