Is Your Local SEO Focused On Bringing You New Customers?

When you’re doing business in your local community, having a physical shop isn’t enough. Well, if you’re a startup or you want to grow your business more, then you shouldn’t stop at having a brick-and-mortar business. Don’t target passersby to pay for your products or services.  

Instead, go digital and attract more leads, also known as prospects or potential customers you can find online. You can do this by ranking high on local search engine results pages (SERPs). That means you need to consult an expert SEO consultant to rank higher on the search engine results pages.

Local SEO refers to a strategy that would enable your business to rank high in local SERPs. If you want more customers to go into your physical location, then you need local SEO. Whatever physical business you may have, you need local SEO if you aim to serve local customers. 

Importance Of Local SEO 

Local SEO is more crucial than ever because most people looking for their needs rely on the Internet. That’s why search engines have provided more results for geographically-related searches. 

For instance, if a person searches for ‘the best Australian diner,’ they’ll get a list of restaurants serving Australian menu nearest them, and not a restaurant based in Australia. That’s the power of local SEO. Imagine if your physical business appears on the first pages of the SERPs. Not only can you attract more potential customers, but you can build an online presence essential to make your business popular.  

Moreover, you can get the following benefits if you apply local SEO strategies to your business:

1. Reach Potential Customers Who Are Ready To Buy

As mentioned, you can appear on the first page of SERPs if you apply local SEO. That’s a significant advantage because people searching for products or services related to your business are persons who are ready to pay for what they need. It means they’re customers who know what they need, so they start looking for a business to cater to their needs. It’s vital that you’re getting the right visitors to take the right action so that you can best provide for their needs. 

Since most people don’t browse the next pages of the SERPs, being on top will increase your chances of acquiring more potential customers. Besides, most people believe that whoever is on the first page of the SERPs is one of the best ones, prompting them to click on it.

2. Screen General Traffic

When you say general traffic, it means people who aren’t likely to pay for your products or services. It’s because they may be too far from you. For instance, an immediate need like eating out at a restaurant means one would prefer nearby restaurants than restaurants located in the other state. So, if the searcher lives in another state, your business won’t pop in their SERPs because local SEO weeds out irrelevant results based on intent and proximity.

3. Help Customers Find You

As mentioned above, you don’t settle for passersby to buy your products or services. With local SEO, you help customers find your physical shop. More likely than not, customers who are near you will visit your store if you appeared in the SERPs. Especially if they can easily find you in Google Maps, local customers can reach out to you more easily.

4. Save Marketing Expenses

Although you may need to spend on your listing online, local SEO will be worth it in the long run. You can even use free tools, like Facebook and Google My Business, to make your business listings online. With such, you can reduce your expenses when advertising your local business. 

How To Know If Your Local SEO Is Effective

Now that you know the importance of local SEO, you may have already started your listing. But, that doesn’t end there because you have to assess whether or not your local SEO strategies are effective.  

The main purpose of local SEO is to bring in new customers. If you want to know if you’re attracting new leads into your business, here’s what you need to do:

1. Scan The Google+ Local Page

If you want to know your page health, you should also include Google+ since it’s connected to Google. One of Google+’s features is the Google+ local business listing. You should check for listings not properly shown, poorly chosen categories, and spammy descriptions when you scan it. 

If you see these issues, then you should improve the health of your Google+ local business page by doing the following: 

• Use an appropriate category that will describe your primary business. For instance, if you sell coffee and other drinks, it should be listed under Foods and Beverages. You can go to Google map maker and search your business name, and you’ll see which category your business belongs to.
• Your meta description is also vital to make your page healthy, so you should make it user-friendly. It means that when people see your business, they’d want to click on it because your meta description is compelling.
• Using appropriate keywords is enough to make your listings show on SERPs. However, don’t overdo it as it can lower your rank, which can harm your business’s health.

2. Examine Your Keyword Ranking

The next thing you can do to check if your local SEO attracts new leads is to know if the keywords give you higher ranking. Keywords are an essential part of SEO. For local SEO, you need to use particular keywords that describe your desired region and area.  

That’s why you should analyze if your localized keywords are ranking high. You can use keyword ranking tools or hire experts, like Rule Your Kingdom, LP, to monitor your keyword ranking. By doing such, you can check which keywords are helping your marketing campaigns.  

If your localized keywords are high, it may mean your SEO condition is healthy. On the other hand, you should change your keywords if they’re not doing you any good. Ranking high is vital, so your visibility will also increase.  

You can use geo-modified local keywords, such as ‘Austin, TX,’ to a coffee shop so you can highlight the city your business is situated. Geo-modified local keywords are those that have setting-specific keywords. Using this type of keywords, you can reinforce your local SEO strategies to achieve a stronger local presence.  

Moreover, your localized keywords should also appear in your meta description to appeal to users and meet Google’s standards.  

3. Monitor Your Traffic

Your traffic will also give you an idea of whether or not your local SEO strategies bring in new customers. Traffic refers to the people who are visiting your website. Of course, if you have more traffic, you can convert more paying customers. On the other hand, no traffic or less traffic means you may not gain new customers.  

Traffic also means the amount of time website visitors are engaging with your site before making a purchase. In local SEO, a purchase may mean scheduling an appointment with your physical store if you offer services, like legal consultation, dental and medical services, and others. If your local business includes online deliveries, then a successful purchase includes purchasing online or visiting your local store to buy your products personally. That’s why even if you have a physical store, it’s still best if you have a website to attract more local customers.

There are many tools you can use to check and monitor your website traffic. By using such, you can check every contribution of your SEO strategies to your traffic. That’s why using localized keywords is essential so that you can attract more customers. Then, utilize such keywords on your website, such as when writing posts and the like.  

With the tools to analyze your website’s traffic, you can estimate how much traffic gets into your site. Some tools even allow you to check the number of new visitors that your website gets. Moreover, you can also see where your visitors come from, their interests, and other destinations they go to after visiting your site. By knowing these data, you can either change your local SEO to meet such requirements or develop more SEO strategies. 

Conclusion

Your business’s growth has something to do with your local SEO if you have a physical store. With an effective local SEO strategy, you can attract new customers to go into your store or buy your products or services online. That means you should rank high on SERPs to ensure that people get to see your business. Moreover, you should also optimize your website to convert visitors looking for information on your website into paying clients.  

Applying local SEO is just the start because you need to monitor your strategies to attract new leads continuously. You can do this by scanning Google+ to check if your business is searchable and is under the correct categories. Another is to conduct keyword ranking so you can check if your localized keywords are helping you soar high. Lastly, you should monitor your website or page traffic to ensure that your target audience is visiting your site.