Local SEO marketing refers to a type of search engine optimization that focuses on helping businesses, generally small and medium sized, attain higher search engine rankings in their local area. In particular, Local SEO Marketing serves to promote physical businesses who have face to face encounters with their customers on search engines. Before you continue reading, it’s important to understand that the SEO practices undertaken for these types of businesses are quite different from SEO practices used to promote businesses on a national or international scale. As a result, the SEO done for these types of businesses is solely focused on ensuring that they are promoted on a local level.
Keywords
Let’s say you’re a business owner in the Denver, Colorado area that has a small car dealership. If you’ve contacted an SEO firm like Firestarter SEO about conducting marketing for your business, you’re likely going to be asked what specific keywords you’d like to rank for. Obviously because you’re a car salesperson you’d like to be ranked for a keyword such as “cars.” Unfortunately this is the wrong answer. If you go into Google and type in the word “cars,” the results that come up will likely give you a definition of what a car is, a track listing for the hit 1976 The Cars album of the same name, and a link to the Pixar movie Cars on Amazon Prime. Get the idea? Enter Local SEO keywords. In order to make sure that the keywords you’re looking to be ranked for, you need to be sure that they are both highly intentional and relevant. An example of a much better keyword for your business would be something like “Car Dealership Denver” or “Best Denver Car Dealership.” With keywords like these users who are searching for your services will be able to find you much easier as these are the types of Google searches people make most of the time. Be sure to spend some quality time with your SEO provider trying to figure out which will serve you best.
Google My Business
Setting up a Google My Business Account is far too often overlooked by small and medium sized businesses looking to grow in their local area or region. GMB can significantly help businesses expand their online presence by indicating to Google what type of business they are, how long they have been operating, where they are located, what times they’re open, etc. Upon creating a Google My Business account, you’ll need to input all relevant information into it similar in the way you used to be able to find business info in the Yellow Pages. One important aspect of GMB is posting on your account regularly. These types of posts could be product updates, change in business times, holiday schedules, etc. If you set up a schedule to post regularly then over time Google will begin seeing you as an industry specific player in your local region. Ultimately this means that they could begin including you in some of their own directory lists. Thus, you’ll see your business grow in the same manner.
Clearly this is merely a brief introduction to what local SEO marketing is. There are truly numerous other aspects of the service. However, focusing on these two things will help you cross the line from internet obscurity to internet popularity. But finally, it cannot be stressed enough that these things take time and patience to work their magic. But in the end, you’ll find your business in a much better place marketing-wise than it was before you started.
