Local SEO is an important aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) that helps small businesses to reach their local audience and compete with larger businesses in their area. With the right local SEO strategies in place, small businesses can improve their online visibility, drive more traffic to their website, and increase their chances of attracting new customers.

Here are some of the key benefits of local SEO for small businesses:

• Increased online visibility– Optimizing your website and online presence for local search, you can increase your visibility in search results and make it easier for potential customers to find your business. This can help you to reach a wider audience and generate more leads.
• Improved local search rankings – With relevant local keywords, optimizing your Google My Business listing, and obtaining positive reviews from customers, you can improve your local search rankings and make it more likely that your business will appear at the top of search results.
• Better engagement with your local audience– Targeting your local audience and optimizing your website for local search, you can better engage with your target audience and establish a strong local presence. This can help you to build brand recognition, establish trust, and increase customer loyalty.
• Increased foot traffic- By appearing in local search results, you can attract more local customers to your business, increase foot traffic, and drive more sales.
• Competitive advantage- Investing in local SEO, you can level the playing field with larger businesses and compete more effectively in your local market.

Local SEO is an essential component of any successful online marketing strategy for small businesses. By improving your online visibility, increasing your local search rankings, and engaging with your local audience, you can drive more traffic to your website, attract new customers, and grow your business.

Let i3 help you with improving your local presence with #SEO consulting

 

 

 

 

If your business has local customers, the importance of having good local SEO for your website cannot be overemphasized. Simply put, local SEO experts can provide you with the most important form of advertising you can use to reach new customers within your geographic area. Local SEO is also quite effective at getting repeat customers.

What Is Local Search?

Local searches are search queries where the person is looking for information about local businesses in general. There are always specific geographic locations embedded in the search queries. Here are a few examples:

• surf shops in Southern California
• a divorce attorney in Jacksonville FL
• natural food stores in Boston
• where to buy memory cards in Kansas City

All of these local search queries will generate a Google map in Google with a listing of several business options. If your business doesn’t make the list, for your specific type of business, in your geographic area(s), you are missing out on a lot of potential business. Furthermore, if you are located near the top of this list, and your listing is prominent, you’ll get a lot more business from the listing than another business lower on the list with a less prominent listing.

Why is local SEO important?

According To a Survey Conducted By Google:

• Eighty percent of all people use a search engine to find information about a local business. This includes business hours, directions to the store, and product information. In other words, very few people use an old fashioned phone book anymore!
• Fifty percent of all people who conduct local searches on their smartphone visit a local store related to their local search within one day!
• Thirty-four percent of all people who conduct local searches on their laptops or other computer devices visit a local store within a day!
• People who do local searches buy at a higher frequency than those who do not!
• Eighteen percent of all local searches lead to a sale in less than 24 hours!

Thus, it stands to reason, if you can improve your ranking and quality of listing in local searches on Google, your sales opportunities will increase. You will also get more targeted walk-in traffic that you can use to generate more sales and or more sales leads.
Getting a good listing for your local search terms is a tricky endeavor that is best left to the professionals. Not only are there many nuances most business owners would never know, or even have time to learn if they knew how to find the information, Google updates its search algorithms so frequently it is a full-time job to keep up with them.

We Can Help!

We are very careful to only use “white hat” techniques that Google not only sanctions but actually encourages. Other companies use techniques that may work for a short period of time (long enough to take your money) but are considered spam by Google. If you’re not careful about who you work with, you can get your business URL banned. We are very careful about what local SEO techniques we use for this reason.

Give us a call today so we can discuss the details! 214-702-9438

 

Google has announced a roll-out of a new update known as the mobile first-index. This update simply means that Google will be using the mobile platform first to rank your web pages as opposed to the current desktop platform.

The shift to a mobile-first index was motivated by the fact that more Google users today perform their searches through their mobile devices as opposed to desktop computers.

This essentially means Website and blog owners will have to shift to the new algorithm if they want to keep their traffic up.

This mobile first-index roll-out also means that even if your business or company doesn’t get traffic from mobile search, you will still need to shift to this new algorithm for best local SEO practices.

How does mobile first-indexing work?

Indexing is the process where Google identifies pieces of information from your web pages and makes them useful. Google recognizes that the aim is to satisfy user experiences whether they are searching through mobile or desktop. This simply means websites and blogs must now start focusing on the functionality of both mobile and desktop pages, although this is not unique to SEO experts as they understand that traffic pays their bills and they need to start migrating to the new algorithm right now.

This is clearly a monumental change in indexing. And even if you anticipated this change and have been working on mobile optimization for the past years, you still have a couple of things to master.

How can your business be prepared for this paradigm shift?

Google’s announcement of the mobile-first indexing must have caught many business owners by surprise. However, there is no need to panic. There are steps you can take to optimize your site right off to correspond with the Google announcement:

• • 1. Run a mobile-friendly test to ascertain that your site is optimized for mobile search
    2. For more information on Google optimization, look out for Google’s primary mobile guide
    3. The Google how-to-guide can assist you to determine whether your third-party hosting is working correctly

Do the following to optimize your site:

• • • • Optimize your mobile responsiveness – Most sites already have responsive designs, so they won’t need lots of optimization to be properly indexed for mobile search

      • Configure your mobile site – Your content markup may be different on the mobile and desktop. You will need to make changes.

      • Construct a mobile site – If you’re constructing a completely separate mobile site, it’s advisable to launch them when completely functional rather than half dormant. The desktop indexing will still continue, so there is no need to rush.

      • Verify both versions – If you have only verified the desktop version page, verify your web page mobile version too

      • Accessibility to Googlebots – Run the mobile-friendily test to ascertain that the mobile version of your web page is accessible to Googlebots for ease of indexing.

      • Availability of canonical links – You don’t need to make any changes if your site has canonical links. Google will continue using these links on both mobile and desktop versions.

      • Structured data testing – You need to run this test for URLs and compare output.

 

One of the biggest upsides is that the ranking will still be based on both desktop and mobile.

Stay ahead of the updates and trends by getting a consultation with our experts today! info@i3megamarketinggroup.com