Digital marketing services are now both niche in focus and broad in terms of reach. Various agencies now provide specialized SEO services like penalty recovery, backlinks, local SEO services, content SEO and even featured snippets. However, did you ever imagine what could be the reason for this shift?
Well, it is because a lot of SEO agencies have their expertise in either of the fields. Businesses choose to work with multiple agencies where their expertise lies. Sometimes, one particular agency would take care of SEO for them, while another one might look into Social Media or Paid Channels.
One such niche channel that has grown exponentially over the years is Local SEO. You may already know ’What is SEO’ and how it has helped businesses grow significantly. You will find a lot of SEO case studies on the internet that prove how SEO has helped businesses grow in terms of visibility & revenue.
Similarly, let us say if you own a small café, restaurant, photo-copy shop, or a car garage, which has a physical business location, you should opt for local SEO services. You may wonder why they should choose a local SEO service. Well, we will explain in detail about the benefits of local SEO, but for now, let us enlighten our new readers about what is Local SEO?
In simple terms, local SEO is about improving the search visibility of a business that serves a local area. Better visibility means more engagement & revenue.
Now, going back to understand what the benefits of local SEO are? In India, internet penetration has been increasing on a scale that has never been seen before. We all are aware of the Jio effect, and adding fuel to the engine, China started exporting high-quality smartphones to India at prices that would fit every budget. Also, the number of search queries related to local search also skyrocketed. 88% of all the search queries that come through mobile phones are related to local search. Hence, the online presence of your business is a must.
Listing out the benefits of local SEO
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Easy Listing
With Google My Business coming in the picture and replacing almost all other local directories, listing your business online has become very easy, and it is free.
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Increase In Visibility
When you have listed your business online, it will appear as any user within your local area makes a search related to it. This will improve your visibility in Google Maps & Local Search Results. E.g. You run a medical shop, and someone in your vicinity needs an emergency kit. He then searches for “medical near me” or “medical shop”; Google will list out all the medical shops in your vicinity and show them the results in the form of 3 packs. As your business is already listed, you can expect your listing to appear in the 3 pack.
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Ratings & Reviews
Having quality ratings and reviews makes your business look more trustworthy and reliable. Simultaneously, search engines also push your listing above other listings considering your ratings and reviews.
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Compete with other local business
If you provide quality products or service and you have optimized your business listing in a better way than your competitors. As a result, you will definitely appear for searches that happen related to your business in the local search results.
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Gaining New Customers & Customer Retention
Listing can bring you to more potential customers. Since you are already providing quality products or services, and you have good ratings and reviews too, the likelihood of people coming back to you for purchase will be more when compared to others.
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Higher Conversion Rate
Let us say you run a small bakery or tour operator business. Someone did a local search for “bakery near me” or “tour operator near me” and found your listing. Since you have listed your contact number on the business listing, they call you up and ask you to deliver certain bakery products at a specific address or ask you to book a ticket for any particular destination. By giving searchers direct access to your contact details, you have successfully converted a local search query into a successful purchase.
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Business Reputation
You can have potential reach in your vicinity and earn a lot in terms of finance with the help of Local SEO. However, how you treat your customers is what they will remember. Hence earning and sustaining business reputation too will have an impact on your business growth.
By now, we hope that the benefits of local SEO are clear to you. Searches related to Local SEO have increased over a brief period. Here are some statistics that back up the finding –
- Queries which include “near me” have grown 150% times more than earlier years.
- Almost 74% of people who looked up for something in their vicinity visited the store on the same day.
Local SEO is all about having more visibility for your business that serves in a local area, regardless of what business you are in. Business owners can entice, engage, and experiment with their potential customers by providing the best offers and taking maximum advantage of their business listing.