When it comes to geographically relevant searches the online landscape is not only fiercely competitive, but it is also becoming increasingly expensive and much more difficult to penetrate. What this fact signifies is that local SEO is currently enjoying a huge significance for businesses across the entire spectrum of economic activity.
Since relevant research has shown that the majority of consumers turn to search engines in order to find local information, it becomes possible for local businesses to increase their online visibility at bearable costs. This can be done through leveraging customer reviews and producing keyword-rich content pertaining to geographic location, as well as relevance and the targeted consumer audience base.
All types of businesses stand to gain huge benefits by engaging in local SEO, while managing at the same time to add value to their respective communities. However, certain industries stand to gain much more and it is imperative for them not to overlook local SEO. Four such industries, where SEO has proven to have a massive impact are overviewed below:
1. Plumbing and electric
Local SEO has a lot of advantages for this kind of technical professions, since plumbers or electricians usually work within a close radius of their local areas. Moreover, consumers usually need this type of services urgently, for example if a pipe bursts you cannot wait for a plumber from far away to come fix it, you need one in the vicinity who can come immediately. And with the internet playing such a big role in our daily lives, if we need a plumber we will go online to search for one instead of opening the yellow pages or phone book.
Effective local SEO has many advantages, the chief amongst them being that guides users to company websites without costing them anything. These users can then view the content on the website, such as reviews and testimonials, and this gives companies an abundance of effective methods to market their offering in their local area.
Investing time and effort to develop a targeted local SEO strategy can drastically boost its impact and give you a massive advantage over competitors, especially since digital marketing is not usually a field where those in the technical professions usually direct their efforts. In fact, digital marketing is still largely unexploited as a resource and interested companies should take advantage of this.
In planning and executing your local SEO efforts for your plumbing or electrical services keep in mind that search engines pay great attention and preference to website content that adds value to the users, so selling yourself indirectly by providing information, sharing knowledge and handy tricks on your expertise, will definitely bring you more visibility, enhance the experience of users on your site, boost your rankings and ensure more customers.
2. Legal services
Lawyers and other professional service providers are another group that stand to gain massively from local SEO, not least because they usually remain at a specific geographic location and also because their skills are of extreme importance to their clients. Having a good and trusted local lawyer is perhaps as important as having a good local dentist, as you will need them to take you out of a difficult position.
For lawyers in particular, the modern way of life means that their skills are always relevant to many facets of human life and thus always remain in high demand. In turn, this means that they also have endless opportunities to improve their local SEO rankings through the creation and provision of original, genuine and targeted content. In this context, maintaining a blog on their website that includes posts directly relevant to and useful for the local community they serve, is a great tool for legal professionals and is guaranteed to bring them exposure and clients.
Another great way to increase local rankings is ensuring the use of niche keywords and providing content that rich in insights and of value to the prospective clients in the local community.
Since local SEO crucial for professionals seeking customers nearby, lawyers and other professionals can also boost their rankings through leveraging their name, address and contact information and ensuring that their valid contact information and their business is listed on internet yellow pages’ sites, local search directories and niche oriented portals.
3. Repair shops
Local SEO is extremely important for repair shops, because the services they offer are another prime example of a service that is searched online during an emergency, when response time is usually a crucial factor and when finding a local to do the job is important.
Whether they are into car repairs, mobile phone repairs, computer fixing etc., the truth is that repair shops of all backgrounds stand to gain a solid advantage over their competitors and greatly improve their rankings through a local SEO campaign. As part of this campaign they should include the creation and posting on their websites of content that is potentially interesting and useful to prospective local clients, such us manuals, guides, detailed, step-by-step tutorials and tips.
One of the biggest challenges that repair shops need to offset during their efforts to effectively implement local SEO is the need to gain genuine customers reviews that they can post on their websites, as these are crucial in attracting new customers. The challenge lies in the fact unlike other types of businesses, repair shops do not have a high volume of customers on a daily basis, meaning that it is more difficult for them to ensure an adequate number of reviews. This also means that they should strive to offer the best level of service possible in order to please their customers to the maximum thus being able to garnet the reviews and real-life testimonials that will help them boost their local rankings.
4. Bars and restaurants
Bars and restaurants are service-based businesses whose success is greatly dependent on and influenced by the reviews they get online, in dedicated business directories and in recent times on social media platforms. This in turns means that gaining exposure and visibility online through a well planned and executed local SEO campaign is a safe bet for this type of businesses.
Local SEO is also of extreme importance for restaurants and bars because those with the best ratings will always show up first when a potential customer searches online for a bar or restaurant in their vicinity. Moreover, the importance of local SEO is further accentuated by the fact that bars and restaurants usually aim to serve a very geographically specific and targeted audience, since not many people would travel for a couple of hours just to have a drink or a meal!
Finally, through local SEO bar and restaurant owners should also aim to get as many and as good customer reviews they can, since these help increase their visibility and also work wonders for shaping the opinion of potential customers and bringing new customers their way.
Besides the examples of industries mentioned above, it should be made clear that almost every business operating in today’s economy stands to greatly benefit through the use of local SEO strategies and techniques. Moreover, those businesses that decide to ignore this need will inevitably fall behind their competitors and not only miss on great opportunities to earn new customers but will also face difficulties in retaining their existing client base as well.
Fortunately, local SEO is much cheaper than nationwide SEO and global, untargeted SEO, while it is also more easy to manage and almost guaranteed to bring about much better results. As one of the most effective ways of digital marketing, local SEO should rank high on your priority list if you are an entrepreneur seeking to gain more exposure and help your business grow. Don’t worry if you don’t have time to invest or the aptitude to engage in local SEO to do it yourself. Contact a professional today and let them do wonders for you!
