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When running a business today, it’s common sense that you need a business website. A good quality website often goes a long way to making sure you can work professionally. It also allows your business to do a lot more for itself in terms of bringing in clients both locally and from afar. However, for a local business, you might be less likely to target people from further afield: instead, you need to dominate your local search listings. It’s for this reason that you should never disregard the importance of local SEO.
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is, as the name suggests, a more locally driven form of optimization. Instead of trying to rank as high as possible for your industry generally, you concentrate on being the dominant force in your local area.
That is very useful, and often goes a very long way to helping you build up a strong level of hits, searches and leads from your local area. If you were to try and rank for something like ‘landscape gardener London’, for example, you might find it tough to make the intended impact. The competition will be massive.
Instead, it’s better to break it down into cities or even parts of cities – because people search local (I do – don’t you?) For example, you could try to improve your SEO ranking for things like ‘landscape gardener Liverpool’ or ‘landscape gardener Birkenhead’ and you would find it much easier to bring in clients who are applicable to you. Indeed, it’s the exact same for any industry – even SEO firms!
Instead of trying to rank for ‘SEO England’ you would go for ‘SEO Liverpool’ or ‘SEO Merseyside’ – the more local the better, especially if you are only intending on targeting local clients.
Why local SEO is better for the world wide web
For one, local SEO is going to help more businesses to benefit from their SEO ranking. If everyone tries to rank for catch-all terms like the country they are based in, then there’s going to be far less opportunity for people to benefit from SEO services.
It’s also going to help give the people doing the searching more of a chance to find the help that they need. The more localized the search is, the more specific the request of the searcher might be. This can play an important role, then, in helping you to get local SEO put in place and see results from the people that you wish to attract.
All users will benefit more from using a localized approach to SEO. Businesses will find they get more hits specific to their catchment area, and web users will find it easier to locate help that is situated nearby. With that in mind, then, you should be much more likely to get through the challenges of being seen.
With so much competition online, local SEO is the most important way to differentiate yourself and to stand out properly. Keep that in mind, as the results can very much benefit you moving forward.
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