How important is local SEO in 2019?

Local SEO in 2019

8 reasons why Is Local SEO Important In 2019

Local SEO in 2019 is the most important part of your marketing strategy. The Internet has become a hub for local SEO because small businesses have infiltrated every corner of the web. This means that you need to be familiar with why local SEO works, how it works, and what it can do for your business. Each step in the process below will change the way that you manage your business. You might be unfamiliar with local SEO, but it needs to become a part of your marketing strategy.

Backlinks are an important part of SEO and more specific Off-Page SEO. Knowing how many links you have and the key metrix are crucial to your marketing stratgey, one great tool for gaining key insights on your backlinks is LinkOkay. With LinkOkay, You are in charge! Unlike other apps on the market today, LinkOkay doesn’t build any index. It only works with backlinks you feed it. This means 100% accuracy of your link-building campaign.

1. Local Customers First

The importance of local SEO in 2019 is greater than it has ever been. You need to use local SEO to make your company recognizable to the local population. No one will shop with you if they have never heard of you, and you should focus on your local customers first. You might think that you need to appeal to the whole of the Internet so that your sales will jump; this is not the case.

The local SEO tactics that you use should grow your local business. You get a lot more traffic from people who live close to you because those people can come by at any time. Those people will tell their friends all about your company. You want to give people a quick local option for their shopping because they often need to run errands quickly. You also want to appeal to local customers through social media. Location settings are used to do everything online, and that is why you should start with local SEO.

2. Social Media

The social media accounts that you have started will expose your company to the local population because they often get results from their local area. It does not matter how much you are online, you will receive local suggestions in social media first. Your tastes are used to create a news feed of local options, and your customers see the same things on every form of social media they use. This means that the people who shop with your company are more likely to see your ads just because you are close by. Yes, there might be a larger company that does the same thing. However, that company is a local firm like yours.

You should make certain that your location is set in all social media apps. You must make sure that your location is listed clearly, and you must allow location services from the device that originated the account.

You might not have thought of which device will manage your social media, but you must leave that device in the office. The location that you get from that device will display to all your customers when they follow you. You want that location to stay the same, and you never want it to turn off because you charged your phone, turned off the device, or drove even a couple of blocks. GPS is unpredictable, and you must have consistent location settings in your social media apps.

Social media also posts ads based on location. You should use your location as a selling point for your company. It is not enough to target people in certain areas. You must make your location a part of your marketing plan. The location that you have set should be listed clearly in the ad such as, “Atlanta homeowners! Get your free estimate today!” Anything that lists the city will make it obvious to your customers that you can give them what they need.

Social media are often based purely on local content, and you need to make sure that you make it to the top of the list of referred businesses in that app. An app that allows people to book dining, leave reviews of a business, or buy products for delivery should post your business at the top of their results in a simple search. If you have set up your local SEO, you will always be at the top of their results. Again, you need to make sure that the device that set up the account is in the office where the location never changes.

3. Mobile Traffic

All mobile traffic is set up to use local SEO in 2019. When you search for something, you are given local results first. You might search for a department store chain that has a thousand locations, but you will see the closest stores first. You must get your business to the top of the location results by adding your address and other identifying information to your online accounts. Every big search engine has a place where you can register your business, and you should have your account page filled out completely.

The mobile traffic that you get might be based on maps, and that will be just as serious as having a website. Your website is meaningless if the people that live close to you are not there to see it. You must also make sure that your website is optimized for mobile. You could do a lot of work to get your company to the top of the local search results, but it means nothing if you have been knocked back because your site does not respond to mobile commands.

4. The Yellow Pages

The yellow pages that are created online are made from the results that these sites get from your company. You have to make it plainly clear that you operate from a certain area first. You might think that you will get to the top of the results because you did all this work with Google. It is true that making your Google business page is a big deal, but it is not the only thing that you should do. You need to set up your company to get noticed by people who make yellow pages sites. You need to sign up for every yellow pages site you can find, and you need to keep your information current. Even if you change your phone number, you need to fix that immediately.

The yellow pages sites also want to know if you have more than one location. You need to list all those locations online so that you can be found in every spot. The company that you have built might change addresses, and you need to update that as soon as possible.

An important fact about local SEO also comes up when you change locations. There are companies that started out in one state and moved for one reason or another. If your company started in Tenafly, NJ, you must change all your local SEO listings to Belen, NM when you get there. Imagine how upset your customers will be when they cannot find you because you are listed in the wrong city. Perhaps all they remember about your company is the city. If you were to move to Woodstock, GA after that, your customers would have three cities to sift through hoping to find you. Most customers will simply give up and find something else.

5. Map/Direction Traffic

Maps and directions are given online only if you have listed your location correctly. Someone who is trying to build an online profile must remember that local SEO dictates all the maps results that your company gets. If you are a popular company in your area with no physical location, you will never turn up in the maps results on any search engine.

You get left out because people automatically click on the maps, and you will never get noticed because people are driving by your company to go to the business that actually had a spot on the map. If you are not listed with the search engine, they will not put you on their map. They have complete control over the content on the maps, and that makes it hard for you to be seen.

Maps and directions can be built from a phone in seconds, and you will have more people come to your location purely because they already know exactly where to go. You never need to answer the phone to give directions when a phone app does it for the customer. Plus, people can click on your phone number in their mobile browser, their phone will call you, and you can set up services for that customer on the spot.

6. Google

Google is in control of a lot of the things that are listed here, but that does not mean that you can assume Google has already found your company and listed you. Google might seem to be all-powerful, but they are not. The Google business page that you have created must be built by someone in your office. You enter all the information that is needed for this page, and you are listed by Google when the page is complete. You are ensuring that you will be seen by people who use Google, and you will be discovered by anyone using a company that aggregates from Google.

Google business pages are also places where you can build up reviews of your company while you are trying to grow your business. Google business reviews will end up at the top of every search engine, and that might make your company that much more visible. You should make certain that your Google business page has been updated before all other pages. The Google business page will always be in compliance with what Google expects out of you, and you are ensured that you will at least be found through this page.

7. Your Marketing Strategy

Your marketing strategy should be based on local SEO because everything touches on local SEO. There is no reason to leave anything out of your Google business page, and there is no reason to not list every city that you could potentially serve. In fact, the majority of companies that you end up working with will find out because they checked out your local area.

People who are busy will only find you because they wanted to find the fastest way to get service in your area. You can expand your marketing strategy over time to make your local SEO plan bigger. You can replicate all the things you have done with local SEO to cover that much more area. However, you must always go back to local SEO. You need to serve the local SEO population before everyone else.

The marketing strategy that you have gets better every time you do something to satisfy your need for local SEO. You should be sure that you have opened an account on all social media platforms, and you should make local ads for your company that people will see regardless of where they are. In fact, your marketing plan should incorporate a number of different options that you only used because you were managing your local SEO properly.

8. Conclusion

The local SEO plan that you are using should be managed with the idea that you will never need to do anything outside of this one thing. You can completely shift how your business is perceived if you use the local SEO plan to manage everything about your company from search results to reviews. You can capture the imagination of the whole community, and you will never be without customers because locals come by every day.

You are bringing yourself to the forefront of all search engine results if you have taken the time to manage local SEO first. You could build your social media platforms to reach the most people possible, and you can create ads that use your location information to reach the most customers. You must focus on your Google business page, getting listed with yellow pages sites, and working out a plan that will turn your company into a powerhouse that people all over the area know.

You might not see a customer come through your door for quite some time, but they know your name because it came up in so many different search results.