There’s no denying that the online world offers loads of potential opportunities, but that it’s also insanely competitive if your intention is to get front page on any of the major search engines.
And while competing on an international stage is always going to be tough in terms of generating organic rankings unless you’re in an insane niche market, if you have a local business, some simple SEO strategies can get you front and centre on page 1 of a local search faster than you think.
How SEO can help your business
Let’s say you’re an optometrist looking to use your website to help you generate leads. I’m someone who is in need of some glasses – so I Google ‘optometrist’. In less than a minute, Google serves me up 61,400,000 results for ‘optometrist’, which is a LOT of pages to get in front of no matter which way you look at it.
So simply hoping that people will find your business from a search for ‘optometrist’ is clearly not going to work very well.
Okay, so unless you want to spend a tonne on Adwords, you’re going to need to put a bit more effort into your SEO. Here’s where having some localised knowledge and SEO expertise is going to really benefit your business.
Let’s assume for a second that you’re an optometrist that specialises in glaucoma treatment in a certain area – say, Wollongong in NSW. Suddenly, you’ve gone from going up against 61,400,000 other results to having only 13,200 pages to compete with. And while that might seem like a lot still, in internet terms it’s actually not that bad.
If you’ve been in business for longer than 5 minutes, you’ve undoubtedly already received loads of calls from companies offering to get you onto the front page of Google – usually for thousands of dollars and in ‘only’ 6-12 months. And the fact is, they’re probably telling you the truth.
But here’s the thing: most of the time, these companies aren’t terribly forthcoming with the exact way that they’re going to achieve it, or what search terms they’ll get you onto the front page for. And as nice as it is to be able to say you have front page ranking, if it’s for a search term that hardly any people are looking for then it’s not going to be much use to your bottom line.
So how should it really be done?
Here’s what proper SEO for local business looks like:
- We’re a local SEO company – so we’re able to communicate openly with business owners to find out all of the things that make their business unique in terms of the products or services that they offer their customers.
- We take that information and then do full research to find out what search terms potential customers are using to find similar products or services in YOUR local area.
- We then use all of our proven SEO techniques to spec up your existing site – or to build your new one – to make the most of all of those terms and drive quality traffic, with visitors who are looking for exactly what you’re offering.
Of course, there’s a lot more to it than these 3 steps would suggest, and a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to keep your site and content fresh and rich with relevant keywords.
If you’re looking to drive more traffic to your website to generate more prospective clients, then SEO for local business is a fantastic way to do it. Sure, ads are great in the short term, and can deliver fast results while you’re waiting for your organic traffic to kick in, but wouldn’t it be better to be able to generate leads through organic – AKA: ‘free’ – means?
When you’re ready to start driving new, ready-so-do-business-with-you traffic to your website and you’re looking for a local SEO company, we’ll be here to help – and to make sure that you get the results you’ve been working so hard for.
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Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
