Local SEO: What Is It and Why It Really Is Important

At one time, local SEO may have been catered more to the mom-and-pop shops that needed an additional push to stay in business. However, today, local SEO is important for all sizes and types of organizations and business, no matter how large or small they are. In fact, local SEO has become more and more important for your business since the Google Pigeon update back in 2014.

What Exactly Is Local SEO?

In case you’re wondering, local SEO primarily focuses on providing search results that are relevant to a web user based on their current location. In other words, if you were to type in best Chinese restaurant in to Google and hit search, you would receive results that are closet to you based on your location. If you own a Chinese restaurant and you aren’t listed in Google Places, then your restaurant isn’t going to populate in the results for that web user. You’ll be losing business. For Google, it is important to be listed on Google Places for Business and Google+ Local. At the same time, you need to be listed in the directory for all major search engines, such as Bing and Yahoo.

Think of Local SEO as a Way to Vote for Your Business

Consider local search listings in your area as a way to vote. The more influential directories that you have linking to your business website, the more votes that you have for your company. This then translates to improved rankings in search engines. However, you need to make sure that your company information is consistent and uniform from one directory to the next to avoid in discrepancies and inconsistencies that could potentially impact the improvement that the local SEO should be making to your overall marketing campaign.

The importance of SEO is only set to grow over the next several years. If you don’t have a local SEO marketing strategy in place, it’s time to get in touch with WebDetail and let us help you develop one that will benefit your business as a whole.