To me, the title of this articles summarizes a few trends. One, search is becoming local. Two, the ways in which local consumers find local companies is fundamentally different than a few years ago. Three, no online strategy is complete without a focus on local SEO whether you are a large multinational or a local mom and pop.

Local SEO - What is local SEO lead generation and how does it work?

Think SEO. Think marketing. Then think local. Local SEO lead generation is simply applying the principles of SEO (search engine optimization) to a targeted geographic area or areas to generate leads for your services. Meaning, selecting and optimizing for keywords that local searchers are likely to use.

An example might help

Let’s say you are a regional electronic retailer - ABT in the Chicago area. Now you might say that ABT can sell anywhere through e commerce. Partially true, but stay with me. Let’s say you want to attract at home chef’s (wannabe chefs in my mind). Local search engine optimization to generate leads is a logical choice for two reasons. One, you only have a store in one location and two you can’t really ship an expensive Viking stove all that far and still be competitive.

What to do? Well if you want to attract local at home chef’s who you think would buy Viking stoves from you in Chicago, you need to figure out how to reach them specifically. Meaning, Viking Stove, Home Chef, etc. are keywords that are unlikely to work given they will pull from all over the country. Instead, you might want to add a modifier - Chicago Viking Stove, Chicago Home Chef, etc.

Localize your keywords

To take it a step beyond SEO and focus on the next step, conversion, you might also consider creating a dedicated area on your site for Chicago At Home Chef’s focused on the Viking product line and offering recipes from local restaurants... Just a thought.

And even if you are a regional or national retailer, local SEO can still work for you. Think local specials, pushing products in local markets (local products, products specific to a local need) or growing market share for a particular product line in a specific geography.

Local SEO : Putting it into practice

Its rather simple. Its all about the keywords modifier something like if you are promoting the rewrting services you can use the paraphrasing tool online free. As you consider your SEO strategy, consider the area(s) you want to serve, promote to, create specials for, etc. Then determine what modifiers you can use (where there is still reasonable traffic) to narrow the traffic you receive to your area(s) of focus. Then add those modifiers to the keywords you are optimizing for Its that simple.

And the good news (beyond the fact that its easy) is that the results of local SEO will take less time to pay off. There is generally less competition for local keywords, so your site will show in the search engine results much quicker. Can it get any better?

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Local SEO: Why its more effective than the Yellow Pages for lead generation

A statistic I use over and over again sums it up. 25% of all internet searches are locally focused. And local search is estimated to be growing at a pace of 24% a year.

What are all those local searchers looking for? Restaurants, plumbers, carpet cleaners, retailers, doctors, lawyers, you name it. And guess what they are abandoning - The Yellow Pages. Who wants to invest that time looking through a clunky book better served as a booster seat, foot rest, etc.

Ask yourself, Where do you want to advertise? Online for free using SEO or in the Yellow Pages which is primarily used by price sensitive, older shoppers... Hmm. What kind of lead do you want?

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