Imagine sitting at your desk on any given workday and suddenly realising you’ve worked right through the lunch hour. As your belly growls, you take out your phone and Search for the “best burger restaurant”. The list that pops up does not include burger bars from around the world—it gives you the best options according to where you are.

And that, friends, is the power of local search engine optimisation (SEO), and if you aren’t using it to get a leg up on your small Business competitors, you should be.

Need more convincing? Here are X reasons you should be optimising localised SEO for your small business.

1. It’s Inexpensive

In terms of bang for your buck, you can’t do better than Localised Seo. Boosting your local SEO doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does require some effort.

If you don’t have a Google My Business listing, now is the time to create one. If you do have one, make sure it has up-to-date information like your location(s) and business hours and add photos of your business.

You can also use Google Maps Embed API to add an interactive map to your business website which, in turn, improves your local SEO.

Lastly, encouraging customers to leave reviews on your My Business page is another easy and inexpensive way to boost your local ranking in searches.

2. Increases Visibility for Local Customers

Given the popularity of the “shop local” movement, you can rest assured that potential customers would love to give you their business…if they only knew you were nearby.

If you aren’t optimising local SEO you can be sure you are losing sales—according to Safari Digital, a whopping 97% of internet users search online to find a local business, and 78% of local searches on a mobile device result in an offline purchase.

By optimising local SEO and driving online traffic to your website, you’ll enjoy increased sales as more local customers learn about you and want to support your business.

3. Makes You More Competitive

You may not be showing up when potential customers search for local businesses, but you can bet your competitors are…which means they already have a head start in the race. Why give them that advantage?

It doesn’t matter how exceptional your product or service is—if customers don’t know your business exists, they cannot benefit from what you have to offer. Optimising local SEO ensures your business will give the competition a run for their money.

You can test this by entering your service into a Google search and seeing how you rank. For example, if you sell vacuum cleaners, search for “vacuum cleaners near me” and see where your business ranks in the results.

4. Increases Website Traffic

The whole point of SEO is to connect the people who are looking for your product or services to your business and optimising for local SEO makes sure that happens.

While increased traffic doesn’t automatically guarantee increased sales, the increase of traffic to your site certainly increases the odds that someone who is ready to buy will be among them.

5. Boosts Brand Awareness

The more locals who know about your business, the better. Any time you can get your business name in front of new eyes you increase the likelihood that potential customers will remember your name when they are ready to make a purchase. You also increase the likelihood that they will share your business information with friends and family who are ready to buy.

6. Improves Conversion Rates

Have you ever heard of Filene’s Basement? It was a department store located in the U.S. that became famous for an event called the “Running of the Brides” where they sold thousands of wedding dresses during a one-day sale at bargain-basement prices. Women would show up ready to buy, lining up for blocks in the hopes of getting the dress of their dreams.

Think of local SEO as bringing a virtual version of those same hungry customers right to your website.

Localised SEO gets your business listing in front of people who are interested in your product and/or services—which means those coming to your website from local searches are already interested in what you have to offer.

These leads are much more likely to translate into purchases which, in turn, increase profit.

And so…

Don’t let anyone tell you localised SEO shouldn’t be a priority for your business. Optimising your website to show up in local searches is the best way to connect with the local community and build brand awareness.

If you find you’d like a little assistance in getting your site to show up at the top of local search lists, we’d be happy to help. Contact us at Digital Canteen and allow our team of SEO experts to improve the visibility of your business and convert leads into sales.

Thanks for reading,
Digital Canteen Team
02-9025-4304

The post 6 Reasons Why Your Small Business Needs Local SEO appeared first on Digital Canteen.