By Tim Fasano
Can your potential customers find you? This is an important question every business owner has to ask him or herself before embarking on SEO (search engine optimization, or the art of making Google bring customers to you). SEO may seem like one of those buzz words that’s just for the multinational corporations of the world, but more and more, marketers for local businesses are turning to SEO to drive foot traffic to their business.
In their 2013 SEO Marketing Benchmark Survey, researchers at Marketing Sherpa discovered that 54% of marketers find local search, i.e. searches with local keywords (think “plumbers in Rye New York” as opposed to “best plumbers”), to be the best source of new leads. Marketing Sherpa went a step further with a more recent survey and asked how marketers try to make local search work for them.
Marketing Sherpa’s findings reveal a number of tactics that anyone with a personal website or blog can implement right away. 68% of marketers optimized their listing description (on Patch, Yelp, YP, or any other local Directory relevant to their business) with local keywords – i.e. “Serving Rye since 1987 . . .” Of that 68%, 82% said that they added local content to their websites, blog posts, and page titles – a difference as slight as going from “Your local plumbing professional” to “Rye’s #1 plumbing professional.” 77% also added a local business address to their web page to improve their results.
Taking steps of this kind toward local search engine optimization is a definite no-brainer for businesses that rely upon foot traffic – location can be a huge factor in making a purchasing decision, so you’ll want to let your potential customers know that you’re just around the corner. But if you’re a business without borders, and you’d like to get customers from across the country or even the globe, local may not be for you – why limit yourself, just because your offices are in a small town in Georgia? It’s up to you, but with more and more marketing energy going toward local, it’s worth your consideration.
For the full study, read more at Marketing Sherpa.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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