Local SEO can be beneficial for small businesses in more ways than one. Professional SEO services are often hard on the pocket for small businesses on tight budgets. However, local SEO can be a cost-effective way to gain visibility and branding.

Before delving into the benefits of local SEO for business in detail, let’s take quick look at what local SEO essentially means.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO refers to optimizing websites so they appear within the first few local search engine results pages (SERPs); be it for Yahoo, Bing or Google. For local SEO to be effective, websites are optimized with respect to an area, city or country.

So, for example, if you own a restaurant in London, local listing optimization will help your restaurants’ website rank higher in a Google keyword search, when someone looks up a restaurant in London.

Benefits of Local SEO

• Rank higher on SERPs

  Optimizing websites for local searches helps them appear higher on the SERP pages. This gets businesses more visibility and visits, as compared to those who do not optimize their websites locally.

• Boost brand awareness

  Being visible on the top search results will get businesses more visibility. And, with more visibility will come, brand awareness. In other words, the more number of people see you in their searches, the more you’ll be able to spread awareness about your business.

• Improve conversions

  Optimizing websites for local searches will get you traffic that’s highly targeted. And, the higher your website appears in local searches, the more visitors you’ll have on your website. This will also increase your conversion rate. So, if you have a conversion rate of 30%, the more the visitors to your website, the more number of conversions you’ll have.

• Maximize ROI

  A website that has been optimized for local searches generates more value since they have more number of customers who are searching for their businesses locally. This is something that businesses that don’t optimize their websites locally tend to lose out on. Investing in local SEO can have significant ROI for businesses, when executed well.

That being said, it’s important for business owners to evaluate if they need to optimize their website for local or global searches. For businesses that need to global search optimization, local SEO may not be beneficial. However, if you’re unsure you can consult an SEO strategy company to find out if your business would benefit from local or global SEO optimization.

How important do you consider local SEO to be for your small business? Share your thoughts and opinions with me in the comments section below.

This article has been edited and condensed.

Jeff Williams is a short story author, freelancer, and columnist for various newspapers, magazines, editorials, etc. He is an active content writer for SeoTuners and various social media, SEO and digital marketing blogs. Jeff believes that blogs are the best way to reach a maximum number of people where one can share one’s views and thoughts. His love for tea and different cultures keeps him busy. When he is not working, he likes to play guitar, dance, and travel far and wide. Connect with @seotuner on Twitter.

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