LOCAL BUSINESS SEARCH VISIBILITY
Local business search listings are CRITICAL to online marketing.
Twenty-four percent of all searches have local business intent. As the result, steps must be taken to optimize your business’s local search visibility so searchers can find your business.
What exactly is Local Search?
At some point you’ve probably heard that you need a local search marketing strategy. In fact, 72 percent of consumers who perform a local search will visit a store within five miles. So a local search visibility strategy is more important than ever.
But, what exactly is local search marketing?
Some marketers call it local SEO, but we like to think of local search as a more integrated approach to marketing for local businesses. Local search visibility is all about putting your business on the map. Especially in local searches when customers are searching for a business like yours from mobile devices like smartphones.
A more formal explanation is that local search marketing is a form of website and search engine optimization. It will help your business be consistently visible in any relevant local search.
As you see in the adjacent image, “coffee shops near me” first shows a local pack (the box at the top). This appears before they display the links to the organic search results below it. A big part of local search marketing is making your business show up in that local pack. This will help prospective customers more easily identify and choose your business.
Ready to improve the Local Search Visibility of your site?
Start a Live Chat Session
Have questions about an upcoming project? Start a Live Chat with our team by clicking the button below or from any page on our website using Live Chat icon in the lower right hand corner of the page.
Let’s talk about Local Search Visibility for your website!
Submit the request form below and someone from our Analytics team will reach out to you IMMEDIATELY to discuss how our Local Search Visibility services can deliver measurable results and drive informed decision making.
Let’s talk about modernizing your site!
Send us a request and someone from our team will reach out to you IMMEDIATELY to setup a meeting to discuss the redesign and modernization of your existing website.
How does Local Search work?
To build a local search presence, you’ll need to optimize your online information so search engines include your business with the appropriate search results – so consumers can easily find all the information they need in order to choose your business.
To give your business the best opportunity to be listed in relevant local search results, we will need to provide the search engines with relevant content and information about your business and its services.
How is this done? We must start by providing consistently accurate business name, address, phone number and web address to all the major directories so the search engines know exactly where you’re located and exactly what products/services your business provides.
It is critical that this information be exactly consistent across all directories as this will show the search engines they can trust your business. If, however, your listings on those popular directories contain inaccurate, inconsistent information, the search engine won’t know if it can trust your business.
This lack of consistency will hurt or penalize your local search ranking, which means your business will not show up consistently and as the result, consumers are much less likely to find you when they’re searching for the products and services you provide.
Instead….they are going to find your competition. No bueno!
So where do we start?
As a local search marketing company, we will start with the basics and audit your website. Additionally, we will review the major directories and search engines for your business and see how you stack up. We will establish a baseline.
If your business is new, we will create new profiles for your business in these directories and search engines. If your business is established, we’ll need to claim these pages and correct or complete the information.
We typically start with the following directories:
- Google My Business
- Bing Places for Business
- Yahoo!
- Trip Advisor
These websites all have a big impact on your local search ranking. We will want to make sure your information is correct and consistent across them all. Keep in mind, directories like Trip Advisor, Yelp and social media often show up near the top of the organic search results.
In addition, we want to make sure your info is correct and consistent even in Facebook, Trip Advisor and Yelp. This way, if someone scans past the local pack they will still go straight to your social media or other profiles.
Search engines like Google and Bing don’t just take the information you give them as the truth. They also use information from other data gathering sources to confirm your data is accurate. Sources such as Infogroup, Acxiom, Localeze and Factual.
Therefore if your business’s information is different in many directories, the search engines will be confused. They won’t know where or when to list your business in search results.
Seventy-two percent of consumers who perform a local search will visit a store within five miles…so a local search visibility strategy is more important than ever. Especially when customers are searching from mobile devices like smartphones.
Ready to take the next step?
Successfully conquering Local Business Search Optimization & Visibility can be a pretty daunting task for even the most experienced DIY’er. So if you’re ready to get some help and let us show you how properly tuned Local Search Engine visibility can dramatically improve your business and fit into your budget, we are ready to help!
Give us a call at (240) 399-3900, contact us online using the form on this page, or start a conversation with one of our representatives using the Live Chat button on the lower right corner of the screen and we can get started. The process is easy, we will take very good care of you along the way…and you will definitely be pleased and most likely surprised by the results!
