It was not so long ago that local SEO was not a concern to the beginning businessperson at all; moving their wares to the online space only required an understanding of techniques that are now mostly defunct.

Google’s Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird updates made a lot of previously viable ranking methods mostly obsolete. The only thing that has been consistently shown to work for ranking well in the search engines, is to produce content that answers a need for the public, while also conducting some SEO for the benefit of the search spiders (the robots that gather information for rank placement).

Today, local SEO services are among the most certain acquisitions for website owners who are serious about ranking. The industry numbers show that people are overwhelmingly conducting local searches for the products and services they want – and the searches they conduct from their mobile devices lead to conversions at a higher rate than any other form of investigation:

Internet local searches performed on smartphones: 50 percent of these leads to actual webstore visitations within a 24-hour period

Internet local searches performed on desktop computers, laptops and tablets: 34 percent of these leads to actual webstore visitations within 24 hours.

Additionally, it is decidedly clear that SEO services that are focused on getting businesses more local traffic are here to stay, as greater and greater numbers of consumers shift their focus to services that are close to where they live.

Using Local SEO to Help an Online Business Prosper

Much of what can be done to obtain local search engine visibility for a company pertains to the on-page factors. Google’s latest algorithm contains elements that actively search for pointers that denote local services. The sheer popularity of local search thus far strongly suggests that local optimization will play an even bigger role in the updates to come. These are the most pertinent features to optimize:

1. The Meta Details of the Company Website
The Meta details of a web page refers to the Meta title, the Meta description, etc; every single page on the domain should possess a different title tag. If feasible, naturally incorporate the location into this title: “Seattle SEO Company,”, for example, instead of just writing “SEO Company.”

The description should briefly tell the reader what the page is about; use relevant long-tail keywords for search engine optimization, as well as the state, city or town where the primary offices are located.

Use multiple HTML headers – H1 tags for main titles when writing content, and H2 for subtitles within the content. The website address should be relatively free of stop words and should describe the page succinctly.

2. Content is King
When producing content for a website, it should be written for the human reader – not in an attempt to game the search engine algorithm. All of these methods, even if they work for awhile, eventually stop working as Google’s updates combat the deception.

When writing about products and services, do so with an eye towards fulfilling a customer need. One way to do this is to write about how it works and link to useful resources that expand on the topic. Having a question-and-answer section at the end of a blog post works wonders for SEO – both local and global. Keywords should be inserted into the content naturally.

It is very helpful to include contact information that is consistent across the board. The zip code, area code, city location, etc should all check out; the phone number provided should be only the business number – not a dual number that doubles as a personal and business phone. Avoid P.O. Boxes in favor of actual physical addresses that can be located using Google Earth.

Lastly, any search engine optimization company worth the name would advise a website owner to use the best, high-resolution images she can find. Alt tags are just as important as quality, and the description in the appropriate box will be read by the search engines and possibly added to Google Images.

3. Create Local SEO Profile Pages for Business
Another important consequence of the recent updates to Google’s search algorithm is the elevation of local profile pages. In particular, every business should have a Google+ Local page for every city with a representative office. For added recognition, each of these profiles should be verified by following the official directions here.

Having a method for allowing customer reviews on the site is great for marketing and SEO purposes. With rich code snippets, for example, a website owner can fashion the code such that the reviews show up underneath the site’s listing in Google’s search results.

Attracting New Clients Through Local SEO

Businesses in the local area have limited advantages when it comes to attracting customers, including all that are enumerated herein:

✓ Potential customers are depend on the Internet when searching for products and services they need. There is approximately 64 percent of online searchers use search packs like Google and online search engines as their main source of information about a product or service.
✓ Google search entries have continued to raise in number and has presented an increase of 58 percent—twice the growth increase rate in general search entries.
✓ Businesses can trust search engines like Google when promoting their business locally online for local searchers are highly targeted.
✓ Local SEO yields higher conversion rates compared with traditional advertising strategies.
✓ Mobile apps are now the newest shopping trend. Local customer have their phone wherever they go and they basically use this portable device when searching for something they need.
✓ Local SEO yields higher profit and significantly increases ROI.
✓ Not so many businesses have discovered the many features of Local SEO. Therefore, the use of this strategy makes attracting customers less competitive for those who have already included Local SEO in their local marketing campaign.
✓ There is a number of free Local SEO opportunities and services that are very cost-effective.
✓ The Internet has become the go-to source of information, news and current affairs. By employing Local SEO to your online marketing campaign, you can reach local customers and even a much bigger online audience.
✓ Approximately 70 percent of local consumers trusts online reviews and word of mouth. Therefore, business owners must be strategic when encouraging customers to write or post a review about their product or service.

Local SEO is now one of the most effective strategy in a successful online marketing campaign. Now is the time for local businesses to employ the expert services of Local SEO experts and take their marketing campaign to a new level. Local SEO might be relatively new in this industry, it has been proven to have great capabilities and features that support the growth of many local businesses.

Employing professional Local SEO experts to assist you in designing a Local SEO strategy will significantly impact your business. To start taking advantage of local SEO services today, call Authority Solutions™ now.

Link Building for Local SEO

Many local searches are done with the aid of business directories. As a result, it really helps a local business to obtain backlinks from these sources; furthermore, these links improve your search engine results page rank as the pages command greater streams of traffic. Business owners should focus on getting links from more local sources than global these days, as the search algorithm appears to prioritize the latter more for highly targeted local SEO.

These links can come from community events, organizations in the same city or state, and even schools. Some savvy business owners organize internships for students in the air and use these as link-building enterprises.

This just touches the tip of the iceberg on local SEO optimization; to learn how a professional SEO company can help your business dominate the local search landscape for your chosen keywords, contact Authority Solutions™.