When done correctly, SEO can drastically increase your sales and ensure that your business stays ahead of the competition. However, regular SEO is not enough. Local optimization is a must if you have a physical location, though it can be used for many types of businesses. When someone is looking to purchase products or services and is ready to make a purchase, they will usually do a local search. If you haven’t optimized your website, you miss out on those sales. The searcher will simply choose a business from the local pack or the top search engine results, leaving you high and dry. Don’t miss out on sales. Make sure your website is ready for the searchers.

What is Local SEO?

Before you can understand local SEO marketing, you should know what general search engine optimization is. This method of marketing ensures that your website shows up when people search for related terms in Google or other search engines. Since Google is currently the largest search engine and has the most traffic, most people aim to get on Google’s good side. While the search algorithms are always being adjusted and tweaked, a good, solid strategy can weather nearly any change. Local SEO focuses on local search terms. When your website is optimized for local search, you will tend to gain more localized traffic, which can increase sales. The search terms include geographic references, such as a town, state or country. Some may even include neighborhoods or specific streets. The more specific terms are considered to be hyper-local. Optimizing your website is more than just adding a few keywords to the content, however. It is a complicated mix of onsite and off-site SEO. From link building and quality content creation to establishing citations and using social media, there are dozens of ways to ensure search engines are impressed with your website. Local SEO takes time to implement, but it is certainly worth it. You may start seeing results fairly quickly, even if you are working on the optimization yourself. Many companies prefer to outsource the majority of their search engine optimization to save time and energy. This book will show you exactly what you need to know in order to promote your website through local search engine optimization. You’ll learn both onsite and off-site optimization and how to leverage your existing relationships with other companies to help increase your rankings in the search results. You will also find out just how important social media is and why you should be paying attention to it. Even if you plan to outsource your SEO, it’s a good idea to understand what is involved. This will enable you to understand more when speaking to your SEO company and you will be able to stay on top of any changes made to your site. You’ll also be able to check the work that the company is doing for you and appreciate the end result.