Our latest Blog

Building a strong local presence online is only possible with a comprehensive and personalized SEO strategy. Through the integration of listing management services, customer reviews, on-page ranking signals and other factors, local businesses can reach their ideal customer base and secure more sales. But for digital agencies, explaining to business owners why they need SEO services is not always easy.

The Main Reasons Why Local Businesses Need SEO

SEO for local businesses offers a high return on investment that shows no signs of slowing down. As an agency owner, the following reasons can demonstrate to business owners why they need your services.

Increased Local Presence

During the research phase of the buying cycle, consumers turn to search engines, review sites and directories. Agencies can help local clients get found at this stage through local SEO strategies and listing management. Essentially, with a high-quality, relevant backlink profile, local websites increase their discoverability.

Drive Traffic to Offers

Traffic is one of the key pillars of online sales. In order to drive consistent traffic to a sales page, the business’ website must be optimized. Local on-page optimization involves keyword research, title and meta tags, engaging content, internal linking and geographical indicators.  

Increased Brand Awareness

The ability to build positive brand recognition is an important reason for owning local presence for a business. Agencies can help clients increase brand awareness by claiming and optimizing platforms like Google Business Profile (GBP), Bing Places and Yelp. With access to these popular platforms it’s possible to respond to reviews, monitor false information and build a positive brand profile.

Better Conversion Rates

As digital marketers know, incremental improvements can make a big difference to a business’ bottom line. On-page optimization is one of the first ways to improve a conversion rate. This involves testing different calls to action, speeding up loading times, adding social proof and other techniques. You can also increase conversions by successfully pre-selling consumers on GBP and other directory sites.

Lower Customer Acquisition Costs

On-page optimization, off-page optimization and local SEO require some upfront costs. However, through data analysis and optimization, agencies can gradually help businesses reduce these customer acquisition costs. Each stage in the sales funnel can be improved, thus reducing the overall cost of gaining a new customer.

Authority Leads to Accelerated Growth

The time and resources you invest into growing a brand’s authority delivers compound gains over time. For example, by building strong GBP, Bing, Yelp and Google Search profiles, a business can build trust and become recognized as an authority. And from the earned trust of users and search engines, when you publish new content it automatically has an advantage.

Google Local Pack Visibility

Google’s local pack offers the most targeted traffic for a business – searchers are typically in the local area and have searched for a keyword in your industry. Agencies can help local businesses here by effectively maintaining and improving their GBP. Using our Enhanced GBP Tool for Agencies, agency partners can sync the profile to monitor data accuracy and analyze the Google Authority Score. This attention to detail can increase a business’ chances of local pack search visibility.

Access SEO and Listing Management Services for Local Agencies

Advice Local provides high-quality SEO and local presence management tools for digital agencies and marketing partners. Our listing management solutions and Data Amplifier Network can help your local business clients achieve greater search visibility and make more sales. Call 509-901-9735 or request a demo today.

Originally posted by Advice Local, “Why Local Businesses Need SEO & How You Can Help Them”