How Does Local SEO Benefit Your Business?
Our belief: We believe that the local businesses that have the best products and services should be the companies that have the most customers. However, this is often not the case. Many times, the business that has the most customers is the business that spends the most money on marketing.
We created a LocalFi Accelerated Maps Package specifically for these businesses, to give them the freedom to focus on what they do best, which is serving the community, while we take care of their marketing systems to ensure that they are seen as one of the best companies in the area and have a constant flow of new customers walking through their doors or giving them a call.
So what is Local SEO?
Let me ask you – have you ever used Google Maps or Yelp to find a restaurant or a salon or any business near you? That’s what Local SEO is. In fact, Local SEO and being shown on these map finders has become the number one way that customers are finding new businesses.
You can probably relate because you’ve used it yourself. Local SEO has been continuously shown to be the highest ROI marketing avenue that local businesses can take.
Not only that, but unlike paid ads where once your budget is gone those ads no longer help you, using Local SEO marketing you’re building marketing assets that will benefit your business for the rest of its life.
So why is Local SEO and digital marketing so important? Think about this: Google Maps is the most used application in the world, with over 50% of the human population signing onto Google Maps at least once per month.
Google Maps SEO
When somebody looks at a local listing site, 90% of the time they will make a purchasing decision within one day
Why Should Your Google Maps Ranking Matter To You?
That means that people who look at local listing sites are ready to buy what you have to offer right now. On top of that, Google has recognized how powerful local search is, and is now showing local search results in the map three-pack on a regular Google search above websites. In fact, the Google map pack results get 45% of all clicks, compared to the first website which only gets 12%. So not only are you able to significantly improve communication with your customers about what you offer, but you’re actually getting the most prime real estate you can on Google for a fraction of the cost required to rank your website.
Let me ask you another question:
If you drove to your business and saw the sign outside your business was broken, would you fix it pretty quickly? Well, guess what!? There’s an extremely high chance that your signs online are broken.
What it comes down to is if you’ve ever changed the name of your business, moved locations, or moved into a location that was a previous business, there is incorrect data out there online that is not only confusing your customers but it penalizes your ranking on Google and all the other search engines.
On top of all that, since Google has had so much success with Google My Business Google Maps listings, they’ve put major resources in expanding what you’re able to do with your Google My Business listing. Now you’re actually able to create posts, promote events, specials, sales and you can even highlight different product offerings that you have.
We’ve been able to open up entirely new streams of business and revenue for our clients, purely by promoting a service that they were offering already but that nobody knew they had, through local marketing.
A Real-Life Example
At one point in time, Galina Fine Jewelers had a thriving gold buying business but that had completely dried up by the time we started working with them. We started promoting the fact that they did gold and jewelry buying through their local accounts and through their GMB (Google My Business) listing. And then one day we get a call from the owner, and she tells me that a woman came in, bought jewelry, left, went home, went online, saw that they offered gold buying through a Google post that we had done for them, came back in and sold them $5k worth of jewelry and gold.
This woman was in the store and didn’t know that they offered gold buying, and yet they were still able to capitalize on that and have been able to massively grow that industry back up because of how we’ve been able to promote them on their local listing platforms and Google.
How Do Online Reviews Affect Your Business?
Did you know Over 90% of people say they believe online reviews as much as their friends and family referring them to a company?!
Google My Business and other local listing platforms allow you to collect testimonials and reviews. Reviews are social proof which helps encourage people to want to do business with you.
At LocalFi: SEO Digital Marketing Agency, Reputation Management is extremely important in convincing your prospects to choose your services and offerings over your competition. Google actually looks at how often your business gets reviews and how quickly they’re being responded to in relevance to your ranking online.
In short, if you haven’t optimized your Google My Business profile and aren’t actively working on your local listing platforms, your Local SEO, and your online reputation, you’re leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table every year!
Make the choice to get found online where people are searching!