If you are looking to find clients in your area, traditional advertising channels like The Yellow Pages work great. But, if you want to attract online clients looking for local experts in your business, your website must be designed to rank for geographic search. In fact, experts at Search Engine Land estimate that roughly 20 percent of desktop searches and 40 percent mobile searches are local! And that’s not all – Google estimates that 97 percent of consumers search for local businesses online!
Developing a Local Search Strategy – A Closer Look:
There are a number of effective techniques that NewOfferings specializes in. Let’s take a closer look:
Your Website Must Rank Well for Geographic Keywords and Search Terms
Let’s face it, when you go online to look for a local contractor or plumber, you usually type in “Los Angeles Plumbers” right? You don’t want to see plumbers in New Jersey in your search results and using the city name in your search is an effective way of filtering your results.
With that in mind, it’s important for your website to have a page that appears near the top of Google or Bing search results for towns your business services. The old way that webmasters accomplished this was to stuff hundreds of hidden keywords into your web pages hoping that Google would index the page for all of those terms. Google (and Bing) got wise and basically disregards this trick so it was back to the drawing board.
The real solution is to have well written pages for the types of work you do and the areas you attract business from. There are no more shortcuts because GOOD RELEVANT CONTENT IS KING! We are experts at crafting pages using the proper techniques that Google loves.
You Must Make Effective Use of Google Business Channels
Google My Business puts your business on Google Search, Google Maps and Google+. It’s imperative that you have this setup so your clients can find you no matter what device they are using online. Mobile users are (or will be) a huge source of your online business, so you need to be listed along with your phone number, driving instructions to your business, hours of operation and even photos of your building.
You Must Also Be Active on Yelp and Other Social Media Channels
Yelp has become one of the most trusted online resources for customers searching for local businesses so if you want to drive new business from online search, then you need to create and use Yelp! Yelp also ranks very highly for local search so why not take advantage of their dominance in the search results!
At NewOfferings, we provide a full suite of SEO and Social Media solutions that are proven to drive new business. We will look at your existing website and online identites to determine areas that need improvement. In time, these proven techniques are sure to help you find new clients and perfect your online advertising strategy!