It’s Time to Get Vocal About Local!

When many people initially think about ‘Local Search’ they imagine the local corner shop around the block. Or they might even imagine the local group of shops near their workplace, business or home. All of these thoughts are correct, but Local Search is so much more than this, which is why Local Search for your business is too. The truth of the matter is that Local Search matters for every type of business there is, regardless of the size of the company, whether it’s situated in the suburbs or smack bang in the middle of your city’s business district. Local is wherever you happen to be at that point in time you perform a local search.

For example, you use Local Search whenever you look for your closest bank’s automatic teller machine (ATM) or your closest newsagent. People are using local search more frequently than ever before thanks to the rise in the number of people performing searches from their mobile devices, because people can’t wait until they are sitting in front of their PC back home or in the office, they need to search for it now! For some of you, this will ring a bell from our ‘Micro-Moments’ blog in May. The take away from this is this local search inherently relies on mobile search.

So what is the impact of local search for your business, you ask? The whole point of online marketing is meeting your customers where they are most likely to be looking for your business and the statistics and data all point to local search! It means your prospective customers will see you as being more relevant to their search query when your listing is triggered by a specific keyword match.

However, in saying this, Local Search is not only important on Google. Local also equals Social! Facebook for example now has ‘Directions’ ads which allow users to obtain directions straight to your business!

It’s important, across any online platform you uitlise, from search to social media, you must keep your details up to date. If you have your business details listed with multiple online directories, for example, and if you move your business location but don’t update these details, then Google will see alternating information about your business and will therefore decrease the organic ranking of your business.

The influence of positive reviews for your business will also have an enormous impact on your business’s local listing. You will find that in Google’s new three listed Local Pack (which has in recent weeks gone from seven to three) that in the top three organic search listings, the average Google Star Review rating also shows. Prospective clients place very high value on these reviews so it helps if you encourage customers who have had a positive experience with your business to leave a Google, or any type of online review, for your business.

Local Search is more important than ever for your small business. Google has increased the important of Local Search for a better mobile device user experience, as seven listings was just four listings too many. This is great news for those businesses in position one to three, but bad news if you were in position four to seven as you are now nowhere to be seen. Competition for position one to three just became a lot fiercer, so if you want to place, you have to be on your game! With mobile search over taking search on PCs, it makes sense for Google to optimise the search experience to be tailored to a mobile device.

Mobile Google AdWords ads have changed too to look a lot more like a local listing. Coincidence? We think not!

If you feel that your business’s Local Search Engine Optimisation could do with a refresh, or perhaps you’re interested in properly investing in a Local online marketing plan, then get in touch with SponsoredLinX today. We have a team of dedicated digital marketing professionals who are all experts in their field. So whether you are interested in Facebook, Google AdWords or SEO, then we have the ideal service for you, which we can tailor to your business’s needs. Contact us today on 0800 480 078 or visit our website for more amazing and up to date resources.

---