How Important is Local SEO to Your Business?

The importance of local Search Engine Optimization cannot be overemphasized, as many businesses and marketers are already taking advantage of its benefits.
As the clock ticks, local SEO will continue to be relevant for enterprise companies for the following reasons:

Local Scale Exposure

The main reason for using local SEO is that it will target the people in the area where your business is established. This makes SEO a powerful tool for the small business owners who have recently started their enterprises.
Leverage local online resources like Craigslist, Angie’s List, and Yelp. Advertise in local classifieds.
Make sure to upload high-quality images and videos and other items relevant to your business on sites like these.

Link Building and Social Sharing

Another important part of using local SEO is the creation of potential partnerships between two business firms. It creates a link between them and also helps in social sharing purposes.
In this process, it helps marketers to meet potential clients who can help you grow your business in the future. Meetings with other website owners and local bloggers can change your approach toward business in a positive way. You can initiate an event or a new business idea together for future profit-making strategies as well.
Marketers can build and share their link with local search engines like Google Places, Bing Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Foursquare and YP.

Growth of Mobile and Wearable Devices

In 10 countries, including the U.S. and Japan, more Google searches take place on a mobile device than a PC. And with the popularity of wearable devices, like smartwatches, more and more searches will happen on the go. As a result of this, local and proximity-based searches will become more frequent.
According to Adam Farra, CEO of HostGator, “Society today is already transitioning from PCs to mobile Internet usage, so local SEO will be a necessity, not a ‘nice to have’ in the very near future.”

Business Extension

Your website is considered to be a second location of your business. With the help of local SEO, you are actually making it easier for the users to interact with your business. This makes it easier to locate and study your business’s webpage and also update it with informative and engaging content which is relevant for the growth of business in the future.
It is very important to consider all these for optimizing your website with regard to the use of local SEO.
Constant revision of content to your website will keep it updated and also your clients will have a better idea about your services, products and promotions.
TouchBistro, an iPad Point-of-Sale (POS) app for restaurants, used its site to advertise partnering with Uber to provide a $20 promotional credit to those who dined at TouchBistro-affiliated restaurants in Toronto. Participating restaurants were given promotional cards with codes to give to customers, who could then download the Uber app to access their $20 credit.
TouchBistro and Uber plan on partnering in other cities, too.

Profit Maker

If the steps and processes are followed correctly, local SEO will help businesses make more profit along with the much needed online exposure.
Traffic for your website can increase exponentially and immediately if your site is listed in the top spot of search engine results. If your business has a physical location, just how important is local SEO to your bottom line?
According to a recent study, 78 percent of local mobile searches and 61 percent of local laptop searches resulted in purchases offline. In the U.S. alone, there are 7 billion unique local searches monthly. As far as conversion rates go, it could be much worse.
Prompt visibility for your business is due in large proportion to local SEO. Just make sure you’re providing the right content to the right people, driving their online searches to your business.
Source : smallbiztrends