Is local SEO still relevant for small businesses?
The majority of small businesses in the UK cater to a local audience. They are shops, bars, restaurants, cafes, local builders and artisans, high street salons and butchers, hardware stores and the like.
For these businesses, having a coherent strategy for local SEO in Glasgow is not just desirable it’s critical.
What is local SEO?
Let’s say I’m in Glasgow. I’ve got my mobile phone with me and fancy eating a curry one evening. I open my browser and type in Indian restaurant near me.
Google comes back with some search results. At the top of the page, there may be some paid-for ads. On sites like Google and Bing, you will next get a map of the local area with various pins identifying local Indian restaurants. Below will be organic listings from websites related to the most popular restaurants.
If you own an Indian restaurant or a company that offers Scalp Micropigmention In Glasgow, then you want your establishment to appear in that listing somewhere, hopefully near the top and in the most prominent place.
Put simply, that’s the power of local SEO.
Why is it relevant? Most of us nowadays will search online if we want to find a particular service. Perhaps you live in Rutherglen and want to hire a carpenter to build a new wardrobe. Maybe you’re looking for beauticians offering certain services in Bishopbrigss or you want to join a local gym in central Glasgow near where you work.
If your business is invisible, no one is going to know where you are, who you are or what amazing services you provide. Because you’ve done your SEO well, Google shows that your Indian restaurant is just a couple of hundred yards down the road and it’s open right now.
Your new diner is on the way.
Why implementing a local SEO strategy works
While the impact of local SEO is easy to see, implementing the appropriate strategy is often confusing for business owners. There lots of different strands and approaches that, when added together, help push you up those rankings and ahead of your competitors.
The problem for many businesses is that it can be difficult to get to grips with all these different facets. For example, making sure that your website design is mobile-ready is critical. Why? Because half of the searches today are done on a smartphone.
Download speed is also important, as is the ease of navigation on your site, and that’s even before you’ve gotten to keyword selection and your page content.
Google is by far the most popular internet search engine on the planet so if you need to allocate resources make sure you concentrate here first. For a start, you’ll need to create a Google My Business listing if you want to appear on their results map – how you fill that in and the content you create can make a big difference to your ranking.
Half of the searches on any site like Google have a local intent – that means thousands of searches every day in a busy city like Glasgow and the surrounding area. If you can figure out what people are searching for and provide the perfect answer to their query, you should attract more customers to your business. This might, for example, involve creating location-specific pages for your site that revolve around keyword combinations such as plumber in Rutherglen or café in Govan.
Local SEO Glasgow
While it can take time and effort to get your local SEO ranking how you ideally want it, the good news is that this organic approach is often more sustainable and delivers a strong return on investment.
If you want to find out how implanting a local SEO strategy will work for your business, contact Mark Slorance SEO today.
