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SEO In 2015: Is Local SEO right for every Small Business?

Local Search Marketing Advice and Tips

If your small business serves a single location and its nearby areas, it is necessary to make sure your website is optimized locally is very crucial. If you're business is in a location and expect people to be able to find you on Google for that location, then you should be optimizing your website pages for your local area. Yes, Local SEO is very important for small businesses. In 2015, Local SEO should be integral part of your online marketing efforts.

Local SEO Service For Small Business
Local SEO For Small Business

What is the difference between doing "Search Engine Optimization or SEO" and doing "Search Engine Marketing or SEM"?


In simple term, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is focused on organic search results which helps getting to the top of the page when a user searches for keywords related to your business. Whereas SEM or Search Engine Marketing revolves around choosing the right keywords to invest any small business in advertising when you want to appear in the paid search results on major search engines. 

SEO and SEM Services Mumbai
SEO Vs SEM

The Difference Between SEM and SEO

The difference between these two terms is that SEO is simply a component of SEM. Search Engine Optimization includes components of  On-Site SEO- Keywords research and implementing this on title tags. meta tags, heading tags etc, optimize website speed, much more and Off-site SEO - create high quality natural links, authoritative links, social sharing links, social bookmarking, directory submission and much more. Search Engine Marketing includes components of paid search, such as PPC (Pay Per Click) and also SMM (Social Media Marketing).


Negative impact of doing Local SEO in 2015

Lets check few scenarios where your SEO clients  might have second thoughts after Local SEO done right.

1. Not Getting Increased Calls For Business


If your local SEO is done right, you’re going to get increased calls. But the question is getting phone calls are good or bad thing? Well, not all calls can be from your prospective clients. One of our SEO client for "Wedding Photographers" for whom we implemented Local SEO  started getting calls referring from website but mostly for getting quotes.



Bottom line, Consider having a live answering service to make sure that your business is available 24/7 (or your business hours). Or you can consider having a virtual phone system for small businesses with no storefront, also for business having more than one owner. This can help you to return client calls from your mobile cell  phones, but have caller ID displayed your business number.


2. Increased Customer Chek-ins at Your Business Location

If your local SEO is done right, you will receive regular check-ins at your business store front. In simple term, increased foot traffic at your physical location. Again, customer check-ins  “a negative”? Possibly only for small businesses doing selling online and not having a business storefront.

Social media check-ins act as a free form of word-of-mouth marketing. Not only do check-ins increase brand recognition, but they also improve your small business’s exposure on search engines. Check-in can open the door for positive word-of-mouth, and lead to good online reviews.

Bottom line, If your business don't have any physical location, then you should decide whether local marketing is still a good idea to drive traffic to your online business.

3. Conferring with Customers

When using local SEO for small business, your clients will, at some point, expect to confer with a human, have discussions; exchange opinions etc for your product and services.

Just to clarify this is not a bad thing at all. You already have a business storefront, and deliver your services or products to your clients, and in most cases willing to meet or speak via phone to them, so all is generally well. For certain business types such as micro businesses operating in satellite locations or virtually—this is something those business types will want to reconcile.

If a prospect has searched for “Taxi Mumbai,” for example, and your company website comes up in Google for that search then it’s very likely that a phone call or a visit will be their immediate intention. 

Is your business prepared for that?

Bottom line, If you’re shy on interacting directly with your market, you can consider having a answering service option; then, hire a quality online virtual admin to do customer callbacks for you at a predetermined time each day. Train your admin well on customer service and the nuances of your business, so that they’re able to answer about your business product or service questions that may pop up.

When doing Local SEO every small business mush have someone ready to manage in-person or live contact with your market in some capacity.

Local SEO in 2015 can mean relatively rapid online lead generation for your small business but having a representative lined up to manage the contacts you’ll surely receive will be integral to your online marketing campaign’s success!

SEO Services Company Mumbai
Local SEO Services Company Mumbai

5 Important Tips For Local SEO

Following are the 5 tips to help you to get local search traffic to your website:

  1. Accuracy Of Your Business Listing

    1. It is very important part in Local SEO to have accuracy and consistency of NAP.
    2. NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone number.
    3. Major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines get business listing information from many sources.  Including, you entering your own business info, government sources, user generated content (apps like FourSquare and Swarm) and data providers.  Ans, it’s important that you have a way to monitor all of your business listings accurately and that you can affect change to any incorrect listings in an efficient way. 

  1. Locally Optimized Directory Listings

    1. ‘Links’ play a major role in determining your ranking position on search results. Obtaining inbound links or backlinks in quantity and quality can influence your search engine rank immensely. One of the simple way to obtain backlinks is to submit your link to online business directories. The sole purpose of these online directories is to  providing links to web users to various sites categorized under relevant topics. Directory submission or listings is a website optimization and off-site SEO strategy that no website owner should ignore.

  1. Social Signals

    1. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus(+), Pinterest and more impacts your search engine rankings.
    2. Social Media is Still an Important Way to Build Your Brand and Increase Website Traffic but is not part of Google's search algorithm.
    3. Social Media has an indirect but powerful impact on search rankings. Your social activity and result of  that activity, increases the chance of obtaining links and exposure from the group of people who power the link graph.

  1. Getting Local Consumer Reviews

    1. Online local business reviews have always been a part of Google and good business management.
    2. Customers are likely to trust the opinions of other customers much more than service providers descriptions, it is important to add a section to your online store is likely to yield tangible results.
    3. Reviews for your small business on a general level can help you understand the needs of your customers and help you to improve or adapt what services you provide, what products you sell and how you deal with customers.

  1. HyperLocal SEO Campaign

    1. If you run a small business that serves a local client base then it’s crucial to increase your visibility on local searches. By ranking locally in your service areas on major search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, this increases your visibility which increases your chance to make a sale.
    2. The business end goal is to create as many local "connections" between your small business and other local businesses in the area. Which will send a strong signal to the search engines that your online business is hyper relevant to a specific location because it is connected with other local businesses. And its going local through association.



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