Did you know that according to SEO Tribunal, about 78% of location-specific searches made through mobile phones resulted in an offline purchase, and that 97% of consumers learn more about a local business via online channels than from any other medium? If there’s anything that these statistics prove, it is that local searches can potentially bring in a good number of sales as well as serve as an incredible means to boost the brand awareness of a business, provided that you exploit the local market.

The most effective way to tap into your local market is to implement a local SEO strategy in order to make your business more discoverable and accessible to the local people that are looking for it. With that said, this article will walk you through what local SEO is as well as the major benefits of local SEO for businesses in Philadelphia.

Local SEO – What Does It Mean?

Local SEO is an inventive digital marketing tactic that does not have an official definition; however, various businesses and agencies have put forward their own descriptions of this marketing strategy. For instance, Moz describes local SEO as a technique designed and implemented for the sole purpose of increasing the search visibility of business that offer face-to-face services to the people of their community.

It could be a brick-and-mortar business having a physical facility, for instance, or a business and firms operating in a specific geographic region. Another definition of local SEO is a marketing strategy that provides search results that are relevant to a consumer depending on their location.

To put it simply, local SEO is a subset of SEO marketing that focuses primarily on enhancing the local Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ranking of a business to make the business more discoverable to people located in or near the area where the business is located.

Local search engine optimization is very similar to traditional SEO writing, with the exception that the keywords employed this time are focused more on the location of the business and contain the name of the city, state, or town in which the business is located.

In summary, local SEO employs a variety of tactics to help your company rank higher in local searches. Local searches basically imply the search for any product or business in a specific area. This, for example, applies when a user enters a particular location in their searches. For example, the best digital marketing agency in Philadelphia.

Local SEO Philadelphia – Why Businesses in Philadelphia Should Care about Local SEO

If you already have an organic SEO strategy in motion, you may wonder as to why you should employ a local SEO strategy for your Philadelphia located business. Were you aware of the fact that 46% of all searches made on Google are local searches?

This means that out of an estimated 5.6 billion searches made on Google each day, over 2.5 billion searches are for local businesses and services. This means that by neglecting the implementation of a local SEO strategy for your Philadelphia located business; you’re missing out on nearly half of your potential customers and hence nearly half of the profits.

Still not convinced? Here are some major benefits of implementing local SEO in your business’ marketing strategy:

Enhanced Foot Traffic to Your Physical Outlet, Store, or Facility

A majority of foot traffic that any business gets is from the people that reside in the vicinity of the business or in a close-by area. This means that making your business more discoverable to the people of your locality is one of the most effective ways to get more foot traffic to your physical outlets, storefronts, offices, or facilities.

When a consumer makes a Google search for a certain type of business in their area, the search engine algorithm returns a list of top-ranking companies that match their criteria based on the keyword they entered. This algorithm considers a number of parameters and has a significant impact on what people see in search results.

As a result, the top-ranking companies appear in both local organic search results and Google Maps, where users can click to learn more about the business, get directions to the business, and access more details related to the business, such as the phone number and opening and closing times. The ease of availability of such information familiarizes the consumer with the business making them more inclined towards selecting and visiting such a business over a competitor they know nothing about.

In fact, a business without a local SEO strategy may not even be a consideration for the local consumers as the likelihood of them not being aware of the business increases. To put this into a better perspective, a study shows that 72% of the people who made a local search actually visited a store or business they found within 5 miles of their own location.

In a nutshell, if your business incorporates local SEO in its marketing strategy, you enhance the likelihood of being found by potential local clients who can then use your physical address and other vital information available on Google Maps to visit your facility. The better the strategy, the higher you’ll be ranked, and hence a greater number of people in your vicinity will visit your business.

Excellent Conversion Rates

Having ample online and foot traffic will do you no good if your lead conversion rates are poor. Conversion rate essentially means changing a lead into a sale or a potential customer into a customer by persuading them into buying your product or service.

Needless to say, the profitability of a business largely relies on the traffic it receives as well as how high the conversion rates are. You may be surprised to learn that local SEO strategy offers some of the best lead conversion rates of any marketing strategy.

Speaking in numbers, it has been found that around 28% of purchases are a result of local searches. This can be due to the fact that a majority of people have this pre-programmed belief that any business with a high SERP rank is one that is reliable and an authority in their respective field of business.

This trustworthy and authoritative persona means that consumers are less critical and reluctant toward high-ranking businesses and are, therefore, easier to turn into sales.

Optimized User Experience

The quality of your business’ website is a crucial ranking criterion used by search engine algorithms in determining a SERP rank for a website. According to the Search Engine Journal, evolutions in the Google search engine algorithm have allowed Google to distinguish between pleasant or bad user experiences.

When a user conducts a search, they expect a quick and succinct response. If a user encounters a poorly optimized website, such as mobile incompatibility or never-ending popups, the user is likely to leave the site within seconds. When a user leaves a website too quickly, Google interprets this as an indication of a poor user experience and that the website does not deliver value to its visitors.

As a result, the Google search engine algorithm allocates a low SERP rank to websites with high bounce rates.

Knowing this, one can begin to understand the connection between an effective local SEO strategy and the user experience. Executing a well-crafted local SEO strategy requires you to optimize and improve the quality of your business website in order to achieve a high SERP rank. Doing so directly makes the user experience more fluid and enjoyable, which translates to better value for visitors and, in turn, higher lead conversion rates.

Offers Highly Targeted and Quality Leads

Using generic keywords such as “best digital marketing agency” or “best lawyer” generates not only a high volume of searches but also scales up the competition by biding your business against a greater number of competitors, some of which may even be more dominant and established on the global or national scale.

Furthermore, if you’re a small business offering your services or products in only your area, using generic keywords also means that you could attract irrelevant leads that are situated outside your operational zone.

Therefore, while organic SEO is an immensely effective lead-generating marketing strategy in its own right, it, however, is not suitable for a small business aspiring to compete and capture the relevant market in its own locality.

On the contrary, implementing local SEO by using long-tail, area-specific keywords can help you reach out to a highly targeted audience segment that is relevant to your field of business and is also situated in the close vicinity of your business.

This means lower competition as well as higher-quality leads and hence better conversion rates and profitability.

Helps Form a Community

Having a solid community is one of the best leverages you could have over your competitors. First of all, having a certain number of devoted supporters means that you can count on having a fixed number of sure sales each year and on each product launch.

Additionally, communities are excellent channels for free and effective advertisement in which your supporters promote news and events related to your business, such as product launches and any flash deals or sales you might have out on your services and product line, on their social media profiles.

Not to forget, communities tend to expand over time through word-of-mouth marketing where each community member will introduce as well as put in a good word for your business before their friends, family, and associates leading to increased brand awareness.

Having more local backlinks is not only a wonderful strategy to improve your ranking, but it also paves the way to mutually beneficial professional partnerships.

Local SEO Provides 24/7 Promotion

Local SEO, in fact, SEO in general, is a marketing technique based on search engines. As such, SEO strategies remain effective for as long as search engines are being used, and since we all know that search engines do not have a set number of working hours during which they are active, neither do local SEO strategies.

This means that whenever a consumer uses a search engine to make a search about a business related to your field and located in your area, your local SEO strategy will play its part, whatever time of day or day of the week it is, to help your business rank higher on local search listings.

Furthermore, since local SEO is a free marketing strategy, you don’t have to worry about your marketing budget running dry and terminating your SEO strategy, as would be the case for a paid marketing strategy such as social media marketing. This aspect of local SEO makes it an ideal marketing tactic for businesses in Philadelphia that are low on marketing budget.

SEO is unique in that it allows your business to reach users while they are looking for you, rather than on a billboard on the way in or out of town.

Offers a Great Return on Investment (ROI)

When assessing the viability of any marketing approach, return on investment (ROI) is one of the top considerations, if not the most important.

Being a free marketing technique, local SEO requires little to no investment. Additionally, while results of local SEO may be relatively slow, they are consistent and high-yielding compared to many other marketing strategies.

Reports show that the closing rate for leads generated by search engines is 14.6%. Traditional marketing tactics such as cold calling and direct mailing, on the other hand, only get a 1.7 percent close rate, which is roughly 12% lower than SEO marketing. Moreover, businesses ranked on the first results page on Google receive 33% of the entire search engine traffic.

Increased search engine exposure directly improves internet traffic and net revenue, making ROI one of the most significant benefits of local SEO.

However, businesses in Philadelphia will only be able to reap the benefits of local SEO if they are ranked on the first results page of Google and other search engines. Low-ranking websites that get listed on the second page or after hardly get any leads.

Local SEO Philadelphia – Contact a Professional

The first step to growing your business to a national or even an international scale is to build a solid foundation in your local market. 92% of consumers choose businesses that are ranked on the first page of local searches. This means that a high SERP ranking for local searches is vital, especially for locally operating businesses, to capture a sizeable share in their local market.

It is important to note, however, that local SEO is a constantly evolving marketing technique consisting of a variety of elements, all of which need to be perfected in order to execute a well-crafted strategy. Doing so requires experience and thorough knowledge of the industry, which is why businesses in Philadelphia should seek out the assistance of a professional digital marketing agency in Philadelphia, such as Philly Online Marketing.  

They have years of experience helping clients devise custom marketing tactics tailored specifically to their business requirements and niche, and are qualified to provide a range of digital marketing services to all kinds of businesses.