Nowadays, all types of businesses, including small, medium, and large, are turning to the internet for brand promotion and growth. They have realized how powerful online visibility is for their businesses and are doing everything possible to take advantage of this opportunity.
In the process, SEO has become extremely beneficial for websites, particularly for small eCommerce businesses that rely on visitors from major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others.
More importantly, Local SEO empowers small businesses offering services to local customers, to generate highly converting leads and be more competitive within their market scope.
Essentially, any local business with a target market may benefit from local SEO. However, there are specific business types where local search can truly shine. Let’s take a look at six of the most important ones.
1. Bars and Restaurants
The hospitality industry offers products and services that will always be in demand and, for that reason, it has one of the highest turnovers and most consistent operations throughout the year. Considering that most bars and restaurants serve customers in the local vicinity, owners strive to make their enterprises a community staple.
This necessitates a large number of returning customers. So, besides offering high-quality services that would encourage customers to return, these businesses can use Local SEO to improve their visibility to new customers.
With the increase of search queries with “near me” suggestions, bars and restaurants ought to include their business locations on Google My Business and garner positive reviews from customers to be prominent in listings and capture more customers. These businesses cannot survive without consistent customer acquisition and a high retention rate.
2. Real Estate
Locality is key in the real estate industry because it determines demand and profitability. So a real estate business ought to capitalize on the locality, not only before construction but also when they are marketing to customers online. That’s where local SEO plays a key role.
By using local SEO strategies, real estate agents can optimize their ranking on search engines and achieve sufficient search visibility to grow their firm. They do this by creating pages customized for local markets, including the appropriate keywords and publishing high-quality information online that adds value to the buyer’s search for a home.
Without offering localized material, customers will struggle to find your business. In an industry with large, dominant players, it’s easy for small real estate businesses to be swallowed up in the noise. Which means specialization is also necessary to thrive.
3. Law Firms
As the fabric of society advances, more people across the world will regularly need legal assistance. So appearing in local searches is critical for lawyers to be found. This means local SEO will become a strategy critical to the survival of a law firm.
To improve their local rankings, they need to create Google My Business profiles, design a beautiful website, and employ relevant keywords in web content so that their pages can be readily optimized. Without these optimization procedures, people will struggle to locate specialized lawyers in their area. Most will end up travelling for miles for consultation.
In addition, law firms need customer evaluations on well-known platforms such as Google and others, considering 80% of internet users use online reviews to make decisions. This will boost local search exposure as well as brand credibility. Online reviews are hence equally important in local searches.
4. Building Services Providers
If you own a house, you will definitely need the services of electricians, plumbers, and device installers, among other handymen. For you to find these businesses during this digital era, you should be able to search online and instantly find someone to sort out your issue
Building servicing companies ought to make use of local SEO to help people seeking their services near them. They can tap into this market, for instance, by building a website and offering high quality locality optimized educational content about their solutions. They can also encourage customers to leave good reviews on their online listing platforms to signal credibility.
If they fail to optimize their online presence, they can’t tap into the readily available customer base that’s constantly seeking their services. This means a slow growth rate, inconsistent cash flow, and a market that’s highly untapped.
5. Medical Services Providers
Medical professionals and institutions need to make their presence easily discoverable by taking advantage of digital platforms. Nowadays, besides hospitals and clinics, a wide variety of health and medical enterprises are engaged in offering services to the general public. However, most of them are unknown.
Medical businesses can create unique websites and use local SEO to boost their rankings, thus becoming more discoverable. Unique and informative content that is relevant to a community adds value to people and attracts new customers and patients.
Also, offering content in specialized fields such as dentistry, dermatology, allergies and ENT services can help a business or professioal stand out in local serches. When coupled with good online reviews, Local SEO can create significant positive impact to a medical business
Wrapping up
Every business benefits from local SEO. But those that fall under the discussed categories will benefit the most because their services are mostly consumed by local customers. If you wish to take advantage of local SEO to grow your business, make sure you choose an SEO company that knows how to do it well.