5 Top Reasons Why You Should Use a Local SEO Company

As a local business owner, you know how important it is to be found in organic search engine optimization (SEO) results in order to grow your business. Just look at these statistics from Think with Google on mobile searching and location:

• Mobile searches for “where to buy” have grown 85% since 2015
• Nearly 1/3 of all mobile searches are related to a location
• Nearly 2/3 of smartphone users are more likely to purchase from companies whose mobile sites or apps customize information to their location

If you want to be found online and locally, you need to create and execute a marketing strategy that includes optimizing your website so that search engines can find you. A very important piece of the puzzle is how mobile-friendly your website is. On March 26, 2018, Google announced that after a year and a half of careful experimentation and testing, the search giant started migrating sites that follow the best practices for mobile-first indexing. According to Google, its crawling, indexing, and ranking systems have typically used the desktop version of a page’s content, which may cause issues for mobile searchers when that version is vastly different from the mobile version. Mobile-first indexing means that they’ll use the mobile version of the page for indexing and ranking, to better help their – primarily mobile – users find what they’re looking for. I recommend you read the official announcement from Google about this change.

Other important elements of a winning digital marketing strategy include social media and content marketing. Many small or medium-sized local businesses can get overwhelming by these tasks due to limited resources and budget restraints. So who should you turn to for support? A local SEO agency can be very beneficial for many reasons.

As one of the top-rated Denver SEO firms here in the Colorado market, we work with a lot of small and medium-sized companies. One of the most important benefits of working with a local SEO company is that you’ll be able to meet in person. Call me old school but I still think it’s an important factor. In this blog post, I’ll highlight five of the top reasons why you should be working with a local SEO company:

1. A Local SEO Agency Knows the Community in Which Your Business Is Located

Simply put, the employees of a local SEO company live and work in the area where you’re located, so they know the community, its businesses, and the environment. This can be an advantage in several ways, one of which is to help with online business listings such as Google My Business. Research has shown that business listings with a website get 25-35% more clicks. Despite this statistic, nearly 60% of local retailers haven’t claimed their Google My Business yet.

As you can see from the screenshot below, if someone performs a Google search for seo training denver (one of our important keywords), Google will display local business listings before the traditional organic search results. In this case, our Denver SEO business listing is shown as part of the local map pack (red), even before the organic (aka natural) search results (green) that provide additional information about upcoming classes:

A business listing contains basic information about your business. As you can see from the dashboard below, Google My Business allows you to add photos, manage reviews, share posts and updates, and much more. Google My Business is extremely important and a local SEO agency can help you add the right local touch that will make your business stand apart. This might include adding pictures that will target your audience, incorporating the right keywords for your business to help you rank higher in search engine results, post updates and event listings, etc.

2. A Local Team

Depending on your SEO and digital marketing needs, you may have the need for the following resources:

• SEO manager – develops your SEO strategy, manages the team, drives the process and analyzes the data
• Social media expert – creates and publishes the social media messages, manages your communities, etc.
• Content creator – writes web content, blog posts, articles, white papers, case studies, etc.
• Technical / Web design support – help with updates to your website, troubleshoot technical issues, etc.

Chances are that with a local SEO company, these resources will also be local.

3. Face-to-Face Meetings

As mentioned earlier, a major advantage of using a local SEO company is that you can have meetings to discuss your online marketing strategy face-to-face, which can make your relationships stronger and make it faster to establish trust. The team will also be in your time zone so you don’t have to have a time difference to contend with.

4. Provide More Attention to Your Business

A local SEO agency generally has a limited number of clients so they can provide more focused attention to your business. They also want to help you succeed and have a vested interest in making sure that you see results, so in turn, you can share your success with other local business owners.

5. Local SEO Training

If you’re planning on hiring a reputable SEO agency, you’ll need to budget at least $1000 per month. A monthly SEO package can include a variety of services and you should be able to review and discuss these services with the agency before you sign anything. If a monthly package isn’t the right fit for you, you may want to attend a local SEO training course. Learning SEO and understanding our language can be a major advantage. It’s also a great way to learn about the strategies and tactics deployed by the agency, plus you get to meet their people in person, get to ask them questions, and you’ll get a feel about what it may be to work with them

Questions?

Choosing a digital marketing agency is a very important decision. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if I can answer any questions. If we’re not a good fit, I’d be happy to refer you to another agency who may be better suited to help.