How can SEO help local businesses?

Local SEO is the process of utilizing methods to improve the visibility of one’s website locally, including both internal optimization and external optimization. How this works depends on if you are an online-based business or a brick-and-mortar business. However, all businesses utilize Google My Business (GMB) for a Business Profile where they can provide information about their product or service offering, hours, service locations, and pricing which allows customers to find and contact them more easily. Local businesses can benefit from SEO by taking advantage of geolocation, too. When people search for something in their area, they often expect to see results that are geographically close to them. Optimizing a business’ website and GMB to signal to Google that they serve a specific area can increase call volume and customer intake dramatically. Google’s entire goal is to provide relevant, accurate data to a person searching, including businesses that are in the area they are searching from. This information is valuable to business owners and should be used accordingly. The goal of any local company would be to get their website ranking on the first page when someone searches that term locally. This can be done by creating content that centers around what services your company offers and then optimizing those pages so they’re informative and helpful to the reader. Google rewards companies that provide educational, informative content. That is why Moneta Strategies is here to help! Our content creation department utilizes thorough keyword research combined with high attention to detail to craft high-quality, keyword-enriched content that helps maximize organic search results while minimizing the need for wasteful spending on ads.

Is SEO worth it?

SEO is worth it for those who want to compete in an increasingly digital world. It’s estimated that Google now handles three-quarters of the search traffic on the internet. And as Google grows, so does its power to shape and control how we connect with information and people online. With such a big chunk of web traffic going through it, Google has an even bigger influence on shaping the way we see the world – what information we find, what companies we engage with or abandon, and how individuals make decisions about what they purchase. It should be noted that search engine optimization provides a long-term ROI. And according to Econsultancy’s Digital Marketing World report, 79% of website visitors say they’re more likely to support brands if their website shows up in organic search engine results. That’s why it’s important for marketers not just to create content but also proactively optimize that same content so that when people or potential customers do a search for relevant topics, your company is there waiting with the information they need at their fingertips. Many business owners report that being ranked in the top 3 Google My Business map pack is responsible for 50 – 70% of their organic leads! Not only is local SEO worth it, but it is also mandatory if a business wants to compete.

Which local SEO techniques should be avoided?

There are many red flags when it comes to SEO and its implementation. There are often times where people unknowingly accept harmful, low-quality work from people that mislead them, ultimately causing more harm than good in the long run. Remember, a professional can be expensive, but an amateur costs a fortune! There are several techniques that should be avoided when doing SEO, and the first one a business owner should avoid is keyword stuffing. “Keyword stuffing” refers to the practice of filling a page with keywords in an attempt to improve search results. This could actually have the opposite effect, essentially telling Google to ignore this content altogether.

Secondly, not properly siloing your links and grouping all your relevant content together can also lead businesses down a road that doesn’t produce as many qualified leads as they might need. In order for your page’s SEO to work properly and do its job correctly, it needs those keywords on the exact same page, with a hierarchical structure that organizes and groups relevant information that visitors are going to have an easier time finding.

Aside from spamming and resorting to deceitful practices, mistakes that business owners should avoid are duplicate content, low-quality backlinks, and incorrect H tags, Metadata, and alt tags. A company can get buried in Google’s search results by any of these issues. Buying low quality, spammy backlinks doesn’t help a website rank higher on the SERPS (search engine result pages), it just gets them more likely penalized in the future. This is one of the most common harmful SEO practices out there – yet so many companies still resort to it all in an effort to bump themselves up a level or two on Google’s SERPs. And while this might work in the short term, they’re eventually either penalized or buried. Proper SEO creates lasting, long-term results. It is important to be wary of any SEO company that guarantees its results. SEO can be manipulated through predictions and repeatable processes, but its results are unique and individual for every business, and can never be replicated the same way twice.

Why is search engine optimization important for websites?

With a proper SEO strategy, a business can be on page one of Google for its target word or phrase without paying for advertising space. Extensive research has been done to show that those websites which have higher Google rankings can earn much more organically, without paying for advertisements. This means that it is important for a business to tailor its optimization techniques around a specific search engine and its algorithm in order to be found by potential customers that utilize their platform. SEO is the single most important thing to do for a website. It is well known that searches are increasingly driven by online behavior and by keywords entered into a search engine. Every website needs to be present in at least one search engine’s index in order to have an opportunity of being found on the Internet. If the site is not found, then restructuring the on-page and off-page SEO information is a crucial first step to improving your online presence.

The importance of starting with the basics cannot be stressed enough. Oftentimes, customers will jump to conclusions and wastefully spend money for low-quality links or expensive press releases before they have really grounded down the basic, free opportunities first. This is leaving money on the table, and luckily Moneta Strategies understands the significance of how to develop a solid foundation for website design and SEO and has over a decade of combined experience doing so.

Learn how to improve your ranking today!