If you’re a business with a storefront, you have to get serious about local search engine optimization or Local SEO, for short. Yes, this is different than the “SEO” that you’ve been hearing about for years.
A lot of this new focus on Local SEO is a direct result of the explosive use of mobile devices, but today’s consumers. Google told us last summer (2015) that for the first time more searches were performed on mobile devices than on a desktop computer! And, with over 100 billion searches performed every month, that is a staggering number of searches coming from a mobile device.
Mobile Users Are Different
It’s also important to realize that these mobile users, the people behind the device, behave vastly different than their desktop relatives.
- 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to find their way to locals stores ~Google
- 78% of mobile searches turn into offline or in-store purchases ~ Search Engine Land
- 50% of people that did a mobile search visited a store within a day of the search. ~ Google
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Now, that we’ve covered the sheer quantity of mobile users and how important they are to local businesses, let’s take a look at what Local SEO really is.
if you’ve done a search with Google recently, either from a desktop or from a phone or a tablet, you’ve seen some pretty dramatic changes to the layout of the results page.
When Google first started showing these local results there were 7 listings in the local window and it was over to the side of the page. Now, there are only 3 spots in the window. That’s a huge reduction of the number of businesses that show up without having the user take further action. In fact, it’s 57% fewer businesses showing up in this window than before. This makes showing up in this window extremely more difficult!
Local SEO is optimizing your business, as opposed to your website, so that you will show up in this window. Learn more …
