Local Search Marketing and its need in today's world for location specific businesses!

Is your business constrained to a particular geographical area? Does your business have a local audience? If the answer is yes, then you must surely be trying to target consumers in and around your location because studies says:

Approximately 3 billion search queries contain local terms every month.
70% of online searchers will use local search to find offline businesses.
30% of Google searches are for local information.

So Local search and Local Search Marketing!

Local search can be understood in three different ways:

• Any search done with an aim of finding something particular within a limited or specific geographical area is local search. For example, “Movie Theatre in downtown Chicago”.

• Local Search can also be about looking for some information available online with the intention of making a transaction offline. For example,” Hyde Park Bank in Chicago ”.

• And, A search conducted online which you would have done on any yellow page directory is local search.For example,”Dry cleaner on colfax avenue”. 

Hence these definitions gives a clear view about Local Search.
Local Search Marketing is defined as the ways adopted to make sure that your website or business comes on the top of local search results. This process involves search engine optimisation for your business and also creating business listings for optimisation for online local business directories.

Wondering why Local Search Marketing is so talked about!

Have you ever wondered why do people talk so much about Local Search. The statistics says it all:

• More than 2.6 billion local searches are conducted each month with 59% of consumers using Google for local search.
• Over 85% consumers that conduct a local search via mobile call or visit within a day.
• 33% of queries are made with a Local intent in mind by mobile subscribers.
• 82% of local searches convert into an offline purchase.
• 71% of the search users report they value the information provided in Local Search Results.

The above statistics are taken from the infographics respectively: 
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/321233385893234982/ 
https://in.pinterest.com/pin/118852877636098413/ 

Moreover, In today’s time people are technology freak. They prefer to search about products online rather than going by traditional methods like yellow pages or local newspapers. To even buy a Mobile Phone, they will first look at the best available models, their price and the nearest store from where they can buy it. Local search has become a very essential aspect of everyone’s life. 

Local Search Marketing is needed to reach the consumer via the best online sources at the right time, otherwise you will lose customers. As a business owner, you need to be aware of the places, online, where you can list your business. This helps in leading the customer to your products and services.

What do we need to include in Local Search Marketing?

The activities we include in local search marketing for local search marketing engagement are:
 

• To claim and verify the local listings.
• To eliminate duplicate tags.
• To build a Google+ account.
• To increase local SEO traffic, optimize local listings.
• To manage listings for multiple locations.
• To list your business to additional local directories
• To set up an analytics tracking to track local activity.
• To promote local listings
• To increase and manage the reviews.

Boost your local search results by acting on these factors!

The Various ranking factors which affects local search results are:
 

• Building Citations - These are the mentions of your company’s Name, Address or Phone Number on the web or in business directories. The citations should be structured and should be the same everywhere on the web. Get as many citations as you can.
• Local Citations - Get citations from the websites of business in your location. This helps Google reinforce its trust in your location.
• Google+ Profile - Define a category for your business when creating an account on Google My Business or Google+. Google has a list of pre-defined categories. You can also check Google Places for Business Category Tool to select which category best defines your business.
• Page authority - Page authority refers to the rankings of the particular pages of your website in the search results.
• Title Tag - The title tags of your website pages should include the city or state. This helps the website to feature in local search results.
• Reviews - Earn reviews, good ones from customers.
• Area Code - The area code of your phone number you have given in Google Places or on Google+ should match with the actual area code of the place.
• Physical address-  Mention your physical address and location included in your business name in your Title Tags and Meta Descriptions.
• Quality/Authority of Structured Citations -  Have good quality links coming to your website from good authority sites.

Is Local Search Marketing behaving as a Golden parachute to the business or being detrimental to it:

Advantages:
 

• Cost-  LSM becomes very much affordable when we compare phone books, local advertising and phone directories. As you are targeting to to specific category and location, your return on investment increases. 
• Commitment level - The advantage of LSM is that when you connect with any directories to get an ad published, you are subscribed for an year with them leading to showing your commitment.
• Local Traffic - Local search marketing helps to drive potential clients to your storefronts even if you have many offices and you are a national business.
• Flexibility - There is a flexibility in updating your web based business listings at any time, by this you can test different information related to your company and check what suits best in generating leads.
• Targeted Audience - In local search marketing your targeted audience becomes too location specific and it’s easier to convert the leads. 
• Easier to rank - Local search marketing helps your business to rank easily via paid ads.

Disadvantages:
 

• Time - Local search marketing involves much time to monitor which search engines and internet directories are listing about your business and also consumes time to update any information change related to your product or service.
• Physically Present- For local search marketing you need to have a business location in order to expand in a new location. 
• Ranking factor- One of the main problems with Local search marketing is, any business to rank on the top will involve much time. To be listed on the SERP page, the business need to be ranked organically to get noted.

Way too confused to handle LSM? Give us an opportunity to help you!

Local RankWatch will ease out your difficulty:

The tool tracks local rankings for your business. It helps you to identify your competitors in your location and also shows places where your competitors have been cited and reviewed. This gives you an idea about the places you need to get citations from.
Local RankWatch does a micro analysis of the keywords of your business, a complete citation analysis, checks all the places where your business got reviewed, and in the end, builds an Agency Portfolio. Local Rankwatch gives you weekly updates about any changes. Unlike other tools Local RankWatch is not constricted to any specific geographic location and provides its services to customers globally.
All the citations and listings of your business from the entire web is collated under one powerful dashboard. May it be a blog or a discussion forum, you will get the update right there just to ensure that you have the right footprints.