A common marketing belief is that local SEO is a waste of time for local community-oriented business websites. This article explores two reasons for this misconception and why the myth presents dangers.
Are you familiar with the phrase "if you build it they will come?" I often hear people say this as they try to justify not putting any effort and for not giving attention to local search engine optimization.
When it comes to local Search engine optimization,
this is one of the most damaging clichés a business owner can buy into, because it is like a person getting all decked out for senior prom and then climbing into a closet, hoping someone will mysteriously and magically find them hiding there.
As far-fetched as this might sound or seem, this is exactly the situation with most community-oriented business websites. The sites are created, exciting and glamorous content is added, the site is published online, and then the owners sit back and hope some magical and mysterious client or customer will find the site among the mass of over six billion other websites indexed in Google alone.
There are two reasons for this poor search engine optimization situation. The first, is assuming local clients and customers do not use the Internet to find vendors, suppliers, manufacturers, or retail companies to do business with. This is what I call ostrich marketing. Basically the person who says this is burying his or her head in the dirt and pretending that reality is limited to what they can see at that moment. Since the 'ostrich' business owner or decision-maker might not be familiar with search engine optimization themselves, they assume the reality of local search engine marketing reflects their personal perception of reality.
The second reason is assuming that all local clients and customers land on your site by going online and specifically typing in your company name or your website address, which eliminates the need for any kind of search engine optimization. After all, if your traffic is driven by your advertising, your sales calls, and your off-line marketing activities then there's no need for local search engine optimization. Right?
This reasoning assumes that local clients and customers already know you're website address. And it assumes that the only people interested in your site are those who already have or know you're website address.
But this is not the case. Research shows that is much is 87% of businesses use the Internet for selecting new vendors and new suppliers. And as much as 43% of consumers use the Internet before making purchasing decisions. What percentage of these Internet surfers are direct referrers to sites and what percentage are referred by search engines varies.
What I can tell you is this, when business owners take time to evaluate and review the actual key words in use for the products and services that they offer, they are usually surprised by what they find. I good number of surfers are using the search engines and social networking sites and social bookmarking sites to find product and service suppliers to buy from. The numbers are usually much higher than the numbers of people who go direct to the sites by typing in the web address directly.
When a business owner puts up a website and does little or nothing to promote it through search engine optimization, a good number of local web surfers are overlooked. These potential clients and customers end up buying from the websites of your competitors, instead of yours.
This is why local search engine optimization is so important. You position your site to attract attention of local buyers who would not find your website any other way.
