Looking for ways to get more leads from your local area?
If you’re a business owner who provides any service at all, you’ve probably heard some variation of the following sentiment:
“You don’t need to worry about local marketing. The internet is global, so why bother?”
Or worse yet, some businesses go even further than that:
“We focus only on national-level marketing. Local marketing just isn’t a big deal anymore.”
There’s one problem with both those lines of thinking:
They’re both completely wrong.
In fact, both are profoundly, deeply, incredibly wrong. So wrong, they’re not just not taking advantage of local marketing. They’re turning away thousands of potential customers each and every month by neglecting it.
Put bluntly:
Location-based targeting of online marketing services is more important than ever.
Geography isn’t just a major factor in online marketing success. Geography may very well be the most important factor in your online marketing.
In this post:
- Local Search Is King
- The Local Search Stats You Need to Know
- Geographic Targeting Fights the Google Scale Battle
- Get Started Targeting the Right Location for Digital Marketing
Local Search Is King
For almost any online search these days, when consumers search Google first, they search for local businesses first.
It’s true when they want a plumber. It’s true when they want a dentist. And it’s true when they want digital marketing services.
Take Santa Clara, for instance. Say you’re looking for an online marketing agency in Santa Clara. A quick Google search yields hundreds of results.
You may also be asked questions about Santa Clara, and some time ago if you were a Google Maps user. So you do that and eventually discover that you need expert online marketing in Santa Clara before you do something about your needs.
As soon as someone makes a Google search for local business services… whether it’s plumbing, or SEO services… They’re trying to find a business to use in the Santa Clara area.
And if you search your city for local online marketing services, you’ll get the same results.
It’s not just a hunch, either. According to Search Engine Roundtable, 46% of all Google searches have local intent.
That means almost half of all Google searches worldwide are conducted with an intent to find or learn about a local business.
No wonder you keep seeing ads for plumbers and dentists in your feed.
The Local Search Stats You Need to Know
You might also have heard statistics like the following:
“The average desktop searcher is only three clicks away from deciding to buy.”
What does that mean?
If a desktop searcher is on a Google search results page looking for plumbing services, they’re an average of three clicks away from deciding to contact a business or click on their website.
Maybe three clicks is a new statistic for you, but the total number of Google searches with local intent is not. In fact, it’s constantly on the rise.
The statistics supporting local digital marketing services are already staggering, and they’re only growing each year.
According to the majority of US searchers search for local business weekly, and almost a third of US searchers do so daily.
That means that three times a week, two-thirds of all searchers are looking to find a business near them. And nearly a third are searching for local businesses daily.
Those are astounding statistics. And remember, that’s just the United States. The percentage of searches with local intent in many other countries is even higher.
Here’s another stat you might be interested in:
Turns out that searches for “near me” are incredibly powerful.
According to the same report, 50% of local mobile searches are done using “near me.”
This is something that can directly influence you as a business owner.
The reality is that you can be in front of customers searching for your services right now.
Customers actively search your industry’s local searches each and every day. If you’re not there to be seen, then you’re throwing away money.
Geographic Targeting Fights the Google Scale Battle
You can bet your bottom dollar that Google is constantly tweaking its algorithm. If you’ve ever studied how the search engine’s algorithm works, you’ll quickly learn that Google has about 200 major ranking factors. But most of these ranking factors have common dependencies or themes.
Google updates its algorithm regularly to help rank pages based on those shared principles, even as it rolls out relatively less-frequent major updates to those factors.
You may even notice changes on your own pages when a Google algorithm update rolls out. It could be that you lose visibility or increase it, depending on how Google changes its algorithm at a given time.
So, here’s what happens.
When Google has a major algorithm update, a service owner might not see anything drastic changing on their page. Yet, their traffic will still drop a bit.
This has become an issue for online marketers, as the need to “beat the algorithm” or “prepare for Google” has become a bit of a thing.
In truth, “preparing” for Google is a full-time job. It’s exhausting for marketers to deal with, but most companies are simply not prepared for it.
The fact is, if your business provides services to customers in one place, then the “Google Scale” is already half won.
Target the right location for digital marketing, and you fight a different game.
The key to having long-term success, beating the Google Scale isn’t a matter of going big. It’s a matter of going local.
Sure, a company’s Google My Business profile has global reach. But the business owners who truly win are the ones who focus on their local communities first.
Geography is key because…
Get Started Targeting the Right Location for Digital Marketing
There are several ways you can get started with this right now. The first and most important is to make sure your Google Business Profile (also known as a Google My Business Profile) is complete and optimized. That alone will take you far.
The next step is a bit more in-depth. But if you optimize for location in these three areas, you’ll see enormous success:
- Using Local keywords: Include your city and areas surrounding it in your keywords and content naturally
- NAP consistency: Ensure your Name, Address, and Phone number are exactly the same everywhere online
- Local content: Create content relevant to your specific area’s needs
- Manage your reviews: Encourage happy customers to leave reviews on Google
Location-based targeting in online marketing is not new. It’s been a factor in SEO rankings since the first days of the internet. But never before has geography been more important than it is now.
Geography is an essential element for marketing your business online. It’s no longer an extra or additional factor to think about. It’s a critical component of your business strategy.
Take advantage of location-based online marketing, and you can stop the race against the Google Scale. Go local to start winning right now.
