Local SEO is important for any business. It does not matter if the business has a physical location or if it is online. It makes the difference between someone purchasing from you or purchasing from a competitor in another city, state, or even in another country.

So… why is Local SEO important?

Why Is Local SEO Important?

You want people to visit your store or your website, and you want them to purchase a product or service, right? Well, you have to have tell people where you are and what you offer.

Sure, just putting up a store and a website will be great, but you need to let the world or your surrounding community know. Of course, there are newspaper advertisements, billboards, radio ads, and phone book listings that you could invest in. You could invest in premium web listings or even premium ads with search engines. However, you still need to build your foundation with your website to be organically listed in keywords that people will locally search.

General keywords are hard to get top rank, and really are not ideal for local business. For example, how often would someone from Nigeria come to your store in Texas for some barbecue rub. The answer: That might seem like less than “once in a blue moon.”

Instead, think logically about optimizing your site. For example, if your store that sells barbecue rub is in San Antonio, Texas, then you might want to optimize your website around keywords like:

• San Antonio barbecue rub
• barbecue rub store in San Antonio
• San Antonio barbecue rub store
• San Antonio Texas barbecue rub
• Texas barbecue rub

You could also go further and optimize using keywords for different flavored rubs.

You could optimize for the general keywords ‘barbecue rub’, but you will be competing with other places around the world that do sell a similar product, even if the flavors offered are different than your business. I am not discouraging you from doing this, especially since you might actually sell from your website. However, you need to think about your local store and endearing your surrounding community to your product.

In cities like San Antonio, which according to a United States Census Bureau survey in 2011 that was listed in Wikipedia, it is the 7th largest city in the U.S. This means there could be dozens of stores that sell products that are similar to your business. You need to somehow be the business that people see first. These are your immediate potential customers. They are not just going to aimlessly drive around the city to find you. They might not have the patience to go through the phone book, or even care to buy a newspaper. They might not even listen to the radio stations you might use for your advertising.

The Internet has become a fast means of obtaining any type of information. If your store is listed and there is a map, you might have a chance of being seen. However, and I emphasize this… if you are not listed on that front page of that keyword that the consumer is searching for, then you just gave business to your competition.

Are you a local business? Take a look at your site right now and ask yourself if you are properly optimizing your site for Local SEO.