A question that I get asked often in my role as an Account Manager at Clix is, “Why does my campaign need local SEO if I’m a national campaign, or I don’t have a retail space or storefront?”
Basically, there’s three reasons, but first I want to start out with the answer to, “What is local SEO?”
Local SEO goes beyond just making a Google map listing. Local SEO is the active process of building out necessary citations on industry directories or industry listing websites. Basically, this serves three main purposes, and these are very basic and high level. However, each of these is essential to making headway on your business’s web presence.
3 Important Purposes of Local SEO for National Campaigns
The first purpose of Local SEO is backlinks. A backlink occurs when one website links to another one. This may be done because the site being linked to is viewed as a resource or has some kind of reference or relationship they share.
By building out these profiles, every one of the citation websites – or 90%+ of them – ask for a link to the website. Once the information is published, that link is published. So, when an entity like Angie’s List, Superpages, or something of that nature publishes your profile, that very large and very authority website posts a link straight to you. You need these links to be seen as an authoritative page in the eyes of Google.
Even if the links are “no follow” links, or links that website administrators may label as such so they are not counted in the search engines, they are still valuable to the end user because they provide a gateway to your site. So if you find a directory listing you want to update but also know that the link will be a “no follow” link, it is still a good idea to make sure it points to your site so the person who comes to this site and finds you has a direct link to your website.
Secondly, a campaign focused on your industry directories and websites allows for categorization. Entities like Google My Business Pages actually ask for explicit category and tagging information. Once the profile is published, that category and tagging information goes to Google. Google likes when everybody uses their products for obvious reasons. So, if we can actually physically tag and categorize your business and URL in Google databases, we absolutely should go ahead and do that.
Lastly, building out your citations leads to increased digital visibility. Generally being found in more places is a part of every digital marketing campaign and leads to positive changes. The goal is to make you available when and where people are looking.
So, the next time you think, “I don’t really need to be in the maps because I don’t really want people coming to my office,” take a step back and think of the much larger picture here. Local SEO serves many different purposes, and these are just the top three that pertain to everyone, from mom and pop businesses with one storefront to large corporations with a national presence.
