Gaining business from your local customers isn't always as easy as it sounds. Especially in a city like Worcester, where foot traffic isn't heavy. So, how do you get new customers to find out about your business? The answer isn't as straight forward as one answer, but statistics focused around optimizing your presence in online search, particularly
local search online, proves this is one area worth investing in which isn't going away.
What do you mean by local search online (or
local seo)? Well, local search can be defined as someone looking for business services or products in their general area. In the past the phone book was King, but now Google is KING (sorry Bing!).
Local SEO is the the art of improving your search engine ranking to help you show up for industry specific searches in your local area (ie. typing into Google: Orthodontists in Shrewsbury or Investment Advisor Worcester).
Local Search Online (Local SEO) is driven by new technology such as Mobile/Smart Phones. More and more people search for services and products near them using their mobile device. In fact, Mobile Search is Local Search. Without further adieu, here are 5 statistics to help shed some light on why
Your business needs to take local search seriously.
- 97% of consumers search for local businesses online (laptop or smartphone) .
- 73% of online activity is one way or another related to local search.
- 43% of people are searching locally on search engines to buy offline. This means that they have an intent to Search then go find.
- More 50% of the local search conversions from a mobile phone take place within one hour.
- About 60% of consumers who use a mobile device to search for a business expect that business to be within local driving or walking distance. (Highly Transnational Searches)
Stay tuned to find out more about what are some techniques you can use to help your business start to show up for local searches.