Imagine a local company, we will say it’s in Salt Lake City, UT, with an attractive website that offers all of the information potential customers need to know. But imagine that company invests zero dollars or time in SEO. What are the chances that consumers will ever find the site? Not very high. That is why experts constantly remind business owners to invest in local and regional SEO.
Local SEO is a much more focused form of general SEO. It targets local audiences rather than trying to reach customers in other parts of the country. Regional SEO follows the same philosophy, just with a larger footprint. Both local and regional SEO are no longer optional for small businesses. Why? Because Google has replaced the yellow pages.
If you don’t know what that means, continue reading. In the meantime, keep thinking about the fictional Salt Lake City business mentioned at the start of this post. The company owner would do well to hook up with a Utah SEO firm like Webtek Digital Marketing.
Before There Was an Internet
If you were born in the 1990s or later, I am willing to bet you cannot imagine a world without the internet. But it did exist. Back then, phone companies published two books: the white pages and the yellow pages. The white pages were essentially a directory of all residential phone numbers. The yellow pages were for business.
When a consumer needed to find a local business, opening the yellow pages was the fastest and easiest way to do it. Consumers could find everything from auto body shops to restaurants to roofers and lawncare pros in the yellow pages.
These days, the yellow pages are all but extinct. Today’s consumers run to Google to find local businesses. Therein lies the crux of the entire matter. Google has replaced the yellow pages. Salt Lake City residents unaware that our fictional business exists are not going to find it if it doesn’t appear on the first page of Google search results.
That’s the Point of SEO
‘SEO’ is an acronym that stands for ‘search engine optimization’. The whole point of employing it is to increase the chances that a website or page will appear within the first few results of an organic Google search. That is how people who no longer have access to the yellow pages find local businesses.
General SEO is all well and good if you’re trying to reach an audience that spans state borders. Think of an ecommerce operator who wants to sell his products nationwide. His audience is also nationwide, so he is better off sticking with general SEO strategies. But our fictional local company is different.
Let’s say we are talking about a roofing contractor. Most of his business is located in Salt Lake City. However, he is willing to cover the greater Salt Lake region including a couple of neighboring counties. General SEO is not going to help much. Local SEO would be better, but the company really needs to focus on a more regional strategy.
Webtek Digital Marketing would be an ideal Utah SEO firm for this company. Webtek employees live and work in Salt Lake City. They are intimately familiar with the greater Salt Lake region. They understand the local audience and how to reach it.
If Nobody Knows About Your Company
Perhaps you own a small business that continues to struggle. Have you thought about local or regional SEO? You should. If nobody knows about your company and cannot find it on the internet, future growth is likely to be minimal. Will your company survive?