Local search is a driving factor for small businesses to scale, gathering more leads for digital businesses and more foot traffic to their brick-and-mortar locations. Google’s research shows that 76 percent of people who search for a business on search engines will visit a physical location within the next 24 hours.
Every company could use a traffic boost like that.
A local SEO service is key to unlocking such a powerful source of traffic to your small business, but why should you hire an agency with its roots right here in the Lowcountry?
Plenty of digital marketing agencies are vying for your attention online, some of which have attractive rock-bottom pricing. The problem is that they don’t understand your market, your target audience, or your business the same way that a local SEO expert does.
Here are just a few reasons why you should hire local for your search engine optimization strategy.
Detailed Understanding of the Geographic Market
Anyone who lives in the Lowcountry knows that they need to target areas well beyond just the downtown Charleston markets. Your SEO services should be tailored to your unique geographic location and target some of the surrounding areas where you pull from a larger pool of prospective customers.
For example, you might be located in West Ashley but marketing toward a Summerville audience opens new doors for you.
A local SEO company understands the intricacies of the market in your area. We also have our fingers on the pulse of what type of marketing does well in any given area. You need more than a simple Google Business profile to make a difference in the leads and traffic you see in your business.
Instead, you need to target your SEO strategy toward people who want what you have to offer.
If you sell luxury home goods, you may want to market toward the islands where homeowners have greater disposable income. If you offer services that everyone can use like HVAC work, then you might target suburbs that haven’t been flooded with similar businesses yet.
Creative Collective can help you show up in the local search results for a wider area, making your business stand out from the competition.
Better Understanding of Local Trends
In addition to understanding the geographic market, it’s also important that your local SEO agency comes up with a strategy that reflects the trends of your area. When they are doing keyword research, they should do so with an eye toward what is likely to be popular in the market where they want to grow and expand.
This might mean creating link building opportunities with other local businesses that are in adjacent markets. It might mean tweaking your web design or creating content that mirrors your Google Ads campaign.
Local customers will be able to tell the difference between authentic marketing from someone who understands their needs and wants and content that exists just to try to secure a sale.
The key here is to be as helpful as possible with your content marketing. We can help you tap into trends in local markets so that your email marketing, social media marketing, and content marketing all align with what your audience wants to see the most.
This targeted approach saves money over a broad implementation that doesn’t speak directly to anyone in particular.
Easier to Meet in Person with a Local SEO Expert
Sure, you can find local SEO marketing online and meet with your contact over Zoom. But there’s something special about sitting in the room with your digital marketing agency, knowing that they have the skill, experience, and expertise that you need to grow your business beyond its current plateau.
When you use a local business, you can set up in-person meetings the old-fashioned way.
The odds of being ghosted by your SEO company are lessened when you have a point person who lives and works in the local area. Can you say the same of an online professional who might take your money and run?
If you love doing things the old-fashioned way and want your local SEO expert to come to you for a consultation, strategy call, or answer questions you may have about your local citation, then you need to stick with a business in your area.
Don’t run the risk of hiring an online agency that might take your money and run, no matter what their social media accounts might look like. Always choose a local business whenever you can. Creative Collective is here to help when you’re ready!
Local Search Engine Optimization is Long-Term
You could hire the best local SEO company out there, and you would still find that your business doesn’t immediately rocket to the top of the search engine result page on Google. It takes between four months and a full year before you can start to reap the benefits of your strategy.
Even then, it can be difficult to predict what will help you rank. It could be a combination of content marketing, website design, and even technical SEO.
That means you’re going to have to commit to working with a company for the long haul, so make sure you’re getting local SEO packages that are sustainable and that you have a dedicated SEO consultant who will stick with you from day one. You need a consistent strategy that a potential customer can recognize.
In other words, you don’t want to be bounced around in bigger companies with each subsequent person tweaking your strategy. They should have a clear eye on your review management, your Google Analytics, and more so that they have the clearest picture of your long-term growth in mind.
Familiarity with your brand is a must before you can think about filling out a local SEO checklist.
Save Money on an SEO Consultant
Traditional SEO is best handled by an expert who works on your business to give you more juice in the search engines for local customers. While you could hire a part-time staffer to work on your website design, get your business profile listed on directories, and create content for your blog, your budget may be better spent on ad spend, email marketing, and the like.
Hiring local business that specializes in SEO can save you tons of money over this option.
Think about it this way: what are you really paying someone to do when they work in your office? Odds are that you’re not only providing benefits but you’re also forced to cover payroll taxes and the burden of paying for hours that they didn’t use effectively to move the needle forward.
In contrast, hiring a local SEO agency allows you to pay only for the services you need. You get a tidy bottom line for all local SEO services, and you don’t pay a penny more than what was quoted to you. Better yet, you aren’t responsible for filling a certain number of hours, payroll taxes, health insurance, or retirement benefits.
All around, it’s a great way to save money and still show up on local search results.
Customized Packages for Your Needs
Every business has a unique SEO strategy that they want to implement, and they often stumble across it via trial and error. Some brands find that long-form blog content works best because their audience wants to dive into the details and get the technical facts surrounding their trade.
Others will find that their potential customer wants a quick and easy answer. Still others will focus on social media marketing.
If you want to show up in the search results, you need a digital marketing agency that can work with you to create a plan that speaks to your brand.
The benefit of working with a small local company is that they often have more flexibility to help you get the services you need – nothing more and nothing less.
A local SEO agency can create packages that get to the heart of your marketing efforts whether that means creating a solid blog, an email marketing newsletter, or simple reputation management.
Creative Collective has a few standard packages that we offer our clients, but we can customize something for your brand as well. You can reach out to us here to find out how we can work together.
Hire a Local SEO Agency
Are you ready to start showing up on local search results so that you can take advantage of the traffic that flows from Google every single day? An incredible 28 percent of searches for local businesses result in a sale.
Every small business could use the revenue that comes from more than one-fourth of the searches for businesses just like theirs. Once you show up on the search engine, the only thing you have to do is deliver on your promise and delight your customers.
Let Creative Collective help you do the heavy lifting to rank and prove that you are an authority for your audience. Our local SEO packages go beyond just filling out a business profile. We create a robust content marketing plan starting with keyword research so that you know how people are finding you.
Our local customers are our most valuable business asset, and we would love to welcome you into the fold. Here are some questions you can ask to ensure that we are a good fit for you.
Reach out to us today to set up a consultation meeting with an SEO expert to talk about our packages, pricing, and services!