SEO Consultant: Five Reasons Your Local Business Needs One
This is one of those rare times when an opportunity is on the edge of exploding. Currently getting top rankings for local search terms is relatively inexpensive and can be accomplished in a surprisingly short span of time. Local businesses who take advantage of this opportunity will position themselves to reap the benefits for years to come and be ahead of the competition. The competition will only become more fierce as the days go by.
A local SEO consultant can help your business flourish by adding value to your brand and bringing you more customers. Here are five reasons your local business needs an SEO Consultant:
1. Consider this: An estimated 42 percent of all click-through traffic goes to the first listing of a search engine; the next gets around 12 percent, third 8.5 percent, the fourth 6 percent with all the rest getting under 5 percent. The first page receives about 90 percent of all click-through traffic while the second only gets 4.5 percent. An SEO consultant will take the necessary steps to get your website in a position to receive a higher click-through rate to your site giving you contact with more potential customers.
2. Google Places often has its listings before the organic search results when searchers type in local search terms. Therefore if your business is not listed in the Google Places listings you have less chance of being found. A local SEO consultant can set up and optimize a Google Places listing giving you greater visibility in Google local searches.
3. While SEO and online marketing are different tasks, they go hand in hand. Optimizing the marketing aspects of your website should be something that your SEO consultant can help you with.
4. Setting up and maintaining social media accounts for your business has become a critical part of marketing. A Facebook Fan Page, a Twitter account, managing directory listings and reviews are all part of social media marketing. Again, while not technically SEO, social media marketing is usually a skill set most SEO consultants possess.
5. Finally, there is what I call “The death of the Yellow Pages” (may they rest in peace). The print Yellow Pages is rarely referred to for finding businesses these days. Where do you go to find what you need? If you are like 74 percent of the people in a 2007 study by Yahoo, then you went to the Internet and used a search engine to find what you were looking for. This is a trend that has continued and the percentage is probably much higher today. Using your Yellow Pages advertising dollars to advance your brand on the Internet through a local SEO consultant will provide a greater ROI from your advertising budget.
Advertising, marketing and promotion are all necessary expenses for a business owner that wants to grow their business. Investing in an SEO consultant is not only smart but a necessity in today’s digital society.