Local SEO can be critical in helping to grow your brand awareness. Here’s why hiring a local SEO expert might be a worthwhile investment.

Keyword(s): local seo expert

There are over two million small businesses in Australia. This accounts for 97% of all businesses in the country.

And while they may not all be in direct competition with you, it’s still important to make it easy for people to find you. Especially when you consider the fact that 82% of your consumers are doing an online search on their smartphones before they make a purchasing decision.

Most business owners are not marketing experts, nor should they be. It’s a full-time job and the rules change quickly. It’s hard to keep up.

That’s why most companies turn to a local SEO expert to help them bring in new clients. But if we still haven’t convinced you, keep reading. We’re sharing with you all the reasons why having a local SEO strategy can make a dramatic difference in your business.

A Local SEO Expert Can Help You Create a Great Website

Ranking requirements differ between small companies and large, online companies. An expert will utilize a local SEO strategy on your website’s development and design.

It’s also often difficult to critique your own website. But a professional can assess your site and let you know if the information you’ve provided is enough to tell customers about your goods, services, and products.

And if your website needs improvement, they can add more local information so that you rank better in online searches.

A Great Expert Helps You Optimise Your Content

Content is king. Content will probably always be king. Yet, content is where so many businesses fail.

Google changes their rules which makes it hard for business owners to keep up with the latest trends. And not everyone is an expert in what makes for quality content.

Especially content that contains SEO. A local expert in SEO will help you determine which keywords you should be using to help people find you more easily.

They can also go one step further and alter things like your photo content and website URL to help ensure your website ranks higher.

Your NAP Needs to Be Perfected and Found Online

Optimising for local search starts with NAP. And no, it’s not a siesta in the afternoon, NAP stands for name, address, and phone number.

These three pieces of information are the biggest keys toward making your local search engine optimisation work the way you want it to. And you can always add a fourth piece to NAP and include your website.

However, many people don’t bother to check if their contact information is found online. Even more business owners don’t bother to check if their information is correct.

Google isn’t the Only Search Engine You Should be Listed On

While claiming your Google My Business listing is important, it’s not the only site your business should be on. Sites like Yelp, Bing Places, Localpages.com, Urban Spoon, and Foursquare will also help you rank higher.

Having the wrong address listed online means potential customers head in the wrong direction. And it also means the internet may view the conflicting information as false.

Listing your information online is time-consuming. Hiring a local SEO expert means you get found without having to lift a finger.

A Local SEO Expert is Familiar with Your Neighborhood

There are tons of marketing companies out there. But not all of them are familiar with your neighbourhood.

Hiring a local SEO firm can help you reach your target market because they live in the same area and understand the local customs. They’ll also understand the latest market trends than a remote company can.

They can help you reach out to your community because they’re part of it. A remote marketing company doesn’t have that same home court advantage.

Saves You Time

Business owners often wear more than one hat. They also tend to put in more hours than their employees.

The problem is that after about 50 hours, productivity goes way down. Your physical and mental health also suffers.

Which is why it’s so important to outsource whatever you can to the real experts. you can’t be good at everything and for the health of yourself and your business, you shouldn’t try.

Be smart and hire a local search engine optimisation expert to do the work for you. You’ll save time while letting someone do the work who is much more knowledgeable and better at it than you are.

Saves You Money

Marketing is hugely important to the health of a business. But so are many other components.

And the rules to online marketing change quickly. It’s hard to keep up, especially if you’re running a business.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s easy to make mistakes. Mistakes that end up costing you a lot of money without making you any money.

Hiring an expert means you get your local SEO strategies done right the first time.

They Can Help With Social Media

Whether you love it or hate it, social media is here to stay. And if you have a business, you need to have a presence on social media.

While you don’t need to be on every social media platform out there, you should be on the sites where your target market are most likely to be on. For B2B businesses, you should be at least on LinkedIn.

Instagram and Facebook are great for almost any type of business. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, then social media is can end up wasting your time and producing few or no results.

An expert in local SEO can help walk you through the steps towards creating a social media profile for your business. They’ll help you create a profile that’s reflective of your company’s brand.

They’ll recommend which platforms are best for your business and can help you understand how to interact with your followers. And, they can even manage the entire process for you.

You Avoid Mistakes

It’s incredibly easy to make mistakes when it comes to any form of marketing. However, if you make an error on your business card, it’s easy to fix, not that costly, and no one punishes you.

If you make a mistake online such as creating duplicate or incorrect content, Google may punish you. That means your ranking goes down and fewer people see you.

And these mistakes can cost you more than Google penalising you. You’ll have to pay for someone to fix the error if you even realize you’ve made one.

SEO experts know the latest rules and they’ll apply this expertise to your website and online presence. That means you save time, money, and a lot of frustration.

People are Looking at Your Online Reviews

If you weren’t already aware, online reviews matter. A lot. People trust an online review just as much as they trust a recommendation from a personal friend.

The problem with online reviews is that they’re completely out of your control. You can’t tell people what to write. And you can’t force them to even leave a review in the first place.

But you can send them an e-mail thanking them for their patronage and asking them to leave an online review on Google. You can even send the link in the e-mail to make it easier for them to leave a review.

Google rewards businesses with good reviews by ranking them higher than companies with poor reviews. And even if you get a few bad reviews, it’s not the end of the world.

Customers want to know how you handle a bad review, even when they’re unwarranted. As long as you respond with dignity, professionalism, and respect, even a bad review can turn out to be a good thing.

You’ll Get Expert Advice

Even those business owners who do keep up with the latest SEO practices can benefit from hiring someone to help them with their local SEO strategies. Often, two heads are better than one.

You can bounce ideas off of your marketing expert and someone to collaborate with. A good expert will understand your business’s vision but won’t bring in any biases to cloud their judgment.

Instead, you have a team member who can bring you a fresh perspective to your business.

It’s Easier to Find the Best SEO Company for Your Needs

Let’s face it, there are a lot of marketing companies out there. Not all of them are great.

Many marketing companies outsource their talent. You don’t know if they’re based in Sydney or India. And that can make a difference to how successful your campaign is.

Hiring a local SEO company means you get more easily a referral from someone you know and trust who has used their company successfully. It’s not as easy when you’re dealing with a remote company and going solely on what information you’re reading online.

Work With Us

Hiring a local SEO expert means you can focus on working on your business. But only if you hire the right company.

We can help. We understand your needs because we’re local, too.

To learn more about how we can take your online presence to the next level, click here.