How many small businesses actually spend the time to optimize their SEO for local search? Not enough apparently, according to the latest research trends and statistics. According to one study, 97% of consumers searched for a local company online and 88% of them actually contacted the business within one day of finding them in a local search. Your local search SEO must begin to gear up if it hasn’t already because the latest stats show that you will be left in the dust if you are not dominating local search.
- Nearly half (46%) of all searches done at Google are for local businesses with 86% able to locate the business on a Google maps search. If the location of the store or company was within five miles, 72% who did a local search ended up visiting that location.
- Your local SEO must be strong because 92% of all searches chose a business that came up on the first page of a SERP. Another reason to be dominant in your local search efforts is that early 75% of all holiday shoppers actually shop in store locations.
- A full 70% will visit a business based on the information that they gathered online through a search and a visit to a business home page. Around 25% of local traffic is actually converted into a sale. What is surely stunning is that early 60% of all businesses are not claiming or being listed at any of the major search engines. The search engines offer business listings for free and to ignore this avenue is to ignore a tremendous amount of potential traffic from your local region.
- While you must combine your SEO with effective social media marketing, search, especially local search, drives 300% more traffic to sites and locations than does social media. Only 60% of small businesses consider SEO a priority yet nearly 90% of retailers state that SEO is their most effective means of attracting leads and making conversions. Nearly 40% of phone searches are made by people who are actually looking for the location so that they can visit and nearly 90% trust online reviews and opinions when making a buying purchase.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
