Running a business is not always easy. Apart from being good at what you do, you need to consider all other factors that affect the way people see you and find you. One of them is your website. Search engines have become so complex, and include a lot of things that need to be fulfilled in order for people to find your business easily. Perfecting your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will result in more customers and better sales. In order to do that, you need to adapt your site to be visible in general searches, but local searches as well. That’s why we need to make a clear difference between global SEO vs. local SEO. Knowing what each of these represents and requires will open additional possibilities for your business to grow and be seen by many.
Online search – the basics
First of all, let’s go through the basic definition of SEO. One of the main things to know about a search engine is the way it works. Usually, the process of searching a phrase on an engine like Google has three steps – Crawl, Index, and Retrieve. They crawl the websites (by following links) by using ‘spiders’. Once they crawl a page, they retrieve the copy of it to the search engine’s data center. In the end, the final step is retrieving the necessary info from a huge collection of these copies.
Next, what is SEO? Search Engine Optimization is improving the quality of a website in terms of quantity and quality of traffic. Global SEO uses large-scale keywords, so it expands its results to more than just one area. Local SEO is the same thing, except it has geography as its main focus. Its main aim is to adapt the website’s SEO for local search results, so you can increase the traffic to the website by attracting residents of the same city, for example.
Why you should think about Global SEO vs. Local SEO?
When thinking about website optimization, you need to think about your business goals and target audiences. This way you’ll know what you should focus on. If your target customers can be located in another city and you can provide services or send goods outside your local area – focusing on the global CEO is the way to go. On the other hand, if your business is in some way limited to the local area and you want to attract your city’s residents – the local CEO should be your main focus.
The advantage of local SEO compared to the global SEO
One of the main differences between local and global SEOs is the focus on traffic and sales. The truth is, global SEO will surely result in more traffic. However, this doesn’t mean it will result in more sales. Even though people from all over the country can visit your website – not so many of them would be able to buy your product or services. Being on top of the list doesn’t ensure people drive all the way across the country to spend money in your store. For that reason, local SEO has an advantage. It uses modified keywords to attract customers from a specified area. Also, this type of search uses major engines like Google Maps/Places to narrow the list of results. So, if your business is not listed in one of these – it can’t be visible locally.
So, if you want to attract more customers, you need to focus on local searches since they narrow the competition range. On the other hand, visibility is the strongest point of global SEO, but it throws your business into a huge ocean of competition which seems to be quite challenging to succeed in.
How to improve your local SEO game?
When thinking about your SEO strategy, there are certain steps you should follow whether your focus is global or local. There are on-page and off-page basic optimizations you should definitely perfect. However, when thinking about global SEO vs. local SEO, you should set your goal first and check if you need to improve your local marketing game. And here are some ways to do it:
- establish Google My Business page and keep it strong – local results of Google Maps and Apple maps are based on reviews. So in order to get them, make sure people can find your business on these engines;
- add location pages to the website, and include all the necessary information such as name, address, working hours, phone number, testimonials, etc;
- add a Google Map to the location page, too;
- create local content – instead of sticking to general content, don’t be afraid to narrow your content to the more locally interesting topics.
- improve internal links – the internal linking structure is often underrated, but it can improve your SEO rankings just as well as external links. Improving the overall website navigation will ensure a positive user experience and returning customers.
- make the website mobile-friendly – one of the top factors important both for global and local SEOs.The feature is particularly important for local searches, as the biggest part of local searches are done on a mobile phone. People look for directions, working hours, and other info while they are commuting or going around the city, so a mobile-friendly website should be the top priority.
Conclusion
As you can see, there’s a lot to say about global SEO vs. local SEO differences and similarities. However, the most important thing is to set your strategy and think about the goals you have for your business. Once you’re sure about the target audience, you will be ready to improve your SEO game with the right tactics.
