A commonly asked question!

As part of any digital marketing strategy, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is integral to driving customers to your business via online platforms. Effective marketing in the modern age demands it. Search engine optimisation helps create fast, robust and easy to use websites that rank highly and at better positions on search engine results pages (SERPs).

The three main considerations Google makes when looking at your site, are relevance, prominence and distance. How relevant is your business, how notable and how close? As you would not want a relevant shop to appear but you have to travel 4000 miles to make a small purchase!

Local searches have become key to small, independent businesses. A ‘local search’ is a search that is mainly based on proximity, for example, how close a customer is to a physical shop otherwise only the large companies would dominate the search result. Google confirmed that over 1 out of 3 search results are based on only location.

This specifically has increased the footfall of mobile users who have been around the area and managed to navigate to the shop via a quick google search.

To get started using SEO then you can use these ideas to get the best footfall:

• Improve the on-page optimisation of your website for local search terms, feature local information (such as address and phone number), use semantic markup and create locally-focused content
• Claim and optimise your Google My Business listing – this is how you get and manage your placement on Google Maps, as well as influencing local rankings
• Build citations on third-party websites, to help show you are an active business and make it easy for search engines to consistently see the correct name, address and phone number (known as your NAP)
• Earn reviews and mentions on other websites, to help provide legitimacy, add review ratings to your search results and get links

All of these add up giving business good recognition and legitimacy, highly improving the chances of someone visiting your business or make a purchase. If you are a business looking to increase your footfall through your website then you need to Invest your budget into great SEO! The more you put in the better the return you will see and if you are completely on the ball you can track purchases and then engage with these users via text/email and send offers for potential future purchases based on their likes.

For more information why not get in touch?