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Originally Posted On: https://bippermedia.com/5-myths-about-local-seo-service-you-need-to-know/

 

46% of Google searches are looking for local information. That means that local search engine optimization (SEO) has become more critical than ever, and if you have a particular service area, ranking on Google, in general, isn’t always enough.

Local SEO means tailoring your rankings to your service area so that if anyone is searching for a business in their area, they find you.

If you’re planning to hire a local SEO service, you need to understand how local SEO works — including the untrue SEO service myths that people perpetuate. Read on to find out what they are.

1. You Must Rank #1

When people create and use a local SEO strategy, many believe that their business has to rank number one on Google for that strategy to pay off.

There are many situations in which someone may not click the top result on Google right away. For example, a business that ranks two or three but has built out their Google My Business (GMB) with lots of information and reviews may find that they get more clicks than the number one result if they haven’t bothered to do so.

That doesn’t mean ranking number one isn’t good — it’s great, actually, and certainly helpful. If you can do it, more power to you and your business. But more important than that is making sure you have the most impressive GMB information to draw customers in when they’re faced with competitors on the same page.

This includes trying to get reviews on there, as research has proven that reviews are a powerful marketing tool and consumers use them to make decisions. Make sure you ask for direct feedback from customers and consider sending an email or message to remind people that a good review would be greatly appreciated.

2. Using a Call Tracking Number Hurts Rankings

One of the local SEO service misconceptions that is widely believed is that your rankings may be hurt by using a call tracking number. That means adding 800 to the beginning of a phone number so you can track incoming calls in your software.

This won’t impact your local ranking at all if it’s done right. Make sure you add 800 to the original business number and everything should go smoothly.

The only problem you might encounter with this is that if you use a service like Moz Local, the tracking number may come up on directory listings (which you want to avoid). Be careful with the software you’re using but, on its own, a call tracking number should not hurt your SEO rankings.

3. Local SEO Isn’t Valuable With a Large Service Area

Some people may disregard a local SEO strategy altogether because they have a large service area that covers multiple cities. They may think that it’s not worth it for them and concentrate on ranking in general, hoping that the consumers that stumble across them may be located there.

However, if you have a large service area, it’s still important to consider local SEO. One idea is to break your SEO up into different areas and target keywords for each city and town you cover. Otherwise, if it’s an overall area (like one county), you can still target that — but people tend to search for businesses in cities and towns more than the county they’re in.

Local SEO is still valuable in a large service area — you just need to be smart about it.

4. You Can’t Rank in a Big City

Another similar myth is that you can’t rank in a big city because there’s so much competition, leaving people despondent about their business marketing — but this isn’t true either.

You can rank in a big city, it may just take more time and effort (but it’s worth it to draw in more customers). You may have to be clever with your keywords and hire a good professional service to help you do it, but it’s possible. Just make sure you have someone who knows their stuff working on your SEO and, despite the high competition, you’ll still outrank even the best of them.

You should also take the time to build out your GMB page so that even if you don’t rank number one, it’s still worth it — because remember, you don’t have to be at the top of Google to make good business.

5. Follow the Rules

As with any situation, there are specific and unusual times when breaking the rules is okay — but for the most part, you need to follow the rules laid out by Google (especially for GMB) that may affect your ranking. For example, you can’t use category names within the business name or Google will take the listing down.

You also need to follow the general SEO rules for your website. Make sure the page doesn’t have a long loading time, don’t stuff local keywords in there too much or it may lower your rank rather than raise it, and make sure you break up text with optimized images.

Google will crawl your website frequently to decide where you rank, so researching the rules — or using an SEO service that knows those guidelines well and has plenty of experience with them — is invaluable to your strategy.

If there is a specific rule that your SEO expert wants to break, make sure they have a good reason for this. Google sets its guidelines and sticks to them pretty stringently.

A Local SEO Service Is Valuable

There are many myths surrounding the strategies that a local SEO service should be unable to unpack to find out the best thing to do for you. Make sure you do your own research so you have an idea of how local SEO works and can see how it affects the business when you get it going.

Follow the rules as best you can and know that even in a big city or large service area, it’s possible to rank well — you may just need a little help.

Looking for world-class SEO services to help your business out? Contact us today at Bipper Media and let’s see what we can do for you.