Local SEO – Fad, Fashion, or Gimmick
Local SEO, Google Map marketing, and Google Places listing are the buzz words, nowadays. Marketers and mentors of small businesses are swearing by this set of new marketing tools. The buzz is so strong that it makes people wonder if the new set of tools is a gimmick or a fad. Will it deliver on the promises it make? This is the question that bothers all. Let’s examine this in the following paragraph.
Why Local SEO?
The Internet has lived off its years of hype, and people at large have started using it for real work — to find the best plumber, a good restaurant, an odd-job doer, painter, etc., in their locality. In a world where local search results are not coughed out by Google against a location specific keyword, people have to waste hours and hours of their time to search for a plumber to fix their kitchen tap.
This is so because of the SEO optimization done by various experts. In a non-local-search-result world, a person searching for plumber in Milwaukee may get the phone number and addresses of a plumber in New York State, which is frustrating for the searcher.
To add up to the searchers’ experience, all major search engines (particularly Google) have come up with a solution. They started offering local listing with names, addresses, and phone numbers of the establishment. In case of Google, Google Places and Google Maps are two tools that enable local listing.
What so special about local listing?
For a business to be able to get listed in Google Places, a website is not required. All a small business needs is to add its name, address, photographs of establishment, contact details, and a small description of the business.
This is phenomenal. Now a small business does not have to have a website to get customers from Google or other search engines. They can get it merely by adding their aforementioned details in Google places, and pointing their location in Google Maps.
What I think of it?
I think local listing and local SEO have given a small business an unprecedented opportunity to get customers without even having a website. For me, Local SEO is neither fad, nor a gimmick. It is a fashion that is going to be there for time to come.