How Local SEO Helps to Convert More Sales

In the age of smartphones, it can be difficult to get the attention that you need to convert sales. The problem that you are running into is that you are casting your net too wide. By reaching out to people who are not just in your area, but around the world it can lead to lower search engine results. Those in your area simply cannot find your business because they do not know that you are right around the corner. They think that you company is based somewhere else and therefor they do not even consider buying from your company.

To make sure that you are visible to a great portion of the population, it is a good idea to make sure that your company is listed through local SEO. Those using their smartphones to find local businesses will have an opportunity to find your business on their browser and you will have an easier time of making more money with the people in your area. Smartphones are just one of the ways in which you will reach your clients. You will also reach those in your area using desktops and laptops to find your business. Because many want to invest more in local businesses, showing up through local SEO will help you to convert more interest into more sales.

Getting Found on Smartphones

Smartphones are loaded with apps which allow people to look up all sorts of businesses in the area that they are in. While many will use these features to find things like restaurants and hardware stores, others will use it to find a good location to buy business POS systems. It does not matter what kind of business you are in, it is a good idea to get to know these different apps and how you can make sure that your company is being listed through the apps. In most cases it will take nothing more than simply applying with the company to be listed with their app. In some cases you might have to pay a fee.

Getting Found by Search Engines

Being listed with the search engines by those looking for what your business has to offer means entering your location. When someone who has a location near you is looking for what you have to offer, you will be listed before others who are outside the area. Doing so will help to make sure that even if you have a poor showing overall for search engine ranking, you will be able to be found at the top of the list by those in your area. Best of all, they will be able to see your location on a map.

Converting Interest into Sales

Once people have found your location on the map, it is a good idea to cash in on the local appeal that your business might have. Show how your business is a member of the community and why they are going to find better results by doing business with you. You can cash in on the good will which is generated by supporting local businesses.

About the Author

Shannon Suetos is an expert writer on phone systems based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions for small business owners and entrepreneurs such as VoIP service at Resource Nation.

What makes a great website?

This is a tricky question that covers a whole lot of ground. In order to have a fabulous website for your business, you first need to understand a bit about what makes a site great. I’ll go over the basics of what will make or break your website.

Attractive Design

This one is the hardest to quantify, since each person considers something different of attractive design. But all good designs have a few things in common:

Professional Look
Imagine heading off to a 2-hour meeting with a new lawyer. When you walk in, he's wearing sweat pants and looks like he hasn't showered in a week. Would you trust him to do a good job for you? An unprofessional website does for you what sweatpants do for your lawyer - destroys credibility. Professionalism is a big part of business. Make sure your website looks as professional as you are.

Plan a Color Scheme

There should be a definite, unified color scheme. You should choose several colors (we suggest two or three) and use those throughout your site for special elements such as buttons, icons, and graphic highlights. This helps to keep each page feeling like a part of the whole.

Make It Skimmable
You should be able to skim a page to find what you want. Titles should be bigger or a different color than your paragraphs, and content should be divided into boxes or sections by what’s what. This keeps people from feeling overwhelmed when looking at a page with a lot of information on it.

Easy To Use

Navigation
People won’t stick around your site for long if they can’t find what they’re looking for. Make sure your menus are easy to find and the menu titles are descriptive. Make them consistent – if you have a section menu on the right hand side of one page, make sure it’s in the same spot on every other page. Your links should all be a different color (and possibly underlined) as well, to make it easy for people to skim a page and find out where they want to go.

Homepage
Keep in mind: the most important items should appear first. Your best-selling requested product or service should be prominently featured in the top half of the page. You should have an easy-to-find link for contact information, and possibly display your phone number there as well. Give people a sentence or two about who you are or what you do. And keep it simple: you want to direct people to the information they’re looking for. And if that link has a catchy slogan or graphic with it, so much the better.

Everything Should Work
There’s nothing worse than filling out a contact form, only to realize that it doesn’t work. Or that the business’ phone number has been changed since their website was last updated. Make sure you test all forms, photo galleries, and links. A working website is a happy website.

Great Content

Your website says a lot about your company, and the content on your site will make a huge difference as to how your company is viewed. Consider your website as both a place to market your product, and a place to provide information and assistance. If you’re not a good writer, you should consider contracting out the copy writing to someone who is.

If you can make your content easy and entertaining to read, your readers are much more likely to click around and see what else is on your site. Once you’ve got someone at your website, you want them to stick around.

In the end, content creation boils down to this: think about what people would want to find on a website like yours, and then supply a quality version. Are you a homebuilder? Make sure to have not only neighbourhood information, but floor plans and photo gallery with professional pictures. Do you sell technical products? Your site is a great place to supply manuals and tech information.

Last but not least, make sure to add new content on a regular basis. It’s what keeps people coming back!

Is your website missing one or more of these elements?