It may seem obvious that boosting your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) rating in a local way is important, but how important is it? Why shouldn’t a company aim for a global presence only? Does hyperlocal Search Engine Marketing (SEM) matter that much?
The truth is that in what concerns ad placement, the higher your ad is the more likely you will get visits to your website and obviously it’s also more likely that there’s conversion with those visits. But should all the businesses have the same global exposure goal when they advertise?
A lot of small companies don’t want to compete with big companies for their global SEO ratings because it takes a lot of money and resources to achieve that and frequently the income generated does not pay off. For example, for a small clothing retailer, it’s not easy at all to compete with any of the globally present brands.
That’s why it’s important for these businesses to invest in hyperlocal SEM, in order to gain and retain competitive advantage.
We extracted 2 pieces of data from Google’s Understanding Consumers’ Local Search Behavior and one from LocalZ which are particularly important in what concerns hyperlocal Search Engine Marketing:
1. 18% of local smartphone searches led to a purchase within a day compared to 7% of non-local searches;
It’s clear that the proximity to the physical store is a key factor when buying a specific product. When somebody is looking for a product or service in order to buy it or compare it with others, they want the shop to be nearby to actually go there and proceed to buy the product.
2. 72% of computer/tablet users want ads customized to their city/zip code;
It’s extremely important to listen to the opinions and desires of the target group if a company is doing things in order to satisfy their possible clients. Knowing that a really big group of people want their ads customized is important and should be taken into consideration when advertising.
3. Over 80% of the inquiries are in principle prepared to have apps access their location services, provided there is a benefit to them and their concerns have been addressed
Even if you don’t search for a specific location, the search engine you are using knows where you are and will adapt the search results. There’s not much you can do about it and with the evolution of technology, the results shown will be more and more precise.
These 3 pieces of information show really well that having a hyperlocal focus may be extremely important to attract customers.
Focusing your efforts on hyperlocal search engine marketing is really important not only for small but also for big companies which will have the need to customize their offer and target smaller groups, acting locally and creating a personalized offer. There are a few companies doing it already and doing it well but this is expensive and it takes a lot of insight and knowledge.
Hyperlocal markets are one of the oldest marketing concepts that exist, it was a reality before the internet, television and also newspapers. The concept is here to stay, the only change comes from the way we’re interacting with the market.
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