In the world of SEO (before the current era of AI) there were two main traditional prongs, or strategies, if you will: local SEO and national SEO.
These two still exist, and much in unchanged form from their younger days. This short post will break down what some of the major differences are between them.
So whether you’re looking for a provider of national SEO or need the best local SEO services for your business, hopefully this post will clear up some confusion.
National SEO Services Focus on Keywords That Have No Local Basis
National SEO focuses on keywords that have the same search intent no matter where the searcher is in the country.
For instance, product names, brand names, domain names, and keywords like “best work boots” or “waterproof work boots” or “work boots for wet weather.” These are, by and large, national-focused keywords. (Well, perhaps not for those in the Southwest, but climate aside you get the point.)
The best local SEO services, where they focus on keywords, will likely focus on keywords that are specific to a given location. So, to keep things under the same vertical, local specific keywords for the same industry might be something more like “work boots Philadelphia” or “shoe shop in Philadelphia.”
Local SEO Is Focused on Optimizing Business Listings
The majority of the best local SEO services focus more on optimizing local listings like Google business profiles than they do targeting specific keywords, though they also do that.
This is one of the main differences between local and national SEO campaigns. Whereas national SEO optimization services focus almost entirely on keywords, local SEO is often focused on making sure that local business listings are optimized with addresses, locations, service offerings, reviews, hours and more.
This is one of the main things that determines what businesses show up in voice searches and map searches.
Local SEO May Focus on Creating or Optimizing Location-Specific Pages
One aspect of the best local SEO services, depending on the scope of the company’s offerings, may have to do with creating location-specific pages, or optimizing them, if they already exist.
For businesses that are not specific to one location, but which operate out of several, this aspect of SEO is often necessary.
This element of local SEO could be as simple as creating a simple, single landing page for each location served, along with the address, hours, contact information, and services offered.
Choosing a few location-specific keywords for each landing page and including them in the page structure organically can help move the needle on that front, increasing visibility in the target market.
That’s All Well and Good, but What Do They Have in Common?
With all of this being said, there’s honestly a lot more in common with local and national SEO than there is difference between them. Both local and national SEO require:
- A website that is technically sound, functional, and which offers a good UX.
- A solid backlink profile (or in the case of local SEO, building local citations).
- Ongoing content creation, publication and optimization efforts.
- Adherence to basic best practices when optimizing existing web pages on a website.
- Abstinence from known black hat practices (such as keyword stuffing).
At the end of the day, it really all comes down to what keywords are selected and whether more time is invested in optimizing the main domain or its local listings, though these efforts often work hand in hand.
How to Find the Best Local SEO Services?
If you’re in the market for the best local SEO services, one of the best ways you can find that provider is simply by looking in the search engine results. Remember, any company that shows up in the organic search results knows SEO, and should be able to execute effectively for your business as well.
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