Local SEO: Limiting the Competition

Pitting a worldwide brand against a local fashion store in the heart of Melbourne may as well be the biggest mismatch in business history. You’re free to raise David and Goliath as an example on how underdogs can outwit the big guys. However, when the big guys are just as witty as the underdog (or even wittier), it’s impossible to call such a situation a “fair fight”.

This is one of the rationales behind the idea of limiting online marketing competition to a local scale. For instance, search engines like Google have taken steps to give local businesses the competitive edge and the chance to enjoy the fruits of their success. Local SEO gives them this opportunity by ranking local businesses, provided geotags (geographic location) are present in the search query.

Try searching for “restaurants in Melbourne” on Google. It should show you a map overview of restaurants in the city and their name and reviews. While McDonald’s is considered a restaurant by many, you’ll less likely need a search engine to look for one in the city. Most search queries want restaurants that have yet to ride the mainstream wagon.

This is just one of several benefits of local SEO. Local businesses won’t have to slug it out with brands the size of Earth in terms of reputation (unless they plan to enter the international market). 

SEO—Why It is an Effective Online Marketing Tool

A well-designed website will not contribute to a business if it’s not properly optimised. Similar to traditional marketing, which involves leaving tracks to lead customers to your establishment or setting up posters around the city, online marketing involves the use of various methods aimed at hooking internet users to a business website. One of today’s most effective online marketing methods is search engine optimisation (SEO).

Mobile SEO: Finding Renewed Success on the SERPs

It was the middle of the year in 2013 when Google first announced its recommendations for building smartphone-optimized websites. Until then, mobile SEO was simply an afterthought for most companies, but with corporate big-timers like General Motors suffering for what Google deems unacceptable mobile website development practices, everyone in the SEO world is taking notice.

In order to stay competitive, websites need to apply one of Google’s three recommended design patterns:

• Sites can opt to have separate sites for mobile and desktop users. This is seen by most as the least desirable of the three patterns.

• Sites can dynamically serve different devices on the same URLs, with the choice of content dictated by the user agent reported by the user’s browser.

• Sites can opt to serve the same code to all devices, modifying the look and behavior of the site using CSS instead of trying to identify the device using its user agent. This is Google’s recommended mobile website configuration.

Additionally, website designers should take pains to make sure that they do not serve error pages that discriminate the smartphone-using public. GM suffered this issue, as it chose to serve smartphone-only errors on pages it hadn’t yet adopted for mobile. In this regard, winning in the SEO game then requires either throwing yourself fully into optimizing your site for mobile or not at all, until you know you’re prepared.