If you’re in the business of selling products or services to a local customer base, now is the time to get online if you’ve been putting it off. In April, Google relaunched it’s Local Business Centre as Google Places, and the signs are that geographic location is only likely to become a bigger a factor in search rankings.
Google estimates 20% of searches are now related to location. It’s always been good business sense to make sure your site ranks well for local search terms, but with the exponential growth of mobile / smartphone usage to locate local services via web search and map-based apps, small businesses can’t afford to miss out on the chance to put themselves on the map.
However small your business, or however long you’ve managed without an online presence, you can benefit from the investment in a local search targeted website to increase the reach of your company. And if you’re worried about the potential time and difficulty required to run your own website, WordPress makes it simple for even the most technophobic client to maintain a professional and effective website.
Walsh & Company are a small firm of solicitors based between Falmouth and Truro here in Cornwall. They’d had their domain name for years but like so many small businesses were unsure of the need for a website, and how complicated it would be to run it – as well as understandably being busy with running a successful legal practice.
As well as offering the opportunity to add SEO metadata via the WordPress admin, any site can now easily add Geotag metadata easily using a service such as this geometatag generator. Combine with relevant, locally targeted keyword phrases in the content to attract search queries in the area, and you have a well optimised, targeted local search friendly website.
And even if the thought of operating a content management system based website makes you shudder, after an hour of training, Walsh and Company were armed with all the information they need to grow their site even further.
