One way for High Street stores to leverage the web and boost sales is to adopt local search. So suggests a study by digital marketing agency, MarketingSignals.com, which finds that a huge number of web-enabled retailers are missing out on addition revenue by not embracing local search.
The survey of 1,021 UK workers revealed that more than 1 in 3 (39%) business leaders are unsure as to whether their company website is optimised for local SEO. Virtually 1 in 3 (32%) said their website wasn’t fully optimised for mobile devices with 29% saying they had not specifically optimised their site’s content for local search queries.
In addition, a further 27% revealed they aren’t included on any local business directory sites with more than 1 in 5 (21%) saying they have never checked if their own name, address and phone information (NAP) on their website correlates to the address which is published on other directory sites.
This was followed by 18% who said they don’t have any customer reviews, 16% who said their website doesn’t have any localised blog content and 15% who admit to having boilerplate/duplicate content on every location page.
Not being aware of SEO ranking factors (e.g. backlinks, domain authority) (13%) and missing contact information on the website (10%) completed the list of the top ten mistakes businesses are making with their local SEO.
The research goes on to identify a number of ways businesses are missing out on improving their own local search engine visibility, with 37% of respondents admitting that they don’t even have a verified Google My Business (GMB) listing.
Gareth Hoyle, managing director at MarketingSignals.com comments: “Clearly, there are a high number of companies missing out on potential business as they are not optimising their website for local SEO. This is concerning given the importance it can have for businesses, particularly those that trade locally or have multiple physical locations. For local and indeed national companies with a physical presence in multiple location (s), a website provides the chance to target a wider audience – but there is almost no point in having one if it’s not well optimised for search engine traffic.”
The top 10 ways businesses are failing to utilise local SEO
- Not having a GMB (Google My Business) listing – 37%
- Not having a website that is fully mobile optimised – 32%
- Not having the site optimised for local search queries – 29%
- Not being included on local listing sites – 27%
- Incorrect/no NAP (Name, Address, Phone) information – 21%
- Not having any customer reviews – 18%
- Not having any localised blog content – 16%
- Having duplicate content on every location page – 15%
- Not being aware of SEO ranking factors e.g. backlinks, domain authority – 13%
- Missing contact information on the website – 10%
