There is millions of business in the internet, which means there
are lower probabilities of your business getting discovered by the users.
Establishing your business online is not easy, and you still have a lot of
things to consider and adapt if you really want to be on the top. Personal efforts and a shed of tears are only
the basics to success.
Let say, you placed higher on the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs)
compared to your competitors. If you appear on the first page, you can have most
of the internet traffic and leads that may somehow converted to actual sales.
But, if you are stuck on page 2 or 3, expect a huge loss of potential customers
and a decrease of traffic to your website.
If this happen to you, have you ever heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? It is referred as SEO because it optimizes your website for a better performance and helps you achieve a good ranking in SERPs. Whether small or big business, it is crucial to invest in a reliable SEO agency that is worth your time and money.
The argument when it comes to SEO partnership is, should I
include local search strategy? Or only plain global search strategy? It depends
on you, but it is essential to do both. Global SEO focuses on reaching a
worldwide audience from a narrow location to global scale while local SEO
prioritizes on amplifying your business presence on the local industry.
To know more about global
SEO and local SEO, the next part of this article will be a pure discussion of
the two concepts.
What Is Global SEO And Why
It Works?
Global SEO or international SEO is the practice of expanding
your digital ability to a global scale. With this integration, you will be
introduced to new opportunities and will have deeper understanding about the
trends and changes in the online community. Diverting your time and investing
on global SEO will give you information like:
- Targets
traffic from around the world - Unique and
well-researched keywords are prioritized - Attracts
potential customers to your website
It would be more effective if you already operate an
eCommerce platform that is outside your local reach, but there are many factors
that will hinder your performance in the search engines. The main challenge in
here is the intense competition level with your competitors. They operate 24/7
to foresee possible changes in the market where they can penetrate their marketing
plan to outrank everyone in the same field, and it will be hard to recover from
that attack.
Since we are talking global SEO here, it is not as easy
compared to local SEO to outrank your competitors because you are based on a
global scale and probably, there are thousands of them chasing after you. The
best of the best are all confined on the same situation with you.
SEO experts will be with you on the journey and help you
with the fierce competition in the market. They know what is best to increase your
ranking on search engines. Unique keywords and range of language translations
are just the basic moves against your competitors aside from quality content
and the relevance of information, and if you are still tight on budget, SEO is
not that expensive to be taken for granted of.
Why Pursue Global SEO?
Pursuing global SEO entail a lot of risks and you should
have clearer information on what you will be dealing with. It is expected that
if you invest on global SEO, most of your web visitors are coming outside of
your country or foreign people, and each has a different taste when visiting a
website. That is why optimizing the website should be the outmost priority. User-
friendly, wide variety of options for different native speakers, and globally designed
that accommodates all the users.
Here
are three steps to stand out strategically in the global market.
- Be specific in creating a URL that should target your
customer - Use language meta tag to indicate the languages of the
content - Create quality content for the interest of your web
visitors about culture, arts, etc.
The quickest and most effective URL structure is to
employ an ccTLD method. These are the letters after the link domain that
pertains on what country you are located and registered to. For example, if
your target market is in France, it would look like ‘https://www.yourcompany.fr’ or if your target market is the
whole Europe then it should end with “.eu” The only disadvantage on ccTLD is it
doesn’t support a specific language. This is where the other elements, like
hreflang, language meta tags, subfolders, and subdomains, come into play. If you’re ready to target more than one country, see our global SEO services.
What Is A Local SEO?
If global SEO is ultra-broad, consider local SEO as hyper-concentrated. Local search engine optimization is a practice of attracting both virtual and physical customers to your local store. Since it is local, you should be strategic in creating a keyword and specific enough that the customers will reach you in no time. For example, your keywords should be specific like, ‘shoe repair in yishun’ instead of just ‘shoe repair’.
As much as how interested the local
customers are, global customers don’t even know what you offer or sell.
However, complications may still arise for small businesses integrating SEO
with them. Operating and managing regional branches will not be as easy
compared to the daily operation on the head office, so web experts should
create a separate website for every branch to wherever the location is.
Should I Optimize
Locally?
To understand more about local SEO, it is necessary to
read more information about it. To start it off, majority of the consumers shop
at business located within a short distance away from their homes, and about half
of the web searches are local. Global SEO may have some advantages compared to
local SEO especially if the website is integrated with a high domain authority
and solid SEO practices, but a search query with real purchase intent are in
the elements of localization. Instead of searching, ‘how to fix a broken water
pipe’, people would rather narrow it to ‘repair broken water pipe near me’ or ‘water
pipe repair yishun’.
It is obvious that in this kind of situation, customers demand immediate service for them. Users use keywords to help narrow their searches, either a service from a third-party associate or a product, and search engines will immediately show results of the queries. To think that global SEO has the most intense competition between businesses, local SEO main goal is to appear as high as possible on local SERP specifically, to be included in the ‘Three Map Pack’ or ‘Local Map Pack’ which is the list of top three websites that will appear first on the results page. Google will acknowledge these 3 companies and pull data on their business profiles so that it would be easier for the users to know the business details, user ratings, operating hours, location and contact information. If most of your customers are in Singapore, start with a local SEO agency in Singapore.
How To Boost Your Rank On
Local Search?
Below are some ways to help your
site rank as high as possible on local search results.
1. Local content and information
Being transparent about your website for your customer is a great move
to step up your game in the competition. Create contents like blogs and
articles about the product or services being offered, and information like
address, phone, and contact numbers. When your website is localized, users will
immediately know what your products or services are and location of the
business. But, be mindful if you have many branches because a potential
customer might get lost by calling the wrong number or asking the wrong
personnel for information.
2. Business profile optimization
Small or big business, it is vital to always update your business
profile along with your NAP citations. It plays a significant role in guiding
your customers to your business. For example, a customer searching for the ‘best
seafood restaurant in east coast’ will finds your restaurant with the correct
contact information. This work because you regularly update your website and
amend changes, if a customer will call the number on what you posted on your
website and you answered immediately, it is reflection of a good service.
3. Always check and manage user’s reviews
Websites nowadays already gave importance to the reviews of their
customer. It was taken for granted back then; some businesses even use bots and
fake profiles to post a review about them. But now, it is the basis for
potential customers to trust your services and buy your products. Google bots
will help you on this one, checking the credibility and trustworthiness of the
company before recommending to everyone. This can have a direct impact in your
ranking on local SERP. When you are going to manage reviews, take note on the
following: the number of reviews received from the users, the quality of the
reviews, and the authority of the review sites, as these are the critical
factors that will affect your ranking.
4. Quality localized backlinks
Receiving backlinks and getting recognized through your backlinks is a
closer step to optimizing Google’s local search algorithm. However, you should
obtain a natural backlink and should be from a higher authority website to give
you the boost you need.
Global SEO Or Local SEO?
Start assessing yourself by asking these questions, will I be able to deliver quality products and services to my customers outside operating area with thousands of people? If your answer is yes, you should start considering investing on global SEO to target global demands. If your answer is no, it is advisable that you should stick on doing the best performance through local SEO and slowly expand your business whenever you are ready.