What Are The Most Effective SEO Strategies For Local Businesses?

We often get asked which is the most effective type of SEO, or more specifically, which SEO strategy is likely to bring the fastest results.

Categorising SEO strategies in order of effectiveness can be challenging, since different approaches cater to different goals and industries. Any good SEO Agency in Newcastle will start by understanding the specific goals of their customer, then developing a strategy tailored to those goals.

Instead of asking "which SEO strategy is best", we turned to Bard, Google's new AI Chat Engine, and asked it to summarise the most common SEO types along with their general  effectiveness for a local business in Newcastle.

In no particular order...

1. Local SEO

‍Local SEO is the most important SEO strategy for small local businesses because it helps them target specific geographic areas and increase their visibility in local search results. This can be done by optimising local business listings, local keyword targeting, and local citation building.

Effectiveness: High

2. Technical SEO

‍Technical SEO is also very important for small local businesses because it ensures that their websites are crawl-able, indexable, and user-friendly for search engines. This can be done by fixing any technical errors on their websites, ensuring that their websites are mobile-friendly, and making sure that their websites are secure.

Effectiveness: Medium-High

3. On-page SEO

‍On-page SEO is also important for small local businesses, but it is not as important as local SEO or technical SEO. On-page SEO involves optimizing the content and structure of individual pages to match search engine algorithms and user intent. This includes keyword research, title tags, meta descriptions, headings, image optimisation, and content quality.

Effectiveness: Medium-Low

4. Content SEO

‍Content SEO is important for small local businesses because it can help them attract organic traffic and encourage user engagement. Engaging content can boost social media sharing, backlinks, and user-generated content, leading to indirect SEO benefits. However, it is important to note that content SEO is not as effective for small local businesses as it is for larger businesses.

Effectiveness: Low-Medium

5. Behavioural SEO:

Behavioural SEO is not as important for small local businesses as it is for larger businesses. This is because small local businesses typically have a lower volume of traffic, so they do not have as much data to collect about user behaviour.

Effectiveness: Low-High

6. International SEO

International SEO is not relevant for most small local businesses. This is because most small local businesses operate in one geographic area and do not have a need to target international search results.

Effectiveness: Low-Low

7. E-commerce SEO

‍E-commerce SEO is not as important for small local businesses as it is for larger e-commerce businesses. This is because small local businesses typically do not have as many products to sell online.

Effectiveness: Low-Medium

8. Mobile SEO

‍Mobile SEO is important for all businesses, including small local businesses. This is because a majority of people now use their smartphones to search for information and make purchases online.

Effectiveness: High

9. Voice Search SEO

‍Voice search SEO is still in its early stages of development, so it is not yet clear how effective it will be for small local businesses. However, it is worth considering voice search SEO as a potential strategy for the future.

Effectiveness: Medium-Low

Remember, the most effective SEO strategy for a small local business is to focus on local SEO and technical SEO. These are the two strategies that will help small local businesses attract the most organic traffic and improve their local search rankings.

SEO is an ongoing process. It's never "finished". The most effective approach is to combine multiple strategies to achieve the most comprehensive search engine optimisation results possible.

Always be testing. Always be consistent. Always be patient.