What Shop Owners Need to Know About SEO—Part 1

What is SEO and Why It is Important to Your Marketing

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to your website by ensuring that your site ranks as best as possible on search engines like Google. SEO is about building strong authority so your target customer can find you during an applicable search. An awesome website with high-quality content about your services is excellent for search engines since it shows them you know what you’re talking about. It will only be successful if your website functions well and the content helps people find what they want.

Why is it essential to your business?

• 97 percent of consumers search for local businesses on Google or Bing
• It can improve your online visibility
• It helps you get found organically
• It gets you more calls and more appointments
• Builds Strong Authority

Three Pillars of Local SEO

Local SEO is unique because you’re not only optimizing for specific target keywords but also a specific local area.

The three pillars of Local SEO are:

Relevance

• Relevance refers to how well a local business matches what someone may be searching for. “Does your business offer the service(s) the client is looking for?”
• Optimize with quality content.

Distance

• Distance considers how far each potential search result is from the location term used in a search. “Is your business close enough to the searcher to be a good result for their search query?”
• If the user doesn’t specify their location, search engines will calculate distance based on what they know about the user’s location, such as GPS or IP address.

Prominence

• Prominence refers to how well-known a business is, based on information search engines have about a business, including what your website discusses.
• Includes review count and score from Google My Business.
• Optimize by increasing review quality and quantity and growing brand name mentions across the web.

It’s important to remember your shop needs to rank highly within Google’s results to drive more people and, in turn, more business. You can focus on site speed, a pretty site, and daily Facebook posts, but first, you need to start with one key component to build your SEO rankings. Relevant content on your website that answers the questions people are asking is a key building block. Next, we will discuss on-site and off-site SEO.

Autoshop Solutions is an automotive digital marketing agency specializing in websites and internet marketing solutions. Want to learn more about our services? Or watch this blog in action, please click here!

NOTE: This blog is the first in a two-part series on What Shop Owners Need to Know About SEO. Next up, we will discuss On-site and Off-site SEO.