Did you know that about sixty-three percent of all Google searches are from smartphones? Yes, that’s correct! Local SEO is often a neglected digital marketing channel that is synonymous with mobile phones. Paid search and traditional SEO are usually the first choices of strategies that enterprises seek out, and local SEO often remains off the spotlight. Even when businesses do implement local SEO, they frequently fail. The reason for this? Businesses lack a well-structured plan while implementing local SEO. There are several choices like seeking guidance and help from an SEO company in Gurgaon or an SEO company in Chennai, as these are two of the best places to get results when it comes to SEO.
Now, if you wish for speedy results without outsourcing your work, this article is just what you would need to get started.
First, let’s dive deep into the obstacles enterprises face while implementing local SEO and a couple of good practices to follow to implement local SEO successfully.
The challenges faced by large enterprises while aiming to implement local SEO
Lack of well-defined strategy
Strategizing is very crucial because ignoring a well-defined strategy means no direction to follow. Hence always consider having in place- a well-defined plan and process in place.
Slow decision-making.
A sense of urgency while making decisions is lacking in most large enterprises, which later leads to a lot of trouble. For instance, a simple task of not updating the phone numbers can result in a dramatic loss of traffic. That is why large enterprises need to be adaptive and flexible while making decisions and quickly implementing them.
“The Bystander effect”
Essentially, the Bystander effect is when someone is in peril, and people or “bystanders” don’t come forward to help but rather think that it is other people’s responsibility to help. As everybody starts to feel like this, no one ends up helping the person in need.
The bystander effect is often the case for large industries and large enterprises; here, employees are not aware of their responsibilities and start to think it’s the other person responsible for carrying out a specific task. The task may be anything such as customer service, responding to customers, supervising managers, etc. Due to the “Bystander effect,” the problem persists, and nobody takes responsibility to solve it. The only good way to overcome this challenge is to make employees’ responsibilities crystal clear and cultivate a sense of willingness to help the team.
Volume
The fourth challenge or obstacle large enterprises have to face when implementing local SEO is volume, which is arguably the biggest obstacle to overcome. Large enterprises have outlets and shops at many locations, hence the term “large enterprise.” Suppose a large enterprise has 100 locations and makes use of the Google Q&A feature. If the enterprise gets three questions per month and the response time is 5 minutes answering each question, we get 25 hours per month devoted to answering queries. This endeavor takes up a substantial amount of time, making up only one small part of local SEO. For this reason, volume can be quite a tricky challenge while implementing local SEO.
We have discussed four significant problems or challenges large enterprises face when trying to implement the best SEO services. The good news is that having a well-defined plan helps enterprises overcome the challenges discussed above. Not only that, but a well-defined plan also produces a successful and scalable local SEO strategy.
Now that we have seen the challenges large enterprises face let’s see some often overlooked first steps. Taking measures to implement these steps will help build the foundation of good SEO services.
The first and foremost step is to define what success means to you. Define what success means to your local SEO plan. You can achieve this definition by setting objectives.
Some objectives are listed below to get an idea of what parameters you can use to define success.
- Foot traffic
- Views of store locator pages
- Clicks on Google My Business Listings
- Phone calls made to the store
The second to consider would be to establish roles and responsibilities. Remember that local SEO requires a team effort. It is not a one-person job. As we discussed in the “Bystander effect” point, one clear solution to overcome that challenge is to establish and inform employees of their respective roles and responsibilities. This clarity would greatly help your local SEO plan to be fruitful.