Any business that wants to succeed knows that it needs to invest time, money, and energy into digital marketing. However, the umbrella of digital marketing is a large one. There are all different types of strategies that fall under this umbrella and certain ones tend to work better for certain businesses.
One of the most useful forms of digital marketing is SEO. Short for search engine optimization, SEO involves optimizing a website so that it ranks well on search engines. SEO experts usually do this through optimizing a website’s content with keywords they want to rank on, integrating those keywords into the backend of a website, and building backlinks to the website to give it greater domain authority.
Whether you run a summer camp for kids or you own an HVAC repair company, any business should use SEO tactics to boost their rankings so that more potential customers can find them online. However, there are certain businesses that need SEO the most. Not only do they have the most to gain by utilizing SEO, but they have the most to lose if they neglect it. Let’s take a look at these businesses that need SEO and learn why it can help them flourish.
Maintenance Professionals
Whether you’re a car mechanic with years of experience in the industry or you’re a foundation repairman who uses a concrete crack repair kit to make home’s foundation safe, you’re among the businesses that need SEO. Any professional who helps a client when something physical is broken or in need of updating, such as a water heater, a roof, or a driveway, falls into this category.
These businesses stand to gain a lot from local SEO. This is a slightly different form of SEO that operates on a different algorithm than national SEO. It focuses on geographic-specific keywords that consumers tend to search for when they need a professional near them to fix something on their property. In local SEO searches, Google displays three entries above the typical organic search results that show the business’s locations on a map and gives you their phone numbers, address, hours, and other information. If you can utilize local SEO tactics successfully enough, you can nab one of these three spots, giving your business major visibility.
Maintenance professionals can also benefit from SEO because their customer base will likely turn to Google anyways when something is broken. When they search for solutions, you want to be at the top of the results page. If the situation is an emergency, the searcher will probably go with one of the top results for the sake of time and efficiency. When you’re in the top results, that is the best way for your business to convert potential customers into real-life clients.
Even trying to rank on keywords that aren’t directly focused on your services can bring in customers. For instance, if you’re a kitchen remodel company that offers funding options, you could try to rank on best contractor funding so that if a potential customer is really just looking for a company that offers good funding, you will still show up. When you’re picking your keywords that you want to optimize your site for, remember to think of perks, such as funding, that aren’t necessarily a service but still make you stand out from your competitors.
Medical Professionals
Another one of the businesses that need SEO to succeed is medical practices. Whether you’re the best orthodontist in town or you’re a chiropractor who just opened a practice, you need to appear in searches when people look for medical services in their area. People aren’t likely to travel far for medical services, so using local SEO is also important for medical professionals who want potential patients to choose them over their competitors. This means that using geotargeted keywords in your SEO tactics is essential so that you can entice the residents in your area to choose your medical services.
Similar to people who turn to Google as soon as they have something broken in their home they need fixed, people who are experiencing pain or symptoms often go to Google first. This gives medical practitioners a great opportunity to connect with their target audience by ranking on keywords related to medical ailments or conditions. For instance, a convenient medical care center would want patients who need their urgent care services for conditions like urinary tract infections or influenza and injuries like broken bones or ankle sprains. By using these conditions as keywords, the center has a better chance of appearing in the search and the searcher choosing the center as the solution to their ailment.
Certain SEO tactics also offer medical practitioners to share their expertise on their websites. A key SEO strategy is to write informative blog posts related to your business that are optimized with keywords. The keyword integration helps bring searchers to your site and well-written content will help give your website domain authority. Anyone who reads your blog posts will also appreciate that they are written by the best doctors, building trust with both potential patients and current ones. These posts are also easy to share on different social media platforms, which can also help with your SEO goals.
Legal Professionals
Various legal professionals stand to gain a lot from a great SEO campaign. As these professionals usually specialize in one key area of law, they have a strong competitive advantage and great keyword opportunities. If you run a personal injury law firm and specialize in medical malpractice, you can target keywords for that specific area of law so that the clients who need you most can easily find you.
The potential audiences for legal professionals are also likely conducting searches in order to find solutions to their legal troubles. This gives law firms and other legal professionals the opportunity to optimize their websites for these specific troubles. If someone has been in a car accident and needs a lawyer, they’re probably going to search for “car accident attorney” on Google. You want your business to appear in the top results, or else you’re losing out on a potential client.
Lawyers also tend to operate in a local area, rather than across a state or country, making Local SEO a good choice for law firms. If that same person who was in a car accident searches for “car accident attorney near me” on Google, the device they’re searching on is likely going to use location services to determine what “near me” means. Once it determines the area in which it needs to show the searcher their results, its going to show the law firms who have focused their SEO tactics on their local area first. To be sure that you appear in these results, you need to make sure your SEO campaign is focused on your local area.
Online Businesses
Any company that operates entirely online is definitely among the businesses that need SEO. In fact, these businesses have no choice but to use SEO in order to draw their leads through search engines. They don’t have a brick-and-mortar store that can attract customers through attractive signage or splashy events. Online businesses only have products or services that are marketable online through outbound and inbound strategies.
All of this means that if you want people to find and buy your product, you need to expand your online presence as much as possible. If you run an online business that makes custom jewelry, you can’t just rely on a strong social media presence to drive business. You will need to properly optimize your website with keywords about custom-made jewelry and jewelry design. With these types of optimizations, your target audience can find you when they’re looking for certain products, rather than you trying to collect followers on social media that you hope will buy your products.
Restaurants and Bars
Restuarants and bars are two businesses that need SEO to bring in new customers who are looking for a local spot to get the food or drink they crave. Even if you operate as part of a larger chain, you’re still tied to a physical location. This makes any restaurant or bar a great candidate for local SEO success. People who are searching for Italian food or Mexican cuisine aren’t going to drive hours out of their way to get to a restaurant. They’re going to go with the options who are in their area and that show up at the top of the search results page.
Depending on the nature and services of your restaurant, you also have the opportunity to target specialized keywords. These keywords could be able to specific cuisine or dishes you serve or aspects of your business that sets you apart from others. For instance, if you’re an Italian restaurant that serves gluten-free options, targeting a keyword about gluten-free pizza or gluten-free pasta is a great idea. People who maintain a gluten-free diet likely have trouble finding restaurants that serve gluten-free pasta, making you a great candidate for their business. Other services that you can highlight are takeout and delivery options and catering services.
A great SEO campaign for a restaurant is essential in setting them apart from their competitors, especially if they’re located in a major city or an area inundated with the type of food they serve. If you can manage to rank higher than your competition on the search engine results page, a searcher is likely to trust and choose your restaurant because they trust how Google ranks the results. They’ll associate a better ranking with better food. As long as you have a beautiful, informative website that entices them to make a reservation or order food from your restaurant, your SEO strategy to get new business will have worked perfectly.
Multi-Location Businesses
The businesses that need SEO the most are often the businesses that have locations in several different areas. This is because you likely want potential customers to find each of the locations easily. Local SEO campaigns can do just that. By using geotargeted keywords for each of the major areas your business serves, you can better ensure that each of your locations are getting the customers they need.
SEO also allows businesses with multiple locations to advertise for specific deals at certain stores and optimize locally for them. These deals are typically effective in getting the attention of the people seeking those services or products in those areas. For instance, a tree trimming company that believes it is the best value tree service in the area could optimize its website for the various deals it offers at its different locations. It can also optimize for different types of services it provides in different areas so that customers can find exactly what they’re looking for.
People use the internet every day to search for a wide variety of goods and services they need, from the best private schools to the best plumber in the area. The key to appearing in these searches and turning these online strangers into customers is to utilize effective SEO tactics. Whether you’re one of the businesses that need SEO the most or you simply want to boost your rankings, you stand to gain more customers and increased visibility from SEO strategies.