Investing in search engine optimization (SEO) is beneficial for your business as it can help build your online presence. It allows users to find your website and hopefully take advantage of your services or products.
However, the world of SEO can be large and complicated at times. There might be concepts that you aren’t aware of that might actually help you.
For example, it’s essential to know whether a national SEO or local SEO strategy would work best for your business when strengthening your digital presence. In this article, we’ll discuss the similarities and differences between the two and hopefully help you decide which one to choose.
What Do Local SEO and National SEO Have in Common?
Let’s first examine what the two have in common. At the end of the day, SEO strategies are meant to help websites look good in the eyes of search engines. And search engines prefer quality for their users above all else.
The methodology for both local SEO and national SEO is also similar. There’s still going to be content marketing, link building, guest posting, and backlinks. Because although the two may have different target markets, they still have to meet the same criteria Google and other search engines seek to rank a website.
What’s the Difference Between Local SEO and National SEO?
Although both local and national SEO share a similar goal—to impress Google—the differences between the two can significantly affect your marketing campaign.
For example, local SEO is often used by businesses that wish to attract local customers. Local SEO campaigns often target geographic keywords to help narrow down the search results. This also means less competition and, therefore, a higher likelihood of ranking for that geographical keyword.
Let’s say you have “affordable cleaning services” as a keyword. The search engine will include results of affordable cleaning services from all over the world. This is a lot of unnecessary competition, especially if you only cater to a specific service area. So instead, you can use a geographic keyword such as “affordable cleaning services Alabama” to lessen your competition.
For this keyword, Google will only show the affordable cleaning services in Alabama. And if you really work hard on your SEO strategy, you might be able to rank for that keyword and surpass your competitors in that service area.
National SEO, on the other, caters to a much larger audience. Usually, online businesses go for a national SEO strategy as their services aren’t limited to a particular region. With a much larger competition, national SEO tends to include more general keywords to expand its online reach and has a harder time ranking. In local SEO, businesses already know who their potential clients are. Meanwhile, national SEO faces the challenge of finding their clients and reaching them.
Conclusion
Both local and national SEO is used by businesses to boost their online presence and gain organic traffic. When choosing which one to pick, it all comes down to what type of business you have. If you’re a local business owner with a limited service area, local SEO is the more logical choice. However, if a location doesn’t limit your business, you should go with national SEO strategies to help you reach people from not just all over the country but also internationally.
For affordable local SEO services, you can count on LionRank to help you easily optimize your website one step at a time. We offer DIY SEO, local SEO, national SEO, website design, and press release services. Schedule a call now to get started!