The Internet has taken over all the conventional methods for a localized version of SEO marketing. It has helped in defining a significant growth for many startups and small-scale businesses. With every passing day, local SEO is turning to be one of the favorite tools of the local marketers who are looking for some easy yet effective ways for gaining a distinguished image and presence for their business over the Internet.

As Google keeps changing its algorithm for portraying the search results, the strategies for the local SEO is also changing with time. Moreover, even the customers are now using the modern ways of searching information via online aids; the local SEO trends are emerging for the good. 2017 showered many local SEO trends that helped the businesses to outshine their competitors and to shine with success. 2018 is the New Year and just like the year 2017, many new changes are expected in the local SEO strategies that can help the businesses in being successful.

All the online marketers are aware of the fact that if they are available in the search results of Google, then they have immense opportunities for enhancing their visibility in the Internet world. As Google is one of the most trusted and reputed search engines, most of the people trust Google’s results for most of their buying and other decisions. Thus, if you are available on Google, it means you are everywhere.

In order to make the best use of the Google My Business Page, the marketers must make sure that they have updated all the required information on their profile so that their users can search them without any difficulties. There should be accurate knowledge of your name, phone number, email address, local address, business hours, etc. Maintaining the accurate and complete information on your Google page is critical information that can help in boosting up your search results in the various search engines. For any reasons, if the information entered in the Google page is incorrect or is incomplete; your business may suffer its online presence in the search results of Google and thus will get a negative influence as compared to your competitors in the industry.

Though the concept of voice search is not new, it has not been implemented to its full potential in the market. There are many reasons due to which the voice searches have not been fully implemented in the business environment. Some of the major reasons due to which the voice searches are not fully implemented are as follow:

Despite the several shortcomings that the voice searches are facing, many well-known experts from the industry have complete faith in the boom of its feature. According to Search Engine Watch, Google voice search queries have increased by 35% from the stats of the last year. Moreover, another expert in the industry, Comscore, claims that by the year 2020, nearly 50% of the searches will be done using voice searches. The following stats are fully convincing that the SEO agency must focus on enhancing and developing their voice search feature if they want to walk the success path in the coming years.

Customers are the key players in any business. They can enhance any business with their presence and can hamper the existence of the business in case if they are dissatisfied with the offered services. Thus, the businesses are leaving no stones in attracting the customers towards them by offering a number of features and many benefits. One of the major steps that most of the businesses have taken including the local SEO agency is to provide assistance to the customers by chat enabled options. Chatbots are the prime chat enabled options that are being used by the businesses to satisfy the queries of their customers.

The customer service officers chat with the customers for their queries and then provide them with the best results in the minimum time possible. 62% of customers have admitted that they feel satisfied using a Chatbots while 7% of the customers prefer a combination of human and machine for getting a response to their queries. The present stats, despite the fact that Chatbots are not used to its full potential, reveal just one thing that Chatbots hold a bright future in the year 2018. 

The growth of the Internet and other technologies has made the entire business world to be certain about one fact that the world is turning mobile. It is assumed that nearly 44% of the total population of the world will be having and using smartphones in the year 2017 and the number is said to increase significantly to 59% by the year 2022. Therefore, most of the businesses are moving their focus and efforts in being mobile in their business environment so as to get a competitive edge over their competitors.

Reasons why being mobile friendly can help the businesses?

• Use relevant backlinks on your blog for increasing the visibility.
• Not getting the desired results
• Incorrect recognition of the keywords
• Not so interactive interface
• Unawareness about its benefits and features
  

The present generation and the generation next are using their smartphones for most of their needs. Gone are the days when they have to wait and use a computer or a laptop for accessing their needs. It is the time when they are using their smartphones for their needs anywhere and anytime. Keeping in mind the scope of the smartphones’ future and the benefits that it can deliver to the business, the local SEO agency must not delay incorporating the factor of mobility in their business approach and strategy.

One cannot deny that images speak louder than words. It just takes a fraction of seconds to attract someone with an attractive and appealing image while retaining someone with the matter of content takes a significant time. Further, not much of the people have the time to look into the entire matter, therefore they prefer observing and analyzing the images for a better understanding of the matter. Moreover, images also play a vital role in making the explanations of the complex processes way too simple. One just needs to look at the images to get an idea of step by step understanding.

The local SEO agency along with other businesses has understood the relevance of the images for their business growth and as a result, they are leaning more towards the use of images on their websites and web pages. Making an impactful use of eye-catchy images also helps the businesses to gain a sustainable position in the search results of Google for increasing their Google rankings. These images also help in retaining the customers on the website by presenting them with the relevant images along with diverting more number of traffic on the website.

Who do you think the customers trust the most? Not the product’s description, not the product’s features and very certainly not the product’s sales. The one thing that most of the customers can easily and instantly trust is the other customer’s reviews. One customer instantly gets connected with the similar experience of another customer and thus easily trusts the customer’s reviews. According to a recent study, nearly 88% of the new customers trust on the reviews of the existing customers for taking their buying decisions from any particular website.

Earlier, adding customer experience and reviews was not considered much relevant for the business as there was no such potential for local SEO. With the changing time, customer’s reviews are given significant importance and relevance in the business world. Thus, for scaling the business, the local SEO agency must take care to have some positive customer reviews on their sites. The easiest way to do so is to ask the recent customers and the loyal customers to leave their experience and reviews as a measure to attract the new customers and impact their buying decisions in the favor of the business. The SEO agency must make sure to include the idea of involving their customer’s reviews in their marketing strategy for scaling their business for being successful.

For making any business successful, keywords play a significantly important role. Keywords give the needed identity to the business websites, web pages, etc. in the world of the Internet. If the keywords are not used properly, then the content of the business website and web pages will not get their desired recognition amongst the other available competitors. On the other hand, if the business uses the available SEO tools for finding the most frequently used keywords and then uses the same in their content then it enhances the chances of the business to mark their presence online.

The local SEO must keep in mind that even Google prefer the content with relevant content to list in its search results. This means that the businesses using the relevant and accurate keywords on their websites enhance its chances to get highlighted in the top positions in the search results of the search engines. Besides the use of keywords in the content of the website, the business must take full care of the fact that they should not use too much of keywords in the content as it will appear as fraud or self-promoting for Google and then the content will not get its significant position in the search results. In some extreme cases, Google even blocks some of the websites for doing self-promotions by using too much intensity of keywords in the content of their web pages.

It is almost impossible for the businesses to survive on their own for all of their needs. Sooner or later, every business needs to develop some reputed and recognizable business connections and links for growing their business scale. Developing links and connections becomes a must have for the startups and small size businesses who are struggling with making their stand in the business world. They must make sure to get the needed cooperation from a well-known and reputed large-scale business for gaining an instant recognition and creating a reputed image of themselves amongst the competition.

One of the simplest, easiest and quickest methods of developing links with the well-known names in the industry is to make use of the concept of backlinks. The local SEO agency can use their backlinks on the websites of the known websites so as to increase their visibility in the market. Moreover, getting a place on the known website also improves the chances of the business to appear in the search results of the various search engines. When the Google notice so much activeness of a business on so many well-known and top websites, then automatically the ranking of that particular business goes up against the other rivals in the market. Isn’t something that every business needs? All this can be achieved by developing valuable links with the well-known names.

2018 is a vast pool of opportunities that can be cherished by the businesses and can be used for improving and enhancing their local SEO in comparison to their competitors. In addition, the local SEO agency must focus on delivering a seamless customer experience to their customers. However, the SEO trends keep on changing and one cannot be certain for the upcoming changes that might come along in the local SEO, therefore, the businesses must take the full advantage in reaping the maximum benefits from these local SEO trends and enhance their business in the year 2018.