Should I Be Doing My Own Local SEO?

One of the questions that many small business owners ask is whether or not SEO is something they can do on their own. And the truth is that while many of the techniques involved in local SEO are straightforward and simple, the key is to wrap your head around why you are doing what you are doing and what it means for your ranking. For most small business owners, the why of local SEO doesn't make nearly as much sense as the what. And what happens when this environment occurs is the creation of a piecemeal local SEO strategy that ultimately doesn't function as effectively as it could be.

The reason why most small business owners should trust their local SEO efforts to a professional marketing firm is that local SEO, like global SEO, is a system of interconnected tasks that have a synergistic effect on each other. What this means is that alone, none of these local SEO strategies will do much for your visibility in local searches. But, when properly executed together, they have a massive impact on your visibility. It's like dealing with a car repair. You know that if you stop a leak, your car will run slightly better than before, but probably not as well as if you had repaired all of the systems that had been affected by the leading fluid.

Another reason that makes it important to outsource your local SEO efforts is search engine algorithm changes. You may or may not have heard about Pandas and Penguins and even Hummingbirds, but didn't know what they had to do with the Internet other than those cute videos that keep popping up on social media. However, these are all terms used to describe a series of significant algorithm changes that Google implemented, changes that had a significant impact on the way that websites stacked up against one another both locally and globally. Understanding how Google views websites is a vital part of ensuring that a local SEO strategy is going to be effective. If you are using outdated information to construct your local SEO efforts, it's not going to be very effective. Marketing companies stay on top of all of these changes and know how to tweak strategies to ensure maximum effectiveness.

The bottom line? In order to do local SEO well, you need to have experience. That's not something that most small business owners have and puts them at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to performing the necessary tasks associated with a quality local SEO effort. It's simply a better choice to trust the experts with your marketing needs rather than wasting time and effort on an ineffective (at best) or potentially damaging (at worst) DIY local SEO strategy.

Of course, who you choose to handle your local SEO strategy should also have adequate experience. Take the time to review your marketing company options and ask questions before you decide on who you are going to put in charge of your local SEO needs.