Did you know that there are 3 different type of SEO? Local, National, and International SEO. Many businesses don’t understand the differences between the 3 types of SEO or what will truly benefit their business and their budget.
One issue with national and international SEO that a lot of businesses don’t take into consideration is the considerable time and skill that it takes over local SEO. It’s usually recommended that any SEO campaign is given at least 6 months, because it usually takes time to start to see efforts of SEO results. With national and international that time is even longer, 9 and 12 months, respectively. These time frames are only if SEO is being done consistently and a lot of time dedicated to it, not a few hours here and there.
Local SEO
To start with, most businesses, even those wanting a national or international presence, should do at least some local SEO. These are the tactics that get your business showing up when someone searches for your business locally.
For example, if you are a hairstylist in Dunbar, WV and someone types into Google Search “hairstylist Dunbar WV,” you’ll want your website and information to show up on the first page of Google. The same goes for if they search directly from a directory, such as Yelp. You want your business to be listed in these directories. There’s a lot more to Local SEO than this, but you get the idea that it’s about getting found by local customers.
And all of this holds true for businesses that may be run out of a home office or that otherwise does not have a physical location for customers to come to. You want the credibility that comes from being listed consistently in local directories. Showing that you’re a real business will give you a boost you in the search engines. You also want potential local clients to be able to find you, even if they don’t know your business name, but are looking for your service or product. To do this, you have to show up in local searches.
National SEO
Unless, for some reason, you want your business to not show up in local search, National SEO should build upon Local SEO. With National SEO there is more of a focus on content that can show up in search for a wide-reaching audience. You want to focus heavily on putting out content that is relevant for a national audience and that establishes you or your business as an expert. For instance, a specialist for a rare disorder with patients coming from outside of the local area, would want to show up in local search, but there may not be enough local patients. National SEO extends your reach beyond the local area by focusing on relevant and high quality content.
International SEO
Just like with National SEO, you’ll start with Local SEO and build upon that with National SEO. With International SEO, you want to determine what are the top countries that you want to target. Before you actually get started, you’ll want to make sure to do your research and determine if it’s actually worth the effort and investment it will require. Analyze the international competition for your industry. Once you’ve decided that you want to move forward, you’ll need to consider if you need different versions of your website depending on the countries that you are targeting. Some questions to help you decide this are what are the primary languages of the countries that you are targeting and do you offer different prices or services depending on the country.
Which one is right for your company?
To sum it up, there’s a lot of overlap between the three different types. All businesses should ideally start with Local SEO. Even if you’re not necessarily interested in attracting local customers, it’s still beneficial to make Local SEO part of your SEO plan. Both local and national businesses can benefit from focusing on content and quality backlinks, but with National SEO, the focus is on trying to get a wide-reaching audience. International SEO targets specific countries around the world.
Some questions to ask:
- Are you trying to get the most traffic to your website and location is not important?
- Do you want more foot traffic?
- Do you want local traffic while also becoming a though leader in your field?
- How important is having a national or international reach?
Contact Delphinium Marketing today at 304-207-0795 for help with getting your small to mid-size business the visibility it needs to succeed online.