Sales start with website traffic. If consumers can’t find your client’s website or content within the first search results page, traffic will decline. Here’s how to motivate your client to take action and help them get better SEO results.

Does Your Client Understand Their SEO Results?

In-​Person Shopping Begins Online

If your client believes that SEO should be prioritized around online shoppers, they’re ignoring a huge sales opportunity. According to a report from SOCi, consumers search online for local businesses:

• At least once per week: 80% conduct searches this often
• Every day or multiple times per day: 32%

These types of searches are conducted using sites and apps such as Google Maps, says SOCi. And consumers aren’t just looking for locations. They’re searching for online profiles about the businesses nearby.

But it’s not enough just to have an online profile. To get the best SEO results, your client needs to keep their profile informative and up to date. For example, they should include business hours, star ratings, a brief description of what they offer, and contact information.

If your client doesn’t understand why their SEO effort isn’t getting better results, maybe it’s because they aren’t prioritizing these important details.

Social Media Impacts SEO

After Google Search and Google Maps, the next sources consumers use to get more information about businesses are social platforms:

• Google Search: 72% of consumers look up information about local businesses this way
• Google Maps: 51%
• Facebook: 49%
• Instagram: 33%
• TikTok: 27%
• Snapchat: 19%

And that’s just the average. The younger the consumer, the more likely they are to rely on social media to find business information. Consumers ages 24 and under are actually more likely to use Instagram and TikTok than Google Search.

While your client’s social media presence doesn’t directly impact SEO results, Semrush says profiles can benefit your client indirectly by:

• Boosting Branded Search: Consumers who like your client’s brand on social media are more likely to search for additional information
• Increasing Organic Clicks: These people are also more likely to click on your client’s search results pages
• Improving Local Rankings: “Gaining followers and positive reviews on social media may help your local business listing rank higher in Google’s map results”

To find out which social media platforms your client’s target audience is the most active on, check out their profile on AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel.

Online Review Management

Managing your client’s online reviews is also a fantastic way to improve their SEO results. They’re extremely important in consumers’ decision-​making process. According to SOCi, consumers turn to online reviews before choosing a local business:

• Always: 23% of consumers agree
•  Frequently: 34%
• Sometimes: 30%
• Rarely: 9%
• Never: 4%

The good thing is consumers aren’t nearly as picky as you may think. Only 4% say a business needs to have a five-​star rating for consumers to consider making a purchase. Another 37% need the business to have four stars and 40% more only need a business to have three stars.

But that doesn’t mean your client should settle for the bare minimum if they want to raise their SEO results. Instead, they should be encouraging their customers to leave reviews about their experience with the brand. And they should be responding to negative reviews in order to turn those experiences into positive ones.

SOCi says 50% of consumers who had businesses respond to their reviews felt like the interaction had a positive influence. So, if your client gets a negative review, they should respond to it and help solve whatever caused it. Then, not only will the customer be satisfied, potential customers will see that your client is trustworthy.

What are you waiting for? It’s time to use this information to improve your client’s SEO results today!

Photo by: Good Faces