Local SEO VS Global SEO: How to Choose?

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Every company has a definite scope of operations. And according to this scope, they choose the SEO process they need to adopt. The two main areas of SEO are global and local SEO. One is targeted internationally, and the other focuses on local aspects.
Both terms have very similar definitions, but in reality, they are different. The main difference is the location of your website. Local SEO is all about what happens on your website and is geographically based. Global SEO is about how other people worldwide see your website.
If you want to rank in Google for local searches, you need to know local SEO. However, if you want to rank in Google for global searches, you need to know global SEO.

Local SEO VS Global SEO

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Benefits of Local SEO

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1. Increased Website Traffic

Local SEO is becoming more important for business owners and their customers. Most online people use a search engine to find local businesses and services. And, if you're located in a small town or a rural area, the chances are that the majority of your clients will be found locally.
Take a look at the screenshot showing commendable traffic coming from local SEO.

Improved Website Traffic Numbers

Any company could benefit from more traffic. Your business listed in the Google My Business database can lead to improved local searches. Local SEO can increase foot traffic for your company and improve conversions with your local customers.

• Google Analytics is the most cost-effective option for monitoring local traffic.
• It is important to find out your common traffic sources with SEMrush.
• Compare your traffic numbers with your competitors.

Read: Tips to Promote & Get More Traffic to Your Website

2. Lower Advertising Spending

Local search advertising has become a key component of B2C digital marketing campaigns for many companies.

The key benefit of local search ads is that most clicks are generated through mobile devices. These click-through rates can be as high as 20% or more. With mobile traffic growing to more than other traffic sources, this is critical for businesses.

Take a look at the below screenshot that shows why local SEO is more cost-effective than paid ads.

Local SEO Lowers Advertising Costs

Local SEO can be a powerful ally for a business focused on its local clients. It can help them improve their leads and conversions in the vicinity. Local SEO has much better results than paid advertising because it is more cost-effective. Paid ads can also get more expensive as time goes on.

• Get more leads with tools like Prospect.io and Hunter.io.
• Manage your ad spend with Hubspot and RollWorks.
• Audit your website with SEOquake.

3. Beat Your Competition

The most obvious benefit of local search engine optimization is that it provides your business with the ability to find customers looking for you specifically easily.
With local SEO, you can compete for those who search for you, rather than just for the people searching for a general business. This is why people leverage business listings and directories to focus on the right target audience.

How Local SEO Helps, You Better Your Competitors

Any business needs a powerful local presence to improve its numbers. This is something that most businesses do not focus on. Local SEO improves the brand's visibility and enables better lead generation cycles. It helps you connect with customers looking for services you're offering.

• Moz Local can leverage your local SEO rankings.
• Growthbar provides simple but effective analysis and keyword research.
• SEMrush Position Tracking Tool helps monitor selected local keywords.

4. Long-Lasting Results

Local SEO can help you secure longer-lasting results. It allows your customers to find you easily, even when they're searching for local businesses. It also provides a stronger connection to your target audience and can help you reach the people who matter to you the most.

Carrying Out Local SEO Can Improve Longevity

A significant difference when considering other methods like paid ads is the lifespan. Local SEO is organic and has minimal upkeep or maintenance compared to paid ads.
Take a look at the below screenshot that shows paid ads at the top appear as long as you’re spending money to run them while the below results in local pack appear on top for a long time at free of cost.
This is why local SEO is so important. And also why it's so important to keep this in mind as you create your next marketing plan.

• Bright Local is a great all-inclusive platform for local marketing.
• Serpstat is a free tool that can improve SEO growth for your business.
• Whitespark is another powerful local SEO-aligned tool.

Which Type of Companies Should Focus on Local SEO

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1. Medical Services

A business that leans towards local SEO is medical services. It makes sense because people in the immediate area require medical assistance. Local SEO enables people to get in touch with medical services quickly.
For example, when someone searches for ‘dentists” from Los Angeles, all the dentists in the city show on SERPs or Google maps.
Read: Ecommerce Marketing Tips for Online Healthcare & Medical Business

2. Real Estate Agencies

Another niche where people need local SEO is real estate. Buying or selling property usually happens locally. So this comes under the purview of local SEO and its strength. Real estate also means companies can take advantage of location-based services. This works well to enable navigation for these properties.

3. Home Improvement Services

Local SEO can be a powerful tool when you're looking to sell your home improvement services to customers in your area. Local SEO for your home improvement can help you get the right people for your brand.

4. Law Firms

Local SEO can help your law firm in more ways than one. It is one of the fastest ways to get a lot of new clients. It is one of the most effective ways to get high rankings on search engines. It is the easiest way to connect with potential clients.

5. Food And Hospitality

It's no secret that restaurant and food reviews play a large role in online rankings and traffic. They also affect our bottom line. If you're in the restaurant business, a good local SEO strategy could mean the difference between making and losing money.

6. IT Services

Local search engine optimization can help IT Services companies gain customers, increase their traffic, and drive more leads. They improve sales by leveraging local SEO and local search engines' data. All this is at a much lower cost than other forms of advertising.

Benefits of Global SEO

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1. Improved Global Reach

The biggest benefit of global SEO is that it enables businesses to reach more customers globally. Since the beginning of the Internet, companies have expanded their market reach to a wider audience.
However, the only way to get started with global SEO is by creating a quality website. This website can attract more traffic than your competitors.

Tools That Can Help Track Your Reach

Look at the screenshot showing the global SEO performance.
It's a good idea to be creative when tracking your brand's reach. There are several different ways to do this, and some of these methods are more effective than others. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

• Most brands use Google Analytics to track trends and mentions.
• Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have business tools to measure reach.
• BuzzSumo is another great platform to measure your brand's popularity.

2. Higher Quality Leads

Leads are the lifeline of any business, and you must have a regular inflow of them. Global SEO can considerably improve the quality of your leads by appealing to better clientele worldwide. It gives you a chance to connect with them and inspect your business.
Here’s an example, when a user from anywhere in the world searches for “photo editing software,” the software appearing in SERP has a chance to convert them to customers.

Strategies To Improve Your Lead Generation

Global SEO is all about having the ability to rank your website, blog, or landing pages in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. It's a lot easier than you may think!
When it comes to the Internet, one of the most important aspects is the way a site is optimized, especially on the back-end.

• LeadPages is a great inbound lead capturing platform that can tweak your landing pages.
• OptinMonster can do a variety of lead generation strategies, including A/B testing.
• Leadfeeder is installed on your Google Analytics which can help you gain additional insights.

Read: Benefits of Lead Generation for an Ecommerce Site

3. Better Brand Perception

When it comes to customer psychology, they tend to trust companies they've heard of more. This is what global SEO can do for your brand. It can elevate your brand and enable better visibility promoting it. It can improve customer interactions with your brand and get better word-of-mouth marketing.
Imagine if you’re looking for a plagiarism or grammar checking tool. Which one will you choose from the SERP? Undoubtedly, a popular tool like Grammarly.
(Use any of the images below)

Tips To Improve Brand Perception And Visibility

There is a saying, “There is no such thing as bad publicity”
A good business is all about positive publicity. As a business owner, you want to ensure that your brand is known for the right reasons. Global SEO can leverage better brand perception and improve your brand's visibility.

• Mention is a popular platform that can monitor social media feeds.
• Surveys are tiring, but Survey Monkey has great success with customer reviews.
• HotJar allows you to see how your customers are browsing your website.

4. International Clientele

A global SEO strategy can help you build your business, gain more customers and boost your conversion rate. You lower the risk that your efforts won't yield the kind of results you were hoping for.
With a global strategy, you can reach out to a worldwide audience and establish yourself as an authority in your niche. You also increase the likelihood that potential clients will find you and your business.

Strategies To Reach Out To A Global Audience

When it comes to SEO for international markets, you must consider certain factors. The most important is that you need to make sure that your website meets the needs of your audience, both culturally and linguistically.
The businesses must ensure their content is presented to the audience in the country’s language.
For instance, if a US website ranks on SERP in Spain, the directed webpage should appear in the Spanish language using Hreflan.
To do this, you need to thoroughly understand how your target market thinks and behaves in their native tongue.

• Audit your content marketing process regularly.
• Switch to AI-assisted social media management tools like Lately and Sprout Social.
• Another tool you should look into for your socials is Cortex which focuses on social content.

Which Type of Companies Should Focus on Global SEO

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1. Ecommerce Brands

Global SEO works well for eCommerce brands. One only has to look at brands like Amazon and eBay, relevant worldwide. You can find their presence in most regions.

2. Tourism Websites

One of the most important things to consider is SEO for your international audience for travel sites. A travel site wants to attract travelers from all over the world. You need to be careful to ensure that your page is optimized for all visitors. Don't limit it to just the country in which you currently operate.
For example, Airbnb serves all across the world. So, global SEO is vital for ranking on top in numerous locations.

3. Automobile Manufacturing

Automotive manufacturers must compete globally and ensure their products are seen and heard. They need to invest in global SEO. Businesses didn't realize that if you wanted to sell a product overseas, you had to learn about local customs and cultural nuances, but that is no longer true.
Automotive companies can target their products to customers from any country worldwide with global SEO.

4. Web Design Studios

Web design is a niche with global deliverables limited to a specific region. This makes it one of the prime candidates for global SEO. It also has several tools which benefit the web design business. This is one of the ways to get your content in front of your ideal customers. It's a great way to quick ROI from your website.
Related: Common Web Design Mistakes that Affect SEO

5. Multi-Location Hotel Chains

Multi-location hotel chains are unique businesses because customers travel. They stay at different types of hotels, including luxury, budget, or a host of others. A great way to get more customers to find you is to make sure that the websites and online content you're creating are optimized for search engines.

6. Heavy Manufacturing Industries,

A heavy manufacturing company, needs to be found in Google to remain competitive. According to reports, the top five results for "manufacturing" bring in approximately 5 billion page views per month. This type of traffic can translate into a very high percentage of potential new customers.

Important Local SEO Stats

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• 97% of all users use online search to find local businesses
• 86% of all people use Google Maps to search for a business
• 78% of all local searches results in a conversion
• More than 50% of local searches result in offline store visits
• 57% of people lose interest in a business if they have a poorly designed website
• 30% of all queries are location-related
• 25% of all clicks go to the top local search result

Local SEO & Global SEO - FAQs

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Q1. What Are The Main Differences Between Local And Global SEO?

Local SEO refers to the methods of optimizing your website for local searches. On the other hand, global SEO deals with the larger SEO strategy across the web. Local SEO is all about optimizing for a specific area or region.

Q2. Which Is More Important - Local Or Global SEO?

One is not more important than the other. It all depends on what your business objectives are. These strategies are important for driving traffic and building a strong brand. But the goal is to understand where your audience is and then target the location that will make the most sense to them.

Q3. Can Paid Search Ads Beat SEO?

Here too, while both are powerful in their own right, you need to use both. Each can cover the other's weakness and are required for better branding.

Q4. Do GMB Listings Hurt National Or International SEO?

Listings are a powerful tool in any business's arsenal. If you're a local business, your goal is to be found by locals. If you're an international business, your goal is to find a local audience first. Listings will not negatively affect national or global SEO.

Key Takeaways

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• Local and global SEO have different scopes for business.
• Posting quality content is relevant for both SEO principles.
• Opting for global SEO is important for a multinational business.
• Improving your local presence is also important to rank well.
• Access different customers with local and global SEO.
• Accelerate your brand's reach and visibility with international SEO.
• Featuring on the local 3-pack can considerably improve your business.