Search engine optimization has changed over the years. A number of SEO techniques that were once considered obvious and standard are now firmly in the black hat category, and search engines such as Google penalize sites that use them. On the other hand, there are a number of new SEO techniques that have become very popular and drive traffic to your website. One of these new methods is local SEO. If you aren’t working with the best marketing agency in Dallas to incorporate local SEO into your website, you may be losing customers every day.
Local SEO Defined
SEO takes the concept of keywords and keyword phrases and narrows it down to your geographic location. As an example, let’s look at how a local clothing boutique in Dallas might use local SEO. They may use the keyword phrase “women’s clothing” to rank in searches, but that doesn’t help them if a customer in Los Angeles looks at their website, especially if they do not offer online ordering and shipping. Reaching customers anywhere outside of the Dallas area may not be useful to this company.
This is where local SEO comes in. Instead of “women’s clothing,” the business wants to rank for “women’s clothing in Dallas.” They update their SEO keywords and tags to include variations of “Dallas,” “Texas,” “Dallas, Texas,” “Dallas TX,” and other geographic locations. 
How Important is Local SEO to You?
Unlike standard SEO, local SEO’s importance does vary from business to business. For example, if your company offers online shipping, you may want to attract customers from around the country or even the world. On the other hand, if you don’t or if you’re a restaurant or other business that would only appeal to in-person customers, you may want to heavily focus on local SEO.
Google Ranks Local SEO Results Higher
Google also tends to rank businesses that make use of local SEO higher in searches. For example, if you search for a marketing agency near me, you’ll find local SEO results right away. However, this is also true if you search for a more general query that doesn’t include a location. For example, searching for “soup” does return results for recipes and the like, but the first several results are nearby restaurants that serve soup. If you’re not making use of local SEO, you may miss out on appearing in this section of results.
Are You Ready to Add Local SEO?
Adding local SEO keywords and tags to your website is no different from adding new SEO keywords. However, you do want to take some time to determine what local SEO terms are right for you. For example, if you’re in Dallas, you may want to also rank for results connected to Fort Worth, Irving, Carrollton, and other surrounding areas. You could even go more specific and rank for Dallas neighborhoods such as Lakewood, Fair Park, and Old East Dallas. This is where working with an expert in SEO marketing Dallas can greatly help. Once you have these local keywords ready, you’ll need to test and adjust them just as you would with any keywords. However, you may be very surprised at how quickly they bring in more customers.