What is the Difference Between Local SEO and Organic SEO Services

SEO can be complicated, and many people often wonder the difference between local SEO and organic SEO. Chances are you have heard about both types of SEO and may have a general idea of what they mean but cannot distinguish between the two.

It is essential for any business entering the digital marketplace to understand the differences between local SEO services and organic SEO services. For your online campaigns to be effective, it is vital to understand the difference in how they work and how success can be measured. When contacting an SEO company for help with your website, they are most likely to ask if you are looking for local or organic SEO help. Knowing the difference can save you a lot of time and money.

To understand the difference, it is essential to know the fundamental definitions of both local SEO and organic SEO. Organic SEO is a term for all the natural ways of making your website rank higher in search results. This includes searches performed on search engines such as Yahoo, Google, Bing, etc.

Local SEO is based on organic SEO but has a location-based focus. Local SCO is strictly built on making sure your local business appears higher when people in your area are looking for your product or service. When a potential customer searches for a type of business that matches yours, with proper local SEO, you will appear higher in the results on Google Maps, Bing Places, and so on.

Both types of SEO have to do with optimizing websites and online presence for search engines, but they deal with different rank factors and positions in search results pages. To understand how SEO works and how local is different from organic, we will go more in-depth into each to get a clearer understanding of what they involve.

Local SEO

Local SEO helps you to appear higher in local results. When someone searches for something locally, Google will show results that are based around what they think best matches the search query. So, if someone is searching for an Italian restaurant in Kitchener, they should see all of the choices around their area. There should be no Italian restaurants listed in Buffalo, NY or anywhere that is not near Kitchener, ON. 

As you can see in this screen shot, Google will show the closest Italian restaurants on a map and then list each business. Google reviews will be shown along with the address, distance to the location, hours of operation, and other relative information. All of this information will be collected from a business providing it through local SEO. 

Optimizing local SEO is generally based on building citations, generating positive reviews, and optimizing website content with local keywords. It is vital for those with a local business to work with someone who offers local SEO services which understands how important it is to be indexed by Google. 

Our team at Unwire Web Solutions can help optimize your website to ensure your local business gets highly ranked for customers to find you. Our local SEO services offer several benefits to your online marketing efforts, which can significantly drive more foot and digital traffic to your store. When done right, you will gain more leads and sales from local customers and establish more of an identity within your community of trust and expertise.

Organic SEO

Organic SEO is focused on relevant and informative content. An organic search in Google is often someone searching for content and information who needs an answer to a question. They are doing research, not necessarily to make any transaction but just to know the facts and information to solve their current issue. This could be the latest news on a given topic, a food recipe, or DIY guide.

Organic SEO is based on links and keywords. With keywords, your website content can use specific words and phrases that people use in search engines. This is what tells the search engine that your content is relevant to what the user is searching for. When other websites that are topically relevant to your website link to you, it can help establish to Google that other people and websites thought you were relevant and authoritative.

Links and keywords both touch on the two central elements of organic SEO – relevance and trust. When Google sees that your website is relevant and trustworthy, your organic search rankings will increase.

Content

Content is a vital part of both local and organic SEO but in very different ways. Local SCO has content focused on location-based information, including the businesses city, town, or region. It can even include zip codes, streets, and intersections. Highly localized content can help attract a local audience and establish your geographic focus to search engines.

Organic SEO is more concerned with content focused on families of topics and the grouping of keywords that will help people find the information they are looking for. Instead of focusing on location-based keywords, organic SEO will have keywords that focus on the business or topic itself.

Both Are Important

Both local and organic SEO serve important but different purposes for businesses. They are both based on similar concepts of optimizing your business for search engine rankings. Still, there are differences between the two that you need to know if you want a successful marketing strategy. When SEO services are done together, you get the best of both worlds.

To know if your website is optimized correctly, many SEO analysis tools are available that can help give you an idea of if you are on the right track. If your site is not ranking the way it should be in Google, contact our experts today. We will be happy to sit down with you and discuss our organic and local SEO services.