Local SEO
Melbourne.

Whilst many understand the need for and benefits of SEO, what can often be overlooked is the importance of targeting your strategies. After all, if you are a retailer that is servicing a very particular area, you want to ensure that the rankings that you are working to achieve are going to be relevant to you and your business. That’s where local SEO services come in, allowing you to target your area and provide Google with the means to accurately place your business in local search results. After all, if you are ranking number 1 in America for an Australian business that doesn’t deliver overseas, you may get a lot of clicks, but it’s not going to translate all that well to sales and income.

To explain how local SEO services differ from traditional SEO, let’s use ourselves as an example: As a local SEO agency in Melbourne, we work with a large number of Melbourne-based businesses. From those businesses, some will have global audiences, such as eCommerce stores, while others, such as mechanics and equipment hire stores, will be very location-based in their offerings.

For those that are looking for a broad reach, we will perform keyword research and optimisation services that are catered to the largest possible audience within their industry. On the other hand, for those that require the assistance of a local SEO agency, we will target all of our optimisations exclusively towards the local market and Melbourne-based search terms.

Short Answer: No, local SEO is not dead.

Ever since the dawn of SEO in general, specialists have been ushering in its demise. Even now, as I write this, articles are being written about how local SEO, link building, or digital marketing in general, is dead or in the process of dying. So, why is this? As a local SEO agency, it appears that when people say SEO is dying, they really mean that it’s changing. SEO is changing all the time by its very nature, and strategies that worked even just a year ago can fall flat with new updates to search engines, algorithms and best practices.

At Digital Next Australia, we are constantly in the process of adapting to new methodologies and altering our processes to best reflect current trends, shifts and updates to the algorithm. In doing so, we’ve continued to see lasting success with local SEO campaigns, as you can read about in our case studies.

Whilst Google and other search engines may be highly advanced in their algorithms, they don’t “think” in the same way that humans do. They can only extrapolate data that has been made easily accessible to them, and this is an incredibly important thing for businesses. After all, whether you’re looking to appear in the map pack or want a chance at ranking for “dentists near me” for those in your area, you need to ensure that you’re doing everything you can to provide search engines with the required information. By using local SEO services and strategies, you are making it as easy as possible for those search engines to know where you are, where your services are most relevant, and who you should be shown to.

If you’re a business that requires a local audience to thrive, such as a restaurant, a brick and mortar retail store, or a vehicle mechanic, then local SEO services are going to be absolutely essential for your online success. After all, you need to be sure that you are appearing in searches for those that are going to be able to directly benefit from your services, and if that’s a local audience, then the benefits of working with a local SEO company are going to be very apparent.

With that said, even those who have wider-reaching aspirations can benefit from local SEO. If, for example, you have both a brick and mortar business and an online eCommerce store with the capacity for international shipping, then allowing Google to know where you are will still be beneficial.

As a local SEO agency in Melbourne, we take a multifaceted approach to our client campaigns. From simple things like directory listings and ensuring that your Google My Business profile is properly set up to more complicated elements such as full-site optimisations and comprehensive local link building strategies, there is a large number of factors that are considered when ensuring that you have the absolute best chance at local SEO success.

Naturally, each business is going to require a different approach depending on myriad factors, such as their history in the digital space, the level of pre-existing optimisation on their site, and the specifics of their goals. So, if you would like more information on what a local SEO company in Melbourne can do for you, then feel free to contact us today.

This is a more complicated question than it may initially seem. Although many shadier SEO companies will try to give you promises about what they can achieve (eg. “we will get you to the top of page 1 in less than two months!”), SEO of any kind is not an exact science. With that said, whilst we won’t be making any promises that we don’t know we can keep in terms of exact numbers, we can say this:

In 99% of cases, clients will begin to see notable increases in local SEO rankings within the first 3 months. So, for those that are on the fence about whether local SEO services are for them, we suggest having a three month trial period to ensure that you have time to see the value of it before you make a final commitment.