Local SEO and General SEO (or National/Global SEO) serve different purposes and target different audiences.
| Local SEO | General SEO |
Target Audience | Targets a specific geographic location where the business serves. | Targets a broader audience without a geographic restriction. |
Objective | Help businesses promote their products or services to local customers who are near their location. | Increase a website’s visibility on search engines for broader, often highly competitive keywords. |
Strategy Core Pillars | 👉 Google Business Profile optimization, which involves claiming and optimizing a business’s listing to appear on Google Maps and local search results.
👉 NAP Consistency (Name, Address, Phone number), ensuring this information is accurate and consistent across the web.
👉 Local citations and directory listings on sites like Yelp, Foursquare, and industry-specific directories.
👉 Gaining local reviews to build trust with the local audience.
👉Localized content creation, often involving city-specific or neighborhood-specific keywords. | 👉 Keyword research and content optimization for competitive, high-volume keywords.
👉 Building backlinks to improve domain authority. Developing and maintaining a solid content strategy with blog posts, articles, and other resources to attract a global audience.
👉 Technical SEO improvements, like optimizing site speed, mobile-friendliness, and structured data to help search engines crawl and index the site.
👉 On-page SEO practices to improve meta titles, descriptions, and content relevancy. |
Best for | Brick-and-mortar stores, restaurants, service providers, and any business looking to attract customers within a particular geographic area. | E-commerce, SaaS, content publishers, and businesses aiming to reach a broad or international audience. |
Key Differences
⛳ Audience Targeting: Local SEO focuses on reaching nearby customers, while general SEO targets users based on intent or interests, regardless of location.
⛳ Keyword Strategy: Local SEO keywords often include location modifiers (e.g., "coffee shop in Austin"), whereas general SEO keywords focus on broad search terms (e.g., "best coffee shop").
⛳ Listings and Directories: Local SEO relies heavily on local directories and reviews, whereas general SEO is more focused on link-building from a wider range of sites.
Both types of SEO are complementary and can be integrated for businesses with both local and broader objectives.
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