What is the Effect of SEO on Local Businesses?

2018 is the time of technology when we rely heavily on it and refer to it to make most of our decisions. Whether it is planning itinerary, booking tickets, or checking out restaurants- everything is done online. Thus, as time passes, it becomes more and more important for businesses to shift online and bring more traction through relentless marketing on platforms on the internet. 

Whenever you look for services, Google makes sure that the results that comes up are useful to you. Thus it scours for businesses that are available to you locally. For example, if someone types in “leading SEO company” while sitting in India, the top results will be related to top SEO agencies that have established themselves in India.

Here are some of the local businesses that have benefitted from SEO:

#1 Restaurants and Bars

Studies show that a large number of people are more likely to search for restaurants online and also check out their menu. Gone are the days when you had to call in to reserve a seat at a bar- now you can do that simply by clicking a few times on the computer screen. 

#2 Ticketing

There was a time when ticketing was a tedious job and people would pay hefty amounts to operators in order to book tickets for them. However, now that ticketing services have gone online, it is easy to remove the middleman and book tickets to pretty much anywhere by yourself. Not only have airlines set up their own websites, there are other websites like MakeMyTrip too that help you book your trips from the comfort of your home. 

#3 Medical Services

Every once in a while, you find yourself searching for a good doctor on search engines like Google or Bing.medical services involve everything- from doctor’s office, testing labs, emergency services, to buying medicines. A constant information about availability of local options online is detrimental to not only bringing more business, but also may help those who are in dire need for these resources.

#4 Law Services

One may get into trouble with law anytime of the day. From information sourced from customer reviews on various platforms as well as assessing their growth by reviewing their websites can help law firms get more traction than ever before. Obscure firms that have been doing so well offline can further increase their scope by scouring for more clients online.

#5 Real Estate

Bigger cities are places where the youth immigrate to. And as the trends suggest, most of their activities are confined to the online world. Thus, they even search for potential apartments online and make their decisions according to reviews that have been left behind by previous tenants. Scouring for new places has thus become way easier than it was before when people has to go through the tedious job of looking for apartments in the classified sections of the newspaper. 

Let alone renting the apartments, even for a temporary stay, people look for areas to stay in on websites like Airbnb, Couchsurfer, etc.

Conclusion 

Of course there are many more businesses that have benefited from SEO that the ones mentioned above, but the progress that these industries have made on the introduction of SEO is noteworthy. Rather than dismissing the progress society is making online as a “fad”, it might do wonders for anyone to take their business online. It is cost effective, and is a way of keeping up with the demands of today.