Local Vs National SEO: Which one is right for you?

If you’re a business owner it’s important to ensure you’re targeting the right people at the right time, and as a result your SEO strategy needs to best reflect where your customers are. Not taking the right approach, or failing to target your customers where they are can have large implications for your business.

So what is the difference between Local and National SEO and which one is right for you?

Local SEO

Local SEO is the process of optimising your website and landing pages to target specific searches in your local area. This can be local ‘near me’ searches for someone looking for products or services in their local area, or it can be specific location based searches ‘best restaurants in london’. Typically this type of optimisation is needed when you have a limited service area or single physical location e.g. doctors, retailers, local services (plumber, electrician, garage etc). 

National SEO

National SEO on the other hand, as the name suggests, is much broader and targets a more generic search intent, or one which isn’t necessarily location specific. This might be the case for an ecommerce site which doesn’t have a physical location but still services all of the UK for example e.g. ecommerce retailers, nationwide retailers, SaaS companies etc.

Whether it’s local or national SEO, it’s vital to ensure your audience targeting is appropriate for your business in order for you to maximise its potential. Both approaches have their pros and cons but it’s important to target the one which makes the most sense for your business.