Do Local Businesses Need To Be On The Number One Position?

Will More Site Visitors Mean More Sales

While talking to some local businesses about online marketing there mostly seemed the idea that if a website gets more traffic it automatically means more sales. Yes, it should help, but not all website visitors are equal. Some of the people I spoke to were not sure and thought there was a direct relationship where more visitors means more phone calls. This isn't always the case. Therefore, it's important to get the business to do a little research before engaging a search engine marketing provider.

Firstly it depends on where they come from. For example, there are two popular types of marketing, interruption marketing and permission based or inbound. If you run an ad which pops up while they're searching for something it had better be worth their while to stop there search and read it. It may work if when they read it there is a good or great hook. Again this needs to be targeted to a specific set of potential customers. Like get a free oil change for your car or get a free something...

In one case I read the hook was a free trial of a teeth whitening at the local dentist. The free trial went well, lots of people signed up but virtually zero showed up for their appointment.

On the other hand someone with a toothache searched online picked a business from the first page of Google, more than likely from their mobile these days, and booked and attended that appointment.

What's the main difference? Urgency, and in the case

of teeth, a lot of pain. The main search engines are often used for research before a person buys something, but there is still a buyer's intent, and those on page one get the Lions share of targeted visits.

People who are actively looking for something make hot leads if you have good informational content on your site and a good sales funnel to gently walk the lead to the point of making a purchase then all well and good..
So, getting good qualified leads to your page is one goal, but by using a marketing business that wants to make a quick buck can send hundreds of useless traffic to a site even for a short time just to convince the small business owner that they have fulfilled their role and walk away with a nice fee.

Have a look at this post about click through rates on page one. The top spot gets about a third of  the clicks and a whopping 58% for the top three combined. So it's not essential to be the number one listing especially for a high searched keyword, but it definitely helps.

So, in this case more site traffic doesn't mean an increase in turnover. It's a combination of having a good website that's rich in information with a proven method of converting visits to sales along with getting the help and advice of the local business consultant or marketing expert.
Also, beware of the SEO agency willing to give a fixed and great quote for varying services and not even discuss the needs of the local business.