A recent survey places Google My Business optimization ahead of website optimization as the critical local marketing choice. There were 475 local marketers who responded to the most recent BrightLocal’s annual local search industry survey.

The survey looked at several different aspects of local marketing including services, salary, pricing and best business practices. The results are important since they put Google My Business optimization ahead of the on-site counterpart. Many people with small businesses are familiar with on-site optimization and consider it the gold standard.

Other Services

The survey was interesting as it categorized other services like reputation management (3), citation management (4) and website design (5) in those slots.  There were some other statistics from the survey that should be of interest. For example, people who work for local marketing agencies split their attention among an average of 17 clients.

On the other hand, a freelancer has eight. Here’s another number that small businesses and local marketers should be paying attention to. A full 52% of the local marketing SMB’s that responded to the survey said they would be hiring more SEOs this year.

Industry Trends

Here at Above The Fold, we take great pride in staying on top of all industry trends. It’s the best way we know to serve our valuable clientele. We can customize your local marketing budget and focus it into areas to give you the best ROI.

Incorporating the trends from this survey help us to evaluate your existing marketing campaigns. If you’re looking to start a brand-new venture, we can help with that too.

Excellent Information

The survey gave us excellent information we can use to craft effective advertising that works. We are happy to report we offer the services mentioned in the report. Any business relationship with our clients starts with a comprehensive website audit. We look at a variety of different items like keyword recommendations and technical issues. Our experts also go over historical Word Press vulnerabilities.

Link Building

 Link building was only offered by half of the local marketers who responded to the survey. The same local marketers viewed SEO as the best online vehicle to attract new clients. Not surprisingly, Google rankings was considered the number one metric by local small businesses.

Our boutique local search marketing agency in Toronto customizes your campaign. We do research and implement tools like Search Engine Optimization, pay per click and Inbound Marketing.