Recent Study Shows SEO Is STILL The Best Way to Get More Traffic (and Money!)
September 12, 2016
Still on the fence about putting more marketing effort into your business website? If you have a local business or an ecommerce store, this news might change your mind.
A recent study of 87 million website sessions has shown that Google organic is still the largest source of online traffic and revenues,
providing 43% of traffic on average, and 42% of revenue. ( source
) This is not to be taken lightly, and it means SEO services are your best bet!
Although the study was primarily focused on Ecommerce businesses, this also can be applied to local service businesses. According to Yelp,
85% of consumers use the internet to find local businesses.
With what we know about online revenues in Ecommerce stores, we can see that with 85% of consumers searching for local businesses, local service revenues are likely tied to search just like other websites!
So, how can you take advantage of this and get your share of search?
1. Make sure your website has been optimized properly
This may seem like a no-brainer, but if you have a website that was built by someone without an SEO background, and you haven’t had an audit performed since going live, it’s likely you’ll need one. If you’re hoping to have great rankings without a professional audit, you’ll be hoping for a long time!
Simply making sure your business website is optimized for search is the absolute best way
to increase your rankings right now. Simple wins are what it’s all about.
2. Check your local information to make sure it’s consistent and correct
Brand new explorers to local SEO will know that it’s essential
to have a consistent NAP (Name, Address, and Phone #) across the web for your business.
When your onsite optimization has been perfected and your NAP is listed across the web consistently, the two tie together to give Google the strongest signals about where you are and what you do. This instantly helps you rank higher to get more business.
3. Make sure you have all the reviews you can get on Google and Yelp
In my experience, reviews are another high priority that business owners can help to boost themselves. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback!
The more reviews you have on your Yelp and Google listings, the higher you’ll likely rank. Google looks at both the number of reviews and the ratings, as well as the words used in the reviews.
So in addition to making sure you have a solid review-requesting strategy, you’ll want to make sure you’re guiding the reviewer to use the right words.
One way to do this is to request that they state where their service was performed, and what the service was. (Ie “I had my dog trained by this business in Los Angeles, and they were great! etc etc”). This will help the reviewer add keywords without even knowing it.
Did you know?
Review acquisition strategy is part of every
Local SEO plan I offer. Be wary of SEO providers who only want to throw links at your site – reviews are essential and require a bit more hands on creativity to work into the process!
There you have it – search is stil
l
the most important provider of traffic and revenue for businesses online, and there are tons of things you can do to boost your rankings (and your bottom line!)
If you have any questions at all about implementing these tips, I’m happy to provide a free evaluation. Just request a quote anytime.
Happy ranking!!
By Hannah Martin
•
July 29, 2025
Welcome to ProPages.ai!

By Hannah Martin
•
July 18, 2025
Let me guess: You set up your business, opened shop, did all the paper work, and even paid for a website.. but people still aren’t coming in? Well, you might have forgotten an important step, or maybe you just didn’t know where to start with it… You need MARKETING and ADVERTISING. Marketing your small business is the key to all business sales, unless your entire business model is based on impulse buys. With marketing and advertising, the saying that “the early bird gets the worm” really rings true. Here are 20 ways you can advertise your local business without any expertise, so you can increase sales and get more customers. Before you jump into the list, did you know that SEO (short for “Search Engine Optimization”) can help bring customers to your business naturally? Imagine being listed on the first page when people search for your services in Google. We can do that! Check out our SEO services here. Here are 20 affordable marketing and advertising ideas for your small business Submit your business name, address, and phone number to all of the local directories that cover your town. This means setting up profiles on websites like Yelp, Yellowpages, and Foursquare. ( Bonus : do SEO on your Yelp page to come up higher there, too.) Make sure your business is listed on Google+ for Business. If it is, make sure you claim the listing. If it’s not, make sure you set it up! (And then claim it.) Create an optimized Facebook page for your business. Invite all of your friends in the area, and run ads to people who might be interested in your services nearby. Put your vehicle in a vinyl wrap. This is like a mobile billboard that advertises your local business wherever you go! Establish your expertise on social media by creating posts about your professional/business accomplishments. Ask for referrals from past customers. You can even offer a referral free (like I do!) to encourage fee, word of mouth advertising. Submit for a local “coupon book” membership. Take out an ad in the local newspaper. Sponsor a local event, such as Relay for Life, or a community marathon. Run a contest. You can advertise this contest using any of the methods above. Consistently blog about topics related to your business, that your customers would find helpful. Retarget people who have already been to your website, but might not have contacted you on their first visit. Take out PPC ads. Optimize your website to rank organically in Google . This is called SEO, and it means that when someone searches for your services (for example, “roofing company in Las Vegas”), you’ll come up first! Advertise on local news websites. Place ads on Craigslist.org. Join your local Chamber of Commerce. Use press releases when there is significant news for your business to talk about. (A grand opening press release would definitely be appropriate!) Attend a BNI meeting for your local chapter Once you start using some of these tips, business will start coming in. From there, the most important thing to keep growing your business is to ensure customers come back , so make sure you’re providing the best experience possible after your advertising brings the customer in. Best of luck!

