Targeting Global Search Terms For Local Businesses

Sometimes, it is just as challenging to rank on the first page with a local search term as it is for a global search term.  I have noticed of late that some local terms are almost as competitive as global search terms for the same industry.  In most circumstances, it is service related offline industries.

Recently, I scored a global search term that started producing traffic and leads for a company before we ranked for the local search.  It caused me to start thinking about the way I approach local search.  There are several advantages to targeting global search terms for a local business:

• Many searchers start with a global search term and narrow their search when it does not produce the desired results.  If a local business is ranked for a global term, the searcher has only one legitimate option to click through.  This eliminates most of the local competition in the first search.
• Most SEO competitors are not targeting global search terms for local companies.  It is always difficult to score a global search term, but it may only require the same amount of work as some highly competitive search markets, like Atlanta.
• The business has marketing in any area that it might want to expand.

Overall, it is a good idea to target global search terms while still scoring the local searches.  In the long run, even if you only gain one global term in the top ten of Google, you will see increased results.