With the avalanche of new standards and updates from Google and an endless parade of possibilities that AI is ushering in, we expect to see a wave of success for SMBs in 2024. We anticipate big wins for newbies, underdogs, and comeback kids.
There are interesting opportunities that can help small businesses get featured at the top of online searches more often and grow their visibility to effectively increase website traffic as well as brick-and-mortar traffic.
Good harvests come to those who tend their gardens, though, so it’s important to know what the biggest opportunities are and how to leverage them to boost your business. Want to launch into the New Year with a clear vision of where you’re going and how to get there? We recommend putting local SEO and freelancers at the top of your priority list.
Here, we’ll dig into why these things will be so important in 2024 and give you some tips to help you make the most of them. You’ll gain a valuable edge that not only brings in traffic and revenue but also saves time and money.
The Epic Rise of Local SEO
For the last several months, every business and marketing website has been picking apart and breaking down the latest insights and how-tos from Google regarding SEO. Now, the only thing more important than being a genuinely authoritative expert in your industry is the customer experience. The bottom line is that SEO has changed forever, and that’s not a bad thing.
Local SEO adds an interesting layer to the SEO game. It’s an online marketing strategy that makes finding your business really easy for local consumers in your city.
Get Found Everywhere
Your business can now be easily discovered in multiple ways across various apps. Whether users open a search page, go to their favorite map app, or ask their digital AI assistant, your efforts in local SEO can bring powerful results. Then, they can call you or get directions with just a click.
Give Them What They’re Looking For
Local SEO puts you at the helm to decide how much information you want to provide. This is one of those “more is more” situations. When you claim your Google My Business listings, you can choose category keywords and add all the details you want about your services and products. You can also provide your hours, pricing, photos, and more to help entice consumers to reach out or stop by.
Manage Your Reputation
If you’re already running a quality business, optimizing for local SEO is super easy. This also means that shady companies are more likely to naturally fall off the page, which helps good businesses shine even more. Users read reviews and pay attention to ratings from other users, so your reputation carries a lot of weight.
Buy It If You Need It
Lastly, if your small business offers a local service and you need an extra boost, Local Service Ads (LSAs) are a game-changer in PPC. Even with Google’s AI-generated search results showing above the regular results, LSAs appear at the very top of the search page in a section that’s basically a “near me” search results list.
Expert Freelancers At Your Fingertips
Whatever you’re doing in your business this week, your energy could definitely be put to better use at a higher frequency if you had some extra hands to cover your tasks.
Hiring full-time employees is a daunting web of competitive wages, creating meaningful roles in the workplace, dealing with payroll and HR, managing employee retention, and so on. Plus, it’s a huge commitment on both sides, so if they’re not a good fit, it can be a real problem.
Freelancers create solutions to these problems and so much more. Below are some of the top reasons to empower your small business by outsourcing to freelancers.
Cost-Effective Expertise
Freelancers provide small businesses with access to many specialized skills. Freelancers offer cost-effective expertise in various domains, from web development and accounting to marketing and content creation. As long as you get pre-vetted and qualified talent, small businesses can easily enhance their offerings while keeping costs down with freelancers.
Agility and Adaptability
Apart from getting more stuff done, one of the most valuable things freelancers bring to the table is their fresh perspectives and agile thinking. Since they work in small bursts with many different types of clients, they tend to see things through different lenses, which can be profoundly impactful. Whether it is adjusting marketing strategies, adopting new technologies, or responding to market trends, freelancers offer the flexibility needed to help you quickly adapt and stay relevant.
Scalability and Efficiency
With access to a network of freelancers, small businesses can effortlessly expand their workforce during peak times or for specific projects. This scalability ensures faster turnaround times, increased productivity, and a level of efficiency that might be otherwise challenging to achieve.
Stop Wearing All The Hats In Your Business
New year, new you… and a new vision for the unexpected opportunities 2024 might have in store for your small business. You can take it by the horns when you leverage local SEO to increase traffic and get more incoming calls. Then, get more done by better experts in every area of your business by bringing on a few great freelancers to round out your team without the dramatic cost of hiring new staff.
Marc Pickren is the President of Next Net Media, the largest global network of trusted media outlets, link partners, and global news websites, providing clients with a steady influx of high-authority backlinks and targeted organic visitors—making them the world’s largest and most successful online retailer of optimization products and services.
Local SEO stock image by Jack_the_sparow/Shutterstock
