What Industries Need SEO the Most?
December 28th 2021 | By Sarah McInerney
There are many reasons why businesses need SEO, not least because it gets you found online so you enjoy more leads and increased sales. But are there particular industry sectors that benefit from search engine optimisation more than others? That’s exactly what we’ll set out to explore in this post as we ask, what industries need SEO the most?
SEO is important for any business. But when you operate in a particularly competitive industry, especially if you are vying for customers in a specific local area, that’s when SEO becomes even more of a vital tool in your marketing armoury.
In our experience, we’ve found that certain sectors benefit hugely from personalised SEO campaigns when it comes to outranking the competition. Let’s take a look at what these sectors are, and why they need SEO the most.
Professional services
Before a client makes contact with a professional services firm, they will usually have spent a lot of time researching the service they need, and who is best placed to provide them with that service. That’s precisely why it’s vital that professional service providers can be easily found online.
Whether you’re a law firm, a financial planner, an accountant or an insurance broker, you’ll find that expertise, authority and trust count for a great deal when it comes to winning clients. And E-A-T, as it’s known, is just one of the SEO strategies that will present you as a trusted figure in your field.
In the professional services sector, it’s important to keep leads rolling in constantly. This is especially the case if some or all of your services are only used occasionally, such as making a will, or conveyancing. Or they are seasonal, such as completing a tax return. SEO will ensure a continuous stream of leads flows your way, so that you can easily weather the troughs of business.
A well-crafted SEO campaign for professional services firms will always ensure the likes of data protection, compliance and reputation are factored in.
From managing online reviews to co-ordinating rich content marketing campaigns, there is a great deal that SEO can do for professional service providers in terms of building a reputation online. And the greater your online reputation, the richer the ranking rewards from Google.
It’s vital that professional service providers can be easily found online.
Healthcare and medical services providers
The likes of private practice, GP services, dentistry, chiropractors, physiotherapists and skin specialists all operate within a highly competitive environment, and therefore rely on SEO to get them in front of the right patients, at the right time in their journey towards finding a solution to their problems.
As online visibility grows, so does the healthcare patient base. As with professional services, in the medical sector, reputation stands for everything. Expertise, authority and trust (E-A-T) is something that Google uses to establish the value of a website, and these are the very things that potential patients look for in a healthcare professional.
The beauty of SEO for medical websites is that it can be specifically targeted towards finding patients seeking specific treatments in defined local areas. So your return on investment will be maximised, as you get your practice in front of the very people who need your expertise.
As online visibility grows, so does the healthcare patient base.
Online retailers and ecommerce stores
Competition is fierce in the world of online retail. And getting entire product ranges ranked well so every item is easily found online is no walk in the park.
Getting in front of prospects just as they’re at the right stage in the buying process can be tough, as can converting them into sales. But with SEO, it becomes way less challenging.
SEO for ecommerce websites has the power to take a ticking-over online store right up into the realms of super-success.
Whether it’s a WooCommerce campaign or specialist Shopify SEO, you’ll find that once you begin optimising your online store, and enhancing the user experience, which is a vital ranking signal for Google, you’ll start to rank above your competitors, and become THE website that gets all the clicks.
With SEO, ranking above competing online stores becomes way less challenging.
Local businesses
Any local business will know how difficult it can be to become the go-to choice for local customers. But with local SEO, it suddenly becomes possible to rank at the top of Google for all the locations you cover. To appear above the competition in ‘near me’ searches, and to sit at the top of the Google Map Pack.
Whether you have a physical local presence, or you’re a service provider who’s seeking to corner the market across a variety of locations, local SEO will get you the online visibility you need to drive localised traffic. Traffic that consists of warm leads; people who are ready to enquire, buy or visit right now.
SEO for local businesses involves specialist tactics, such as the creation of local landing pages; local directory entries and Google Map Pack optimisation, as well as online reputation management, and on-page optimisation. It’s all in the name of getting your business to the top of the local search results, so that you can enjoy the lion’s share of local enquiries.
Local SEO will get you the online visibility you need to drive localised traffic.
Ready to take your business to the next level with a personalised SEO campaign?
SEO has the power to boost any business into the realms of success, especially if you are operating in one of the sectors listed above.
A word of advice though if you are one of the industries that needs SEO the most: be sure to use an SEO agency with specific expertise in professional services SEO, financial services SEO, ecommerce SEO or local SEO, so that you can benefit from their understanding of your sector. For professional services, ensure the agency is GDPR regulated and audited, and that it understands the regulatory constraints you operate under.
If you are looking to work alongside an SEO partner with specific expertise in the sectors we’ve discussed in this post, talk to Figment. We’ve been supporting businesses and service providers with specialist SEO services for more than 15 years, with exceptional results. To discuss your SEO requirements, please get in touch.