If you entered the “SEO game” and have not been tapping into the power of local SEOs—such as Google Place, Yelp, Bing Local, etc.—you are definitely not playing your cards right.

There are millions and millions of small business owners that try to utilize search engine optimization (SEO) in the hopes of finally hitting it big. They will spend way too much time and money in an effort to get their sites and web properties just a wee bit higher in the ranks on Google with all their efforts focused on keywords. And some of them with much perseverance and way too much unnecessary resources spent manage their way to the top (most likely using less competitive keywords). But you can’t ignore the vast majority that just can’t make it. These businesses just wasted valuable time and money on an endeavor that doesn’t pay off.

We can pinpoint tons of reasons why they don’t succeed but the most obvious fault has to be their inability to tap into the local SEO traffic the way that could work for them. If you want to boost your business fast, you need to focus your attention on your local area. When you concentrate on the global market, you will be competing with thousands of businesses from all over. But if you focus your attention locally, you will only need to outrank a bunch of services that you are competing with in your area, making the game easier for you.

But to succeed it is essential that you have a plan, of course. You will need an almost flawless local SEO plan to really boost business for your company.

First thing you need to remember is that a lot of work goes into search engine optimization. It’s not just the stereotype that some pimply-faced nerd is working tirelessly in front of a computer trying to increase your rankings on a daily basis. You need to have a plan to accompany the work being put in.

With the right SEO outline, you can help your business grow like nothing else. You won’t just be targeting the keywords you have been after, you will also be able to determine what tactics to leverage, what chokepoints you are going to have to overcome, and how your SEO plan will tie into the plans of your business.

You need to ignore the latest and supposedly greatest tactics and focus your attention on creating real strategies. The SEO landscape is constantly evolving so what could rank today can probably be forgotten tomorrow. And all these changes will eat up your time trying to figure out how to work around them. We suggest getting a professional SEO firm for that one.

But what you can do at the moment is go local. The elements for local SEO hasn’t changed and you just need to create solid SEO efforts in your area to reap real rankings almost instantly.