Most companies should ignore local SEO completely
Today’s opinion post is by Olivia Collins, Director of Marketing at Evergreen Essentials. She has over 15 years of experience in marketing, SEO, and analytics.
I’ve been running digital marketing campaigns for years, and I need to get something off my chest: most companies are wasting their time with local SEO. Yeah, I said it. While everyone’s obsessing over “near me” searches, I’ve watched countless businesses spin their wheels trying to rank locally when they should be thinking bigger.
I get why local SEO seems like a no-brainer. Google pushes location-based results, and conventional wisdom says businesses should jump on that bandwagon. But after seeing dozens of companies struggle with this, I know firsthand that cramming location keywords into content often does more harm than good. It’s not always the right move.
Take my client in the SaaS space last year. They were burning resources trying to rank in every major city, when their product could be used anywhere in the world. Made zero sense. Their global reach was getting muddied by all these location-specific pages we had to clean up later.
Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way about why local SEO can be a trap:
- Your brand message gets diluted when you pretend to be local everywhere
- You waste time and money fighting for local rankings instead of building actual authority
- Geographic targeting often shows terrible ROI for non-local businesses
- Remote work and digital products make location matter less every day
Real talk: I worked with a tech startup that was crushing it with innovative AI solutions. They started obsessing over ranking in specific cities, and their content strategy completely lost focus. Their truly groundbreaking stuff got buried under generic local landing pages. Total waste.
Going global first often makes more sense. Focus on creating content that resonates with your actual target audience, wherever they are. I’ve seen better engagement, stronger backlinks, and higher conversion rates when companies stop trying to be everything to everyone locally.
Local SEO works great for some businesses. Your neighborhood coffee shop or dentist? Absolutely. But if your product or service isn’t tied to a physical location, you’re probably barking up the wrong tree.
Think bigger. Partner with industry leaders who align with your vision. Build authority through expertise, not zip codes. One of my clients doubled their organic traffic after we scrapped their local SEO strategy and focused on thought leadership content instead.
This isn’t about completely dismissing local SEO. It’s about being honest about what makes sense for your business. I’ve watched too many companies waste months chasing local rankings when their customers couldn’t care less about location. SEO should push you toward your actual goals, not just follow a template.
Bottom line: your SEO strategy needs to match your business reality. If you’re built to serve customers anywhere, stop pretending to be local everywhere. Focus your energy where it counts. Sometimes the best strategy is knowing what to ignore. That’s the real talk most SEO folks won’t give you.