While SEO can benefit all websites, the world-wide approach won’t work for all businesses. A garden centre, for example, is unlikely to want to attract traffic from another county, much less than another country. Local businesses require a local search engine optimisation focus.

The two approaches are very different, but use similar techniques. The main difference lies in the focus of your SEO campaign. While an across-the-board SEO strategy will necessarily have its own geographical focus, local search involves different search techniques to general search. It has its own limitations, but it has its own advantages as well. There are also broad areas of cross-over.

Local SEO is definitely the way to go for local businesses. Consult your local SEO expert for more :)