Small businesses can benefit greatly from local SEO because 46% of all Google searches are for local information. You may lose out on potential clients who are prepared to shop in your neighbourhood if your company isn’t optimised for local search. In other words, if you want your company to remain relevant, local SEO is essential.
We’ve put up a thorough guide covering local SEO ideas and resources to assist you in optimising your company for local SEO.
By the end of the tutorial, you’ll be well-versed in how to position your company to attract potential customers that utilize local search to decide which goods or services to purchase.
Local SEO Tips
Make Google My Business optimizations.
In local search, Google My Business has emerged as the top dog. Google My Business is a perfect tool to assist your company in meeting Google’s requirements because Google willingly supports, verifies, and shares its own content.
You should do the following to make sure you are Google My Business-optimized:
- Make a Google My Business page and confirm it.
- Use your account’s Google Posts.
- Encourage your clients to leave online reviews.
- Authentically respond to reviews and include your location. “We value your feedback on [product/service] in [city, state], for instance. We appreciate your opinions and anticipate working with you once more. We at [complete company name] would want to thank you.
Also, don’t only do this for SEO purposes. You may make it easier for potential consumers to find you if you have reviews and update your contact details and business hours. Due to the anticipated upheaval in consumer purchasing habits and business operations in 2020, finding current data is more important than ever for consumers.
Participate in social media and post on Google My Business.
Google now places a greater emphasis than ever before on social network material.
Sharing your gorgeous Google My Business page on social media can better integrate search and social media.
Verify that your name, address, and phone number are accurate throughout the web.
You must set up your NAP in order to make it simple for people and search engines to discover you.
In local SEO, what does NAP stand for?
The letters NAP stand for a company’s name, address, and phone number (including area code). For Google to display your NAP more accurately in location-based search results, it should be regarded as crawlable HTML content on your website.
Pro Tip: Don’t make the mistake of merely including the NAP in a picture; unlike HTML text, images cannot be scanned by search engines.
Improve citations and directories on the internet.
These four map data aggregators offer a variety of map data for American businesses, including data for Apple, Yelp, Bing, Google, Trip Advisor, and more:
Check that your citations are accurate and consistent in all four of these data aggregators because consistency is important.
Misspellings, abbreviations, omissions of suite numbers, and incorrect phone numbers are examples of inconsistencies that might cause issues.
Google may not even list your company in search results if it cannot identify which of the information about it is accurate.
Pro tip: Delete any duplicate listings you see in online directories. Additionally, join the local Chamber of Commerce while you’re doing it to earn a localised external inbound connection.
Conduct out a local SEO audit.
Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals, it could be tempting to apply the brakes. But SEO is a continuous, logical process. It helps to do a thorough audit to determine where your website stands and what needs to be improved in order to reach your objectives rather than stopping there or just making adjustments and seeing what sticks. An evaluation of local SEO may involve the following:
- Google My Business Audit: How do the SERPs display your Google My Business? Is the data true and correct?
- Is your site crawlable according to Google Search Console audit? Are there any mistakes in it that would prevent indexing?
- On-Page SEO Audit: Does Your Website Comply With All Elements That Help With Ranking?
- Citation Audit: Are all of your citations accurate in the leading business directories?
- Analyzing your competition: How does your website compare to theirs? Do you have any holes that need to be filled? In terms of inbound links, content, design, and positioning, how do you compare?
- Website Audit: How effective is your website?
Enhance the internal linking strategy.
Although adding external links to your website is desirable (I’ll cover this in more detail later), improving your internal linking structure will also help your local SEO strategy.
Why are internal links important? It performs the subsequent:
- Assists with website navigating
- Assistance with website hierarchy and information architecture
- Distributes across pages the power of page authority and ranking
Improve the URL, headers, meta descriptions, title tags, and content.
When it comes to content, every new blog post is a chance to have your website be indexed, target a local search term, and appear higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).
The URL, title, header, meta description, and body of every piece of content you create need to be optimized for search engines by using high-volume keywords. If you’re struggling to come up with geo-targeted content, think about showcasing case studies and client success stories.
Include location pages on your website.
Create location pages if you have many brick-and-mortar locations. Readers can find your name, address, phone number, business hours, special store descriptions, parking and transportation details, promotions, and client endorsements on location pages.
It’s crucial that you refrain from using the same material on several location pages. Create a locally descriptive About Us page for businesses with a single location. You can even receive extra credit if you include a Google Map on the location page of your website (s).
Publish local content.
Because Google is becoming increasingly intelligent, content producers may now write more for people and less for search engines. While writing about general subjects will draw in a sizable audience, there are times when it’s more crucial to narrow your emphasis and write about local or industry news in order to draw in a local readership.
Promote local industry events, news, employees, and other instructive content on your blog to establish yourself as the neighbourhood authority in your field. Consider creating top-of-the-funnel content that is different from what your company sells.
Ensure your website is responsive to mobile devices.
Mobile searches account for 61% of all Google searches, therefore local and mobile search go hand in hand.
People will frequently use your website on mobile devices to check up reviews, get driving directions to your business, and obtain contact information. In fact, “near me” mobile search volume has grown by 250% since 2017.
Make your website mobile-friendly to make things simple for your visitors and clients.