Getting the word out among locals and placing ads in local publications can help bring in business. However, searching online may have the same or even greater effect.
In fact, 97% of internet users have used the internet to look up a local company, according to Social Media Today. In addition, 46% of all Google queries were aimed at finding a local business or service.
Consequently, a company may be losing out on potential traffic and customers if it isn’t visible in local search results. In other words, local SEO may be the catalyst for your company’s continued success and expansion.
If you’re just getting started with local SEO, you may have a lot of questions and have no idea where to begin optimizing your site.
This post walks you through the fundamentals of local SEO and teaches you how to navigate the current scenario. So, let’s not waste any more time and get started.
What is Local SEO?
Before we can figure out what local SEO means, we need to know what local search is.
When someone does a “local search,” they look for businesses, products, services, or any other information that is relevant to a certain place.
People could search for “best WordPress development company near me” to find out about a WordPress development company in the locality or “best SEO service near me” to find an SEO services company close by.
In other words, a local search is more focused on a specific place than a general Google search. And Local SEO is the process of trying to improve your online presence so that you show up in local search results.
Local SEO is very important because:
- Make sure people can find you online.
- Get more people to visit your brick-and-mortar store.
- Bring in more targeted traffic, which will increase your chances of making a sale.
- Improve your reputation and gain trust.
How to boost your local SEO presence?
Now let’s get to the meat of the matter: how to strengthen your local SEO approach and rise to the top of local search results. There are many parts to this, but here are the most important ones:
1. Claim your GMB listing
GMB, which stands for “Google My Business,” is the most important part of your local SEO strategy. You can make free business listings with this tool from Google. Moz says that this is one of the most important things that Google will look at when ranking businesses in organic local search results and snack pack results.
Start by going to Google My Business and claiming or making your listing.
You need to tell GMB the following about your business:
- Your business’s full and correct name
- Your business location
- Your map location
- Your business category
- Your contact number and website link ( if available)
Once your listing goes live, you’ll need to confirm it. Usually, you can do this by calling or sending a postcard. Here’s how to get the most out of Google My Business once you’ve been verified:
- Put pictures of your business on the web. This could be a picture of your store, office, or even the area around it.
- Mention your business hours
- Mention your business hours
- Give more phone numbers if available
Your GMB profile will be even better if you regularly share business updates and new content.
2. Keep mobile in mind
Since smartphones are now part of our everyday lives, it makes sense that a lot of people will use them to look for local businesses and information.
A study that showed 82% of people had used their phones to do a “near me” search. This shows how much people use their phones to find things nearby.
So it’s important that you make your website work well on mobile screens to attract these searchers.
Make a website that works well on mobile devices so that people using them don’t have trouble getting around or finding the information they need.
Don’t forget to add click-to-call buttons to your website and your GMB listing. This could make a big difference since 60% of mobile users have called a business directly from a search result.
3. Get customer feedback
According to a study, review signals are also a big part of how well you rank in local search and snack packs. So, having a lot of real reviews, especially positive ones, could do a lot to help you show up in local search results and improve your reputation. That means you should try to get more real reviews from customers for your business.
Keep your attention on sites where Google thinks businesses should have reviews. So it will get reviews from your website, your GMB listing, consumer directories, and social media as well. That means you should focus on getting reviews for Facebook, Yelp, Thumbtack, Foursquare, Angie’s List, etc., depending on which ones are important for your business.
4. Concentrate on local link building
Link signals such as the linking domain’s authority and the number of links are some of the most important things that determine where you rank in local searches and snack pack results. So, just like with regular SEO, local SEO also requires building links to improve your link profile. But the domains you link to should have more to do with your target location.
That means you should focus on authoritative websites in the area you want to reach. This could be anything from the Chamber of Commerce to.edu websites.
Partnerships, scholarships, guest posting, and other similar things could be great ways to get backlinks from local sites that are worth having.
If you are ensure how to build high quality backlinks, hire a link building company to do the job for you.
5. Ensure NAP/citation consistency
Google takes into account citation signals like the number of citations and how consistent the NAP (name, address, and phone number) is in local search results.
This means that your information should be on major citation sites like Bing Maps, Yelp, and Facebook, in addition to GMB. Focus on directories with higher domain authority than on smaller listing directories.
More importantly, make sure that your business’s NAP is the same on all websites and platforms. Look for misspelled words, different addresses and phone numbers, and duplicate listings, and fix them to improve your local SEO.
6. Use social listening to your advantage
Social listening may have been used mostly to get ideas for marketing, but it has many other uses as well. It could even help with your local SEO strategy if you know what insights to look for and how to make the most of them.
Find out what people in your desired market are saying, both specifically and generally, about your company by engaging in social listening. You could even use it to find out what people like, what they care about, and so on.
Then, use these new ideas to figure out how you can change your strategy or even your products or services.
Also, the work you do to listen to social media could help you figure out what kinds of local content your target audience might be looking for. Then you could make a strong local content strategy to meet those needs. Plus, you might be able to find long-tail keywords that you can use in your SEO strategy.
Are you ready to go local?
Here are the most important things you need to know to make your local SEO work better.
Remember that your local SEO efforts can cover more than one place. And if you want to target more than one area, you can use these ideas for SEO in more than one place.
So use them to grow your business and make your business more visible online when people search for businesses in your area.
If you want to hire a professional local SEO company, talk to 1Solutions today!
