What is local SEO and why do I need it?
To understand the local SEO definition, let’s first attempt to understand what local search means. Local search is when someone searches for businesses, products, services, or any additional information relevant to at least one specific location. they might be searching for “concerts near me” to find an upcoming concert in their city or “best painting service in [location]” to find a painting service nearby.
In other words, local search is more specific to a specific location compared to general Google searches. and native SEO refers to the process of trying to optimize your online visibility to show up in those local search results.
Local SEO is crucial because it helps you:
- Boost your online visibility
- Bring in more foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar location
- Attract more targeted traffic, which improves your chances of conversion
- Enhance your credibility and build trust
6 ways to spice up your local SEO strategy
Now let’s advance to the most important part — how to boost your local SEO strategy and improve your local search ranking. There are many aspects to this, so let’s specialise in the most critical ones:
1. Claim and optimize your GMB listing
GMB or Google My Business is actually the most critical part of your local SEO strategy. This tool from Google allows you to make free business listings. And consistent with Moz, it’s one among the top factors that Google will consider when ranking businesses in organic local search and snack pack results.
To start, attend the Google My Business website to claim or create your listing.
You need to provide the following details for your GMB listing:
- Your full and proper business name
- Your physical store/office address
- Your exact location on a map
- Your business category
- Your telephone number and website (if applicable)
Once your listing goes live, you’ll have to verify it usually through a phone call or via postcard. Here’s the way to optimize Google My Business after verification:
Upload photos of your business. this might be photos of the inside your store/office or even around the premises.
- Provide your business hours.
- Provide additional categories which will be relevant to your business.
- Provide additional phone numbers if available.
You can further optimize your GMB profile by sharing business updates and fresh content regularly. And Sprout Social makes that easier with a replacement feature to post directly to your GMB profile. Make the foremost of the Sprout GMB feature to update your customers with what’s new and share details about upcoming events. This helps you connect together with your customers on a deeper level in addition to boosting your visibility in local searches.
2. Keep mobile in mind
With smartphones now being an element of our daily lives, it’s only natural that plenty of people will be using their phones to search for local information and businesses. Uberall commissioned a study, which found that 82% of respondents had used their mobile devices to conduct a “near me” search. This proves just what proportion people are using their phones for local searches.
So it’s crucial that you simply cater to these searches by optimizing your website for mobile screens. Create a mobile-friendly website so mobile visitors haven’t any trouble navigating it or finding the information they need.
Don’t forget to feature click-to-call buttons on your site and on your GMB listing. this might make a huge difference because 60% of mobile users have contacted a business directly from search results.
3. Collect many customer reviews
According to the Moz study cited earlier, review signals also play a critical role in your local search and snack pack ranking. So having many authentic reviews, particularly positive ones, could work wonders to spice up your visibility in local searches in addition to enhancing your reputation. meaning you need to work towards collecting more authentic customer reviews for your business.
Maintain your specialise in sites where Google would expect businesses to have reviews. So additionally to your website and your GMB listing, it’ll also collect reviews from consumer directories and social media. meaning you should focus on collecting reviews for Facebook, Yelp, Thumbtack, Foursquare, Angie’s List, etc. counting on which ones are relevant to your business.
4. Specialize in local link building
According to Moz, link signals like linking domain authority and quantity are among the top factors that influence your ranking in local searches and snack pack results. So a bit like with regular SEO, local SEO also requires link building to spice up your link profile. However, the linking domains should be more relevant to your target location.
That means you should target authority websites in your target region. this might be anything from licensing bureaus and trade associations to the Chamber of Commerce or even .edu sites.
Partnerships, scholarships, guest posting, etc. might be excellent ways to gain valuable backlinks from local sites. as an example , you’ll see the Connecticut College website linking back to several local establishments from its “Attractions” page.
5. Ensure NAP/citation consistency
Moz also found that Google considers citation signals like citation volume and NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency in local search results. this suggests your information should be on major citation websites; besides GMB, think Bing Maps, Yelp, and Facebook. specialise in directories that have higher domain authority than smaller listing directories.
More importantly, ensure your business NAP is consistent across all platforms and websites. Look out for any misspellings, address, and telephone number discrepancies, or duplicate listings, and resolve them to enhance your local SEO.
6. Make the foremost of social listening
Social listening may have primarily served as a source for marketing insights, but it’s many benefits beyond that. It could even help fuel your local SEO strategy if you recognize which insights to look out for and how to make the most of them.
Use social taking note of find out what people in your target location are saying — whether it’s about your business or in general. you’ll even use it to collect information about audience interests, priorities, and so on. Then make the foremost of these insights to find out how you can make changes to your strategy or even to your products and services.
For instance, you would possibly have noticed people complaining about the lack of outdoor seating at your café. Maybe it’s time to introduce it to appeal to a good bigger audience. you’ll then optimize your GMB SEO by sharing updates about your new seating arrangement, for instance.
Or maybe you’ve noticed people wishing your hair salon also provided manicure services. you’ll expand your service offering and share this update on your GMB profile.
Additionally, your social listening efforts could also facilitate your understand what types of local content your target audience might be looking for. you’ll then build a robust local content strategy to fit those needs. Plus, you would possibly even be able to uncover long-tail keywords to use in your content optimization strategy.
Ready to get local?
These are the essentials on the way to take your local SEO efforts to the next level. confine mind that your local SEO efforts can span across various locations. And you’ll even apply these ideas in your SEO for multiple locations if you’re targeting more than one area. So make the foremost of them to enhance your online visibility in local searches and grow your business.
