Whether you run your business from an office, shop, warehouse, or home, you need to generate more customers and more online conversions.
So, what is local SEO and what’s the benefit of local SEO?
In short, it’s a way to connect with local clients. It allows for a far better reach than if you’re competing with mega-corporations on the general organic searches.
One of the key benefits of local SEO is that location prominence matters over and above your online traffic volumes or company size.
Today we’ll run through some tips to help on improving Google local business rankings. We will also see why taking local SEO courses can do wonders for your sales.
Does My Business Need A Local SEO Strategy?
Local SEO can have a massive impact on your bottom line by optimizing your website and content to hit localized search markets.
Advantages include:
- Building online visibility through local SEO tasks, such as accumulating customer reviews and business citations.
- Attracting more foot traffic, better sales, and increased customers.
- Delivering more targeted traffic and displaying your company to relevant customers who want a product or service in the nearby area.
- Improving your visibility on Google Maps through optimizing your Google My Business presence.
- Driving relevance through targeted content marketing and link building.
- Harnessing the power of reputation management to enhance trust in your business and generate more sales.
Tackling local SEO is an excellent opportunity to get noticed in your specific customer jurisdictions.
It’s often more successful than investing hours into generic search terms that are all but impossible to rank. That is, of course, unless you’ve got a serious marketing budget.
The Five Ingredients For A Great Local SEO Recipe
Next, we’ll run through the five elements you need to keep building on local search visibility. These are all important for local SEO.
Accurate Business Citations
A citation is a mention of your business. It should include:
- The business name.
- Your physical address (including zip code).
- A functioning phone number.
Your NAP (name, address, phone number) is a straightforward piece of information. It would be best if you put it in as many places as you can online.
The more citations you have, the more reference points Google has to understand where you are. It can also determine which customers would like to find out about your products or services.
Entering your details into directories, adding NAP info to your social profiles, and using TripAdvisor or Yelp are a few easy ways to rack up more citations, which leads to more local SEO visibility.
On-Site Localized Optimization
Like any other SEO strategy, local SEO optimization involves both on-page and off-page SEO techniques. But you’ll spend a bit more time running through your on-page requirements, rather than undertaking off-page tasks.
Here are some of the vital tasks you’ll need to focus on:
- Mobile-responsive web pages.
- Fast page loading speeds.
- Complete SEO metadata for every site page.
- Relevant, targeted keywords.
- Natural keyword positioning.
- Tracking to monitor your performance.
All the fundamentals still apply, so structure and content are essential, but additional actions to support your local SEO strategy are the way to go.
Google My Business Ranking Signals
We all know that Google likes to keep it in the family, and if you want to get anywhere with local SEO rankings, a Google My Business account is a must.
Although it’s a directory like many others, Google My Business links with Google Maps, so you’ll need to keep your details updated and post regularly.
Most Google ranking factors are secret squirrels, but it’s not a mystery that Google My Business is crucial for improving local search presence.
Choose the right business category, respond to reviews, add images, and keep sharing offers, and you’ll build a rich Google My Business profile that the algorithm will love.
Content Marketing And Link Building
The two big-name factors in search visibility are prominence and relevance.
If your business is better known and matches search queries well, you’ll get a better local ranking.
Content marketing and link building are essential ways to unlock those SEO benefits, through the use of content featuring the local area and by engaging with your nearby customer demographic.
Links from local sources (such as the media) or business-specific sites (such as a chamber of commerce) are perfect for boosting relevance and prominence signals.
The Value Of Reputation Management
Last but not least, let’s talk about your online reputation.
Reviews are a make-or-break metric for local SEO purposes, and each year the volume of positive ratings a customer expects a business to have before they’ll buy keeps climbing.
About 50% of local customers will look for a four-star rating as a minimum, and 85% of consumers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations.
Top-rated, recent reviews are a magic ingredient that will help grow customer trust and enhance your prominence right up to the top of the map pack.
As we’ve seen, local SEO is way more than a box-ticking exercise. It’s a tangible, proactive way to put yourself out there and advertise your business to your most relevant customer niche.
Give it a go, and you’ll see how refining your businesses SEO to engage with your local customers is a simple yet effective way to grow.
