What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a branch of Search engine optimization that focuses on ranking local websites. While most of the traditional SEO strategies and techniques apply, one of the added challenges of Local SEO is the optimization of a "Google My Business" profile and ranking in the map search results.

Another aspect is also leveraging local business directories and making sure your site and NAP (Name, Address, Phone) appears on top when being searched.

Why should you invest in Local SEO training?

There's multiple reasons why you should learn local SEO:

Business Owner

If you are a business owner, the higher your website appears in the search results and in the maps, the more clients you can get at the door.

SEO Agency or Freelancer

There is a huge opportunity when it comes to local search for SEO professionals. Business owners like restaurants, dentists, plumbers & more are too busy servicing their business for them to manage their own GMB profile or their website. Brick and mortar businesses like this can benefit greatly from you ranking them higher for certain keywords and are ready to pay you handsomely.

Local Lead generator

In the case of an SEO freelancer or agency, you create or manage a website for your client. However you can just as well create your own website, rank it for desirable terms and then rent the site and GMB profile to the highest bidder.

For example you could create a site like [city name]dentist.com and then rent it for hundreds of dollars per month. Anyone who calls the number will be forwarded to your client's phone.

Local businesses benefit greatly from ranking on top (more clients and more money for them) and you get to collect a check every month like clockwork.

How Hard Is Local SEO?

SEO can be hard, but only if there is a lot of competition. If you do not have much competition, you don't necessarily need to be good at SEO. If you are the only Pizza place in a city, your site doesn't need much to compete. 

So no matter what your reasons are for learning SEO for local listings, it's a much easier deal than ranking for "Yoga pants" for example. While this depends on the amount of competition, you generally don't need to build backlinks in order to optimize your website and profile to the top of the search results. 

How to Improve your Local SEO

In order to master local SEO you will need the SEO basics but also the basics of GMB (Google my business) profile optimization. Here's the steps to ranking business profiles and sites on top:

Local SEO Keyword research

If you want to rank for a term, you first need to know what people are looking for. This is where Keyword research comes in. Local search results are different from regular results because they are influenced by location and good keyword research will tell you if you should create a site for a single city, a group of cities or even a particular neighborhood. 

Keyword research is the foundation of your site so you want to make sure that you have a sound strategy in place in order to provide relevant local results. Otherwise you might have a site that ranks on top of Google's local results but nobody is searching for these terms.

On-page optimization

Once you are done with local keyword research, the next step is On-page optimization. If you have an established site, you need a local SEO audit to see how well optimized your pages are. If you are starting from scratch you need to check each page is optimized against well known SEO ranking factors like H1, URL, meta description and more. 

On-page should be the cornerstone of your local SEO strategy as it helps your pages speak in a way that Google and other search engines understand.

Off-page optimization

For more competitive keywords in the local results, you might have to resort to link-building and other off-page SEO factors. This can be making sure that your site is mentioned in strong local sites, appearing in local news & more.

Local Business listings optimization

Part of Local SEO is on-page and Off-page like traditional SEO but part of ranking your site on top comes from submitting the business site and information on directories like Yelp, Brightlocal & more. There's also citations of the business on various sources online to signal to Google what your business is about.

Lastly there is the Google business profile that needs to be in sync with your website so that your profile can appear when searched for the desired term. If you are a Dentist in Boca Raton, Florida, you want to appear when someone searches "Dentist near me" or "Dentist in Boca Raton".

How to use A.I. With Local SEO

A.I. makes local SEO easier because it allows you to create contact for targeted, local terms easily. While it might have made no sense previously to target neighborhoods, because A.I. makes it fast to create such content (with the correct prompting), “owning” a whole area from the neighborhood up is possible. 

By using strategic interlinking (Like Kyle Roof’s reverse silo technique) you can create a net of highly relevant pages that Google will default to for certain local keywords.

How to make $10,000 per month with Local SEO

There's more than one way to make good money with local SEO training. Here's a few:

For brick and mortar business owners

For business owners, the money you make depends on what you sell. But whatever it is you are selling, you could be making much more if your site and profile appear on top of the searches.

It's the difference between being located in "that" part of the mall nobody goes to and being located in front of the main gates. Ranking on top can absolutely revolutionize the amount of clients and income you get.

For agencies and freelancers

SEO in general is a good opportunity (see quote above) but local SEO is a RED HOT opportunity. Businesses want their phone to ring and more foot traffic. If you can provide that for them, you can charge SEO services anywhere between $2000-$5000+ per month, so you only need a few clients to actually reach the $10,000 per month threshold.  

For site owners

Just one well placed website and GMB can bring you anywhere between $500-$1000 per month like clockwork with minimal input. So you would need about 10 websites to make $10,000 per month.

However once you have the correct processes in place, creating those sites can easily be outsourced on the cheap while you reap the benefits month in and month out.

Local SEO Courses

Looking to delve deeper? It’s impossible to explore every facet of local SEO in just one guide due to its vastness. For instance, there are distinct methods for keyword research, strategies for sealing deals over the phone, techniques for increasing your charges per client and ways to rank your website higher than your rivals.

Since Local SEO cannot be mastered with a single article (why would you get paid for that anyways?), local business SEO training will help you and your site tremendously.  

IMG is like Netflix™ for SEOs and has all the training you need to help you master local SERPS and make money as a client or a site owner. Here's a few you can stream right now:

For those who want to create an agency or start freelancing:

Individually, all of these courses would cost you upwards of $3000. But you can start watching them right now on IMG for just $97. More details here.

Conclusion

By now, you've realized that there's a lot of opportunity in Local SEO. You can not only increase the amount of goods and services you offer on a local level, but there is also a lot of money to be made as an SEO providing local ranking services.

Whatever way you chose to monetize, IMG is the best destination for Local SEO training. Get your free trial below to see why.