Local SEO is one of the best ways to let customers near you know about your small business. With technology constantly evolving, customers no longer just wander around looking at what a particular business has to offer. Instead, most customers today search for products and services over the internet.
If you want customers in your local area to find you and your business, it’s crucial to improve your local SEO rankings. Otherwise, you’ll be left behind because you’ll only be hoping that prospective customers will luckily stumble upon your website.
By improving your local SEO, you can raise your search engine ranking and get plenty of customers into your business right through the front door.
What’s Local SEO?
When ranking the most appropriate search engine result pages, location is one of the main factors search engines use. For example, if you’re looking for a burger place in Dallas, you’ll get completely different results compared to someone else doing the same research in Boston.
With search results becoming increasingly localized, it’s essential to send search engines and people the right signals, so they know that your SEO content is relevant to them in their particular local area.
Why is Local SEO Important?
All small businesses need local SEO to stay visible online. When customers look up relevant keywords, they must find you to buy your products or services. And considering that 97% of customers search for local businesses online, your business can’t afford to not be visible in local search results.
Besides helping potential customers find your local business, local SEO may also help your business stand out from the rest of the competition. For example, if two firms sell similar goods or services, the one with more online visibility is likely to do more business.
Also, local SEO may be a fantastic way to increase credibility and trust with prospective customers. Once your small business shows up in your local search results, it cultivates a sense of trustworthiness and authority. And once customers find your business on directories like Yelp and Google My Business, it can further enhance the optics of your business.
How to Boost Your Local SEO
If you have a small or medium-sized business, it’s impossible to compete against large corporations for search engine visibility. You must optimize your web content for your local market to win more new customers. Here’s how to use local SEO strategies to increase your site’s local search engine ranking.
Sort out the Basics First
First, you need to ensure all search engines know what you offer and that you’re a serious business. How so? Well, here’s what to do:
- Optimize your meta descriptions, title tags, headers, and images with appropriate local keywords
- Be sure to provide consistent name, address, and phone number (NAP) information across your website
- Optimize your content for local SEO
- Improve your site’s internal linking structure to support your web pages ranking and website navigation
Open Your Google My Business Account
This is one of the most important things you can do to increase your business’s ranking on Google local search results. After opening your Google My Business account, you can provide your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP).
Google will then contact you to verify your account. Once done, Google will index your NAP information. Then your business will be put on the search results page (SERP) and Google Maps.
Always keep your NAP information updated if you want to stay ahead of local SEO competitors.
Find and Capitalize on Relevant, Local Keywords
As a small business owner in your local area, you and your customers probably use common phrases specific to your local area, county, or city.
You can carry out keyword research with those phrases using tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, SEMRusg, and Ahrefs. Keyword research can help you discover more terms that apply to your local area.
Local keyword research is hugely beneficial because it helps improve the visibility of your business in customers’ local searches. If your local keywords don’t seem to do well, try including neighborhoods, parks, streets, local events, etc., in your content.
Use Location-Specific Pages
Location-specific pages are critical for boosting your local SEO efforts, especially if you have multiple business locations in your local area. A location-specific page should have these features:
- Business name, address, and phone number
- Google Maps
- Work hours
- Reviews and testimonials
- Individualized descriptions
- Promotions
- Parking availability
Additionally, consider adding appealing and unique content to each page if your business operates in multiple local locations. Then again, if your company operates in only one place, all it needs is an “About Us” page.
Create Localized Blog Content
Creating localized blog content regularly helps drive traffic and raise local search rankings. With your list of keywords, you can write content associated with your business, industry, and location. For example, you can write about:
- Local news stories
- How-to articles
- “Best of” lists
- Behind-the-scenes information about your business
- Staff stories
Build a Strong Social Media Presence
No local or multinational business can thrive today without social media. Social media lets you quickly develop a strong presence online. It lets your business get noticed and attract and keep customers.
You and your business needn’t be on all social media networks. Simply create a strong presence on platforms most likely to benefit your business and those you’ll keep using.
Facebook allows you to access the biggest audience of all social media networks. It’s beneficial for local businesses as it lets users geo-localize posts. With Facebook’s unique check-in feature, users can share your business with their followers and passively advertise it.
Instagram is another great option for engaging more customers and enhancing your brand image. With this platform, you can creatively market your brand through events, photos of products, behind-the-scenes moments, etc.
Other platforms worth considering are YouTube and Twitter. The former allows you to do video marketing, while the latter has the useful retweet feature.
Whichever social media platform you pick, go all out and popularize upcoming events, tailor your page header, post attention-grabbing photos, and advertise your goods or services. Also, always keep your social media profile consistent across your chosen platforms.
Encourage Customer Reviews
Online customer reviews, especially positive ones, are great marketing opportunities for your business. They’re glowing recommendations for your small business, products, or services.
Moreover, Google states that positive, high-quality customer reviews increase your visibility online and improve your local search rankings. The more positive customer reviews you’ve got online, the more your local search rankings can improve.
Encourage both your new and existing customers to give reviews by sending follow-up emails or asking them directly. Moreover, keep an eye on the reviews and be prepared to respond. However, handle these carefully since they can directly affect your brand image and business.
Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Research shows that most customers use mobile devices to search for products or services. This is mainly because mobile devices are generally readily available, portable, and convenient.
Therefore, optimizing your site for mobile devices can help to increase organic traffic and improve your local search rankings significantly. Here are some essential tips to make your site mobile-friendly:
- Place a clear call-to-action link
- Make your website easy to navigate via mobile
- Use responsive web design
- Make sure the text is easy to read
- Make sure the web pages load fast
- Provide a click-to-call feature
Leverage Online Business Directories
Examples of online business directories include websites like YellowPages, Yelp, MapQuest, and Foursquare, just to mention a few.
Getting the name of your business, phone number, and address into online directories will help increase its visibility and improve your local SEO.
When having your business listed on online directories, be sure to include these basics:
- Business name
- Phone number and address
- One backlink to your site
- A detailed description of your local business
Keep this information consistent in all directories
Get Fresh, High-Quality Links
The quality and quantity of backlinks to your site significantly impact its local search rankings.
Consider publishing an article online, giving a business presentation to students at your local university, or leading a debate at regional business association meetings. Use these opportunities to urge affiliated organizations to link to your business’s website.
Get Active in Your Local Community
Participating in community events will create brand awareness and might cause a local media organization to link to your site. In your future content, you can also blog about your activities.
To be involved in your local community, you can:
- Host an event
- Sponsor an event
- Attend an event
- Support a charity
- Donate your business premises to a group
- Volunteer for an initiative
- Host a contest
- Give a speech at a school
Final Thoughts
Improving your local SEO will help your business become more and more visible and gain a competitive advantage over others. You can achieve this by creating your Google My Business account, making the most of local, relevant keywords, building a robust social media presence, encouraging customer reviews, optimizing your site for mobile devices, etc.
For long-term success in local SEO rankings, you should make these strategies a fundamental part of your business promotion activities. If you follow these tips and give them time, you’ll surely reach more customers in your local area, build brand awareness, and gain the upper hand over your competitors.
