Local SEO is a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that helps your business to be more visible in local search results on Google. Now that smartphones are part of our daily lives, it's natural for many people to use their phones to search for local information and businesses. Uberall commissioned a study that revealed that 82% of respondents had used their mobile devices to search “near me”. This shows the extent to which people use their phones to perform local searches.
First of all, not every business needs local SEO. Only companies that provide services in a specific geographical location (or in several) should be ranked in the local search based on the key terms that potential customers are looking for in their area. In fact, 46 percent of all Google searches are local. Local SEO marketing increases visibility in local search results.
So, it's useful if you want to reach more people in your local area, attract more foot traffic, generate more conversions, build your reputation and grow your business. Become the local authority in your sector by promoting meetings, news, employees and other educational content from the local sector on your blog. As a local business, you have the opportunity to appear in the top organic search results and in the local map package at the same time. Keep an eye out for any spelling errors, discrepancies in address and phone number, or duplicate ads and resolve them to improve your local SEO.
With local SEO, companies can use it to position their products and services among potential and local customers looking for them. Whitespark offers local ad management services, recommends where to publish your company, examines your competition, and rigorously creates and monitors the growth of your citations to improve your ranking in local searches. You can audit your site and establish a data-driven SEO plan to improve your rankings, boost traffic and dominate local searches. Like local blogs, local directories are strongly associated with a geographical area and are well indexed by search engines.
Here, you'll follow the best on-page SEO practices to ensure that your site is optimized for local search. According to Moz's local SEO report, Google My Business signals, including proximity and keywords, are the main ranking factors. Make sure you use GMB to your advantage by fully optimizing your ad to improve your local SEO over time. BuzzStream makes it easy to get local backlinks, helping you identify and build relationships with local influencers by researching influencers, tracking conversations, and generating reports about your outreach campaigns, your team's performance, and the location of links.
Include local news and events, which will not only boost your SEO, but will also provide useful information to your audience. Once you've optimized your website for local SEO, you should be in a better position to improve your rankings and increase local organic traffic. By following local SEO best practices, companies can improve organic traffic from searches conducted by customers in nearby areas. Local SEO will help your audience find you when they search online if you have a store or service area.
To start building local links, prioritize creating good quality content, see where your competitors are getting yours, connect with other businesses nearby, and create local citations.