Let’s start with some fascinating facts about local SEO (search engine optimisation) first.
74% of users who do a Google search for a local service visit the store that day.
And,
78% of location-oriented searches will lead to an offline conversion.
Safari Digital
That’s crazy, isn’t it?
People are online and searching for products or services all the time. Basically things that will make their lives easier. And when they can find the service they are looking for near their home, why would they look for it elsewhere? I know I wouldn’t.
Your brand’s visibility and popularity on a local level matter immensely on your local SEO practices. When your website ranks higher and the service you offer is great, people will definitely come flocking to your store.
Defining Local SEO
Ahrefs defines local SEO as “the process of ‘optimizing’ your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches. These searches take place on Google and other search engines.”
What does it really mean?
When a customer searches for a service near their location on search engines, how high your website ranks depends on your local SEO. If your website ranks on the first page, it becomes highly likely that the person searching will avail your services.
Who Is Local SEO For?
Local SEO is highly beneficial and recommended for small to medium-sized businesses that serve customers face-to-face.
Brick-and-mortar businesses that are looking to ramp up their brand locally or boost revenue can make great use of local SEO. Because who isn’t online nowadays? When everyone is, your business should be online too.
10 Awesome Strategies to Boost Your Local Seo Rankings
Without further ado, let’s get into what you can do to reach the top rank on Serps.
And if you already have a local SEO plan, how can you improve on it?
1. List Your Business
First things first- list your business on various search engines like Google, Bing, Yelp, etc.
Google has a service called ‘Google My Business’ that enables businesses to list their business profile on Google. In order to become an authentic page that Google can verify and approve of, you need to post photos, describe your business, and get reviews.
This tool lets you add your phone number, address, directions to your store i.e on Google Maps and even the website to your business. There’s a message icon too that allows people looking for you to directly communicate with you.
There’s also a metric analysis option that enables you to keep track of the channels through which people are searching for you. These can be website clicks, calls, direction requests, etc.
2. Pay Special Attention to NAP
NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone Number. It’s a very minute yet important detail that businesses often miss out on.
It’s highly important that your NAP is consistent across your website and other places where your business is being mentioned. Because Google will treat different locations to the same place differently. This will cause you competition from your own self.
3. Create Area Specific Landing Pages
If you have more than one location where you serve, it’s a great local SEO practice to create specific pages for specific locations.
These pages should contain everything that your main page does. Make sure to add about what you offer, address, working hours, specific location-based discounts, etc. Just like you would do normal SEO, keep in mind to optimise this page using keywords.
It would also be great if you add a Google map specific to each location.
4. Generate Content Around Local Keywords
Now before you start doing SEO and creating content, you need to figure out who are you doing it for? Is it just to increase your revenue? Or is it to increase your revenue by giving some value to people?
If the latter is your answer, then you need to start creating content for local keywords that people are searching for. Put yourself in the place of the user and search for things. You can also join forums and take surveys.
After that, start creating content around those topics. The search volume for these topics might be low but then so is your audience. You can write blogs, make tutorials, shoot videos and so on.
5. Benefit from Citation Pages
Citation pages are like directories or different webpages that have mentions of your website with/without links. These mentions will mostly be just your business’ name, address and contact information.
It is likely that people might not land there through keyword search, a query or a blog. They might be on a website like Yellowpages where they are comparing two services and they end up finding out about you.
Therefore, it is imperative that you add yourself to all these directories and that you provide the same information across all of them. Citation pages are a great boost to improve local SEO rankings. These pages will help you gain backlinks and engage with a wider but the correct target audience.
6. Acquire Inbound Links
Just like inbound links for usual SEO, working for inbound links for local SEO is the same. Inbound links are links to your website coming from another website. These are popularly known as “backlinks.”
So, getting inbound links from other websites shows Google that your business is good enough that other people/websites are talking about it in their own space. Therefore, it becomes so important that these backlinks are coming from relevant and high authority websites.
Getting a backlink from a high authority site will improve your DA (Domain Authority) which will, in turn, increase your ranking on SERPs.
Some ways to get backlinks are through guest blogging on other sites, affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, etc.
Or you can create ebooks and guides that are so helpful that others will automatically site your website when using your material.
7. Get Reviews
Another important strategy to boost local SEO rankings is asking for reviews. This is something that you, as a user look for too.
When you go through a businesses website, don’t you ALWAYS look for customer reviews or testimonials? Or even when you’re shopping online, you want to know what other customers are saying about the product.
Having real people share their real experiences makes the service or product more authentic. So if you have a lot of positive reviews in your Google My Business profile, new visitors will more likely to become customers. Because they might not believe you, but they will always believe other customers.
8. Mobile-friendly Website Optimisation
57% of users would not recommend a website with a poorly designed mobile website.
Google
There are loads of information available on the internet. And with information, increase the number of choices. The more the choices, the pickier people get.
In fact, Google says that users who aren’t able to read or browse a website easily on the phone will leave the page IMMEDIATELY. This involves everything from your loading speed, to navigation, to text size, to design, to information, to FAQ and more.
So, optimise your website and make it mobile-friendly.
9. Keep Updating Google My Business Account
Keep your business buzz-worthy.
If you do all the above-mentioned steps correctly, there will be new queries regularly. And when people come across your business profile on Google, if they find outdated information, they are going to scroll down.
To keep your account updated, you can post photos of your store, a new expansion. You can also post banners and discount offers that you are providing. You can also add a special discount for first-time consumers.
10. Engage on Social Media
In the present day and age, it increases your brand’s authenticity if you have an active social media page. Moreover, you might not be able to cover everything in your Google My Business profile. In that case, social media pages will help you.
Using platforms like Instagram, Facebook will help you to engage better with your customers. Post pictures, stories about your workspace, employees, new location expansion, contest alerts and build a community of loyal customers.
We have covered a detailed article on how Instagram can boost your brand’s popularity. You can read it here.
Wrapping Up
Local SEO will not only take you from a small-sized to medium or large-sized business but it is also a great way to serve your local community.
“Near me” searches have grown 150% faster than traditional, local-based searches as per Google. So, people are searching for services nearby and this is where you need to leverage the power of local SEO to stand out.
If there are any other local SEO methods which have helped your business grow, please let us know in the comments below.