Local SEO is an essential strategy for any business that provides services near its customers. Whether you’re a restaurant, coffee shop, retail store or plumber, local SEO can help boost your success and drive foot traffic to your establishment.
Building awareness of your business’ name, address and phone number (NAP) through directory listings, social media profiles and online review platforms requires effort.
Keywords
Keywords are essential components of local SEO, as they help your business appear in Google’s local search results. Your keywords should be pertinent to the area you serve and include words your target audience likely uses frequently.
Utilizing a local keyword research tool such as KWFinder or Semrush can help you uncover keywords with reasonable search volumes for your location. However, don’t limit yourself to just your immediate vicinity; expand your search beyond that to nearby and distinct places as well.
Once you identify high-purchase intent terms that align with your business, then leverage local SEO efforts to maximize results.
Once you’ve identified keywords pertinent to your business, ensure you optimize both your website and GMB listing for them. Doing this may enable users to find you in what’s known as the “local 3-pack,” a box known as the “local 3-pack.”
Local directories
Businesses can add their information to a variety of online directories. These may include Google My Business, Bing Places for Business, Yelp and more.
Submitting your business to local directories is an effective way to boost local SEO. Doing so gives you additional citations in the form of backlinks and mentions of your name, address and phone number (NAP) across the web.
It’s essential that your NAP and other information remain consistent across all listings. Inconsistent data could cause customer confusion and could negatively affect your rankings and traffic.
Thankfully, there are a variety of tools available to manage your directory listing data more effectively. These applications take the manual data entry out of the process and ensure consistency across pages. Furthermore, they offer an auditing tool so you can view how well your local business information is represented across top directories.
Local content
Producing local content is an integral component of any successful local SEO strategy. Not only does it help you reach your audience, but it also boosts your rankings in local search results.
When creating local content, it is essential to make it relevant to your audience. That means answering their needs, goals, fears and frustrations within the context of your business or industry.
A blog is an ideal starting point, as it allows you to craft content that’s both informative and captivating. By regularly updating your blog with fresh material, you will attract more readers and boost your ranking in local search results.
Reviews from your customers are another factor that will impact your local search visibility. They can be left on both Google My Business and other consumer directories or social media sites, and they comprise 15 percent of all pack ranking factors in local results.
Local links
Local links are an effective way to raise your search engine rankings on Google. They assist in building a local presence and correcting citations (correcting names, addresses, and phone numbers, or NAPs).
A successful local link building strategy should involve targeting websites with geographic relevance to your business, such as client-specific sites, publications, and local organizations.
Another effective local link strategy is to reach out to newspapers, forums, and online communities that cover the subject matter you want to rank for. By working together on content together, you can align your offering with these publications.
This strategy requires more work, but can be an effective way to build local links. It is especially helpful for small businesses that don’t have much money for marketing expenses.