Local SEO

97% of consumers rely on the Internet to find local businesses, and almost half (54%) search for local businesses at least once a month, with 12% searching daily. If your business is not showing up in the local search results, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity for potential business.

A strategic local SEO strategy can help your business differentiate itself and stand out from your competition. Keep reading to learn what local SEO is and why you may want to consider applying this digital marketing strategy to your business right now.

Synonyms:

• Local search engine optimization  

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a highly effective way to market your local business online. It helps brick-and-mortar businesses promote their products and services to local customers while they’re searching for them online.

Unlike traditional SEO, local SEO involves optimizing your site to help it rank better for a targeted local audience. While a traditional SEO strategy allows you to expand your reach to everyone across the web, local SEO focuses on a smaller geographic area. Local search encompasses common search terms such as:

• Doctors near me
• Lawyers near me
• Plumber in [city name]
• Salon in [city name]

When it comes to local search, there are different ranking factors in play. To gather information for local search, search engines rely on signals such as local content, social profile pages, high-quality links, and citations to provide the most relevant local results to the user.

The Benefits of Local SEO

Any business that has a physical location or serves a specific area can benefit from a local SEO strategy.

After implementing local SEO best practices, you increase your chances of being shown to potential customers when they search a specific geographic area. This can drive relevant local traffic to your website and contribute to more foot traffic.

Users searching for local services tend to be closer to purchasing. Showing up for your potential customers when they are looking for your services online may help increase phone calls and even conversion rates.

Local SEO can also provide a competitive advantage. If you’re following local SEO best practices, you may outperform competitors who aren’t focusing on local search optimization.

What Are Local Listings?

Local listings are online mentions of a business’s name, address, phone number, website, or operating hours that help customers find local businesses. They can appear on websites, blogs, social media, apps, local directories, and more.

Local business listings lay the foundation of a solid local SEO strategy. They help drive authoritative backlinks to your website and increase your company’s visibility in local search results.

Many small and local businesses miss attracting new customers simply because their listings and local citations are non-existent or incorrect. To succeed, you must optimize your site and listings across the web. This will expose your business to sites like Google Maps, Yelp, Facebook, and more.

A variety of Local SEO tools are available to help ensure your business information is added and correct across all major listings and business directories. We recommend exploring Moz Local.

How To Optimize Your Website for Local SEO

Several optimizations must be made to help your site rank in local SERPs. Here are just a few:

1. Building and maintaining your Google Business Profile: An optimized Google Business Profile can help your business appear prominently in Google Maps and other localized search results, like the local pack (also called the map pack).

2. Asking your customers to leave positive reviews on platforms like Google Business, Facebook, and Yelp: Happy customers will leave positive reviews. This is a strong ranking signal to Google, encouraging it to prioritize your business for local search queries.

3. Building and maintaining local listings: As mentioned above, local listings drive authoritative backlinks to your website and increase your company’s visibility in local search results.

4. Content marketing: By regularly publishing relevant and valuable content, you can improve your search rankings, attract more local customers, and establish authority in your specific geographic area.

5. Social media promotion: Although social media is not a direct ranking factor for Google, promoting your content on these platforms can boost your local search visibility by driving traffic, increasing brand awareness, and encouraging customer engagement.

6. Ensuring your business NAP is visible on your website and consistent across platforms: Your business NAP (name, address, and phone number) must be present on your website and consistent across all platforms. Any inconsistencies related to your NAP can cause confusion for your potential customers and search engines and may lead to a decrease in search visibility.

Structured Data and Schema Markup for Local SEO

Search engine crawlers need help understanding the context of your website content. One of the best ways to help your website rank in local search is to utilize local business schema markup on your About or Contact page.

Thanks to tools like RankMath SEO, Yoast, and Schema.org, implementing schema markup no longer requires the help of an SEO expert. You can now easily implement basic schema to your website to help set it up for success in search. 

Which Businesses Don’t Need Local Search?

While local SEO may seem like a quick and easy way to drive organic traffic, it’s not a necessity for every type of business.

Here’s a list of businesses and the reasons why Local SEO may not be a priority for them:

Fully Online or eCommerce Businesses

Businesses that operate fully online and don’t have a physical storefront may not benefit from local SEO because their target audience is not location-specific. If your business operates only partially online but has a physical storefront that welcomes customers, you may still want to consider local SEO. 

Businesses with a Global or National Target Audience

Companies that offer products or services globally or nationwide don’t typically need to rank for local searches since their offerings are not geographically restricted. 

Large Corporations or Enterprises with No Local Presence

Large corporations that don’t serve customers locally or focus solely on corporate clients from different regions may not benefit from Local SEO. For instance, businesses that deal with other businesses (B2B) on a large scale often focus on industry-specific SEO rather than local. If a company’s physical location or office is irrelevant to its customers (like a multinational manufacturer or supplier), local SEO might not provide much value.

The Secret to Local SEO

Local SEO is critical if you want your business to stay relevant. If you are a local business owner and want your site to appear in the local search results, you need to have a local SEO agency on your side that knows what it takes. Our team has worked with dozens of local businesses. If you are ready to help your local business stand out, contact us today!