Local Search Engine Optimization is key for brands serving a physical location or particular geographic region to attract new customers online and build brand recognition and authority.
Google results that appear in the first five search engine listings garner over 67% of user clicks, as consumers trust those occupying these spots. Implementing an effective local SEO strategy will enable your business to dominate its niche market.
Keyword Research
Keyword research should form the cornerstone of any local SEO strategy. Customers use specific phrases when searching locally for products or services offered by businesses like yours; make sure your website optimizes for those phrases to increase its ranking on search results pages.
This means incorporating them into meta tags, headers and your body of content. Furthermore, it means making sure that your company’s NAP (name, address and phone number) information is crawlable HTML text on every page of your site – providing that this data remains consistent across citation sources.
As part of your research, it’s also essential to keep both popularity and competition for keywords in mind when conducting your analysis. Your aim should be to find keywords with enough competition so they’re rankable without becoming overcrowded with results – tools like Moz’s Keyword Explorer or Ahrefs can assist in this regard.
On-Page Optimization
On-page factors that contribute to organic search rankings also play a part in local searches, including keywords in your URL, title tag, header tag and meta description. When possible add city or neighborhood names into page content.
Other on-page factors that influence local search results include customer success stories and case studies as a great way to collect reviews; unique store descriptions; parking information; special offers or promotions; special offers or promotions and any special offers or promotions you are running on the website; product and service schema can help Google to better understand what products and services your site provides so they can match relevant searches with you more accurately.
Your website must also be optimized for mobile use so it will display well on smaller smartphone screens and be easy to navigate, even on slower or low bandwidth networks. It should open quickly.
Off-Page Optimization
SEO best practices used for organic search engines also apply to local searches. Publishing relevant content, getting listed in online directories and social media, and working on link-building are effective strategies for increasing your ranking.
Local SEO requires accurate NAP (name, address and phone number) data on your website to appear across directories where you’re listed. Schema markup adds value as does monitoring consumer feedback or inquiries online.
Your site must also be mobile-friendly; Google favors websites that render well on smartphones and tablets. This means pages should load quickly, are easy to navigate on a small screen, include clear, concise keyword-focused titles and headings as well as customer reviews are key factors for local searches as are positive social media signals; particularly important if your business has its own dedicated social media account.
Link Building
Local SEO involves optimizing a website and its content specifically to appeal to those searching in a particular geographic location. Unlike organic (national) search engine optimization, local SEO prioritizes proximity between businesses and searchers.
Multiple factors determine whether a business will appear in Google’s “snack pack” results at the top of a Google search, including accuracy of Google My Business listings, relevance to searches conducted, proximity to users searching and overall prominence.
Citation signals are another crucial aspect of local SEO, and Moz advises getting links from authoritative sources in your target region, such as government sites, chambers of commerce or.edu websites. Also consider asking anyone kind enough to link back with you – such as an employee – to include the location in their link text whenever they do provide one.
NAP (name, address and phone number) consistency is another critical element of local search rankings. To achieve this success, make sure that the NAP information listed on your website matches what is found on consumer directories such as Yelp.