Smaller businesses that operate on a regional rather than national scale need Google local for SEO. Local SEO prioritizes SERPs in a particular area, while national SEO focuses on ranking in searches around the region. This approach involves targeting local leads and consumers with your brand, products, and services.
Since the approach is more applicable to your local client base, optimizing your local SEO means more website traffic, leads, and conversions. Consider this tailored approach a way to help you compete more efficiently against more prominent national brands with limitless budgets.
You can neutralize the benefit of more prominent brands that consistently optimize for more comprehensive keywords and rely on brand awareness, rather than value propositions, to pull in traffic by concentrating on unique local-SEO to-dos.
Here are the top ways to make your local SEO campaign a success.
Make a listing on Google My Business (GMB)
Setting up a Google My Business (GMB) listing is one of the first things you can do to rank in local searches. One of the benefits of having a Google My Business listing is that it’s the modern-day equivalent of a phone book listing. The second reason is that it is a significant ranking factor. According to Moz’s most recent annual report, Google My Company listings are the #1 driving factor in local SEO.
Furthermore, creating a Google My Business listing is not difficult. However, you must ensure that your profile is filled out. Google gives you a visual representation of how complete your profile is. Fill in all of the fields to ensure that this metric is 100 per cent complete. Be sure to include your goods, services, and a secondary business category as well. Google will prompt you to select a primary category from a list of choices. After that, you can choose a secondary group, which many companies overlook, giving your services more meaning.
Besides, using the subcategories will assist you in ranking higher on Google Maps. Another great local SEO tip is to use the Google Posts feature once your listing is up and running. You can use this section to create mini-posts for your clients and show Google that you’re keeping an eye on your listing. Share these posts on social media to take this feature even further. Google is placing more emphasis on social media presence. If your Google Posts page attracts traffic, it suggests to Google that you provide helpful content and updates.
The mobile-friendly website
Since mobile internet use has surpassed desktop use, and since many local searches are performed from mobile devices, Google favours mobile-friendly websites. User experince, on the other hand, is a significant factor in rating. Google will not support you in local results if users have to pinch and zoom, experience long load times, or can’t locate the details they’re searching for quickly.
Optimizing your platform for mobile is another of the top local SEO tips for 2021. Making your website mobile-friendly is critical for overall SEO success. It is, however, especially relevant for local SEO. This is why.
According to statistics, location-based searches account for 30% of all mobile searches. This is a sizable amount, implying that many customers who find you via local search are likely using their mobile device.
It will not look good to potential customers if your site does not show well on mobile or navigational problems. They’ll probably leave your platform and go to a rival with a more professional online presence.
Opportunities for Link Building
It is common knowledge that an excellent link-building strategy is essential for an effective SEO campaign. As a result, if you do local SEO, it is also a priority. Unfortunately, winning organic ties and constructing them takes a lot of time. For influencers to trust you and the content you post, you’ll need to establish a sense of authority through your content.
You may take advantage of this link-building opportunity if an influencer finds your content high-quality and vital. It’s not easy to get influencers to connect to your material, but it’ll be well worth your time and effort. Concentrate on working with influencers and other methods of enhancing the brand’s online reputation.
Helping webmasters find and replace broken links in their content is a simple way to receive some high-quality backlinks. Investigate high-performing posts in your niche to see if they include broken links, then contact the webmaster to inform them of the broken link and give your page a replacement.
Make a page for each location on your website
Create location pages if you have more than one physical location. Readers can find your name, address, phone number, store hours, unique store details, parking/transit statistics, promotions, and customer testimonials on your location pages.
It’s also crucial that you don’t repeat content through several location sites. Build a locally descriptive About Us page for single-location companies. If you have a Google Map on your website’s position tab, you’ll get many bonus points.
Consistency All over the Internet
People and search engines must be able to locate you quickly. Set up your NAP (name, address, and phone number) to accomplish this (with area code). This should be included on your site as a crawlable HTML document.
Avoid making the common mistake of only having the NAP inside an image; images, unlike HTML text, cannot be crawled by search engines. The most popular position for the NAP is in the site’s footer or header.
The Most Important Takeaway
Before you begin your Google Local SEO campaign, brush up on your skills by taking control of your local search rankings. You’ll be able to perfect some keyword research, understand Google My Business, conduct competitor analysis, and practice engaging your customers through local SEO – all of which are important for your overall SEO campaign. Begin small and work your way up until you achieve local SEO success. If you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll have plenty of time to work on advanced SEO.