Did you know 46% of the Google searches are local?
Being a local business if you are not using local SEO, you are losing opportunities every time a potential user searches for services or products similar to yours.
Local SEO is essential for your business simply because several individuals are searching for local stores at any given point of time.
Approximately 58% of people search for some local business through their smartphones and 89% conduct this search once a week. Fortunately, 72% of these individuals even visit the local business if it is situated in five miles radius.
How will these searchers find you if your local SEO is poor?
In this article, we will explore the importance of local SEO and ways to improve local search ranking.
But, before that, here’s what local SEO means.
Local SEO has a similar concept to organic SEO, but this SEO is dependent on the geographical aspect. Local SEO is meant to improve the SEO ranking of geographical search results such as near me searches.
Let’s see how to improve local SEO.
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Improve Local SEO Results
1. Optimize Google My Business
To start with, register yourself on Google My Business. This helps in claiming a presence in the search engines, and if Google legitimizes your business, you will even show up on the valuable sidebar of Google.
Your local business will start showing up on Google maps and all the searches made through various devices.
Some things to remember:
- Provide updated information
- Update your logo
- Update acceptable payment mode
- Update services or products
- Update hours of service
- Respond to customer reviews
- Add a relevant description
2. Happy Customer Reviews
To most of us, online reviews are as important as personal reviews or recommendations – 85% to be specific.
Ask your users to review at the point of sale. Encourage them to leave good feedback. Send emails and texts reminding your users to leave a review so you can attract more customers.
3. Handle Negative Reviews
It’s best to prevent negative reviews in the first place. But, no business can realistically steer clear of negative feedback forever.
When you receive a negative review, respond professionally and quickly. Provide a solution and full assistance to allow that customer to change their review into a positive one.
4. Build Citations
Citations are mentions that your business receives on the web even when it does not link to your website. These mentions can include name, number, contact details, address, etc.
Citations contribute to around 13% of your local SEO ranking factors.
Therefore, make sure that you add the correct address, phone number, and all the other information in each citation.
5. Mobile Optimization
Mobile users are increasingly becoming more active than regular desktop users. You need to optimize your website for these users to avoid a drop in your search engine ranking.
You will end up losing a lot of customers if your mobile site is not optimized. No one will visit a second time to see whether you have optimized your website or not.
- Quick load time
- Easy-to-read fonts
- Appealing images
- Interactive UI
6. GMB Map Location
Use NAP (Name, address, and phone number) on your website. In the footer or in the contacts page.
Additionally, embed GMB (Google My Business) location into your contacts page. This tells Google that you are actually located at the given address.
7. High-Quality Content
If you don’t already have a local content medium such as a blog, create one.
Here, it is necessary to remember that links are important. Linking domain authority, inbound anchor text, linking domain quality, backlinks, etc. all contribute to your local search engine ranking.
Also, since it is local SEO, ensure that you add local news and local city name in your blogs.
Conclusion
Many customers rely on search engines for reviews and for finding relevant businesses. Use the above tips to improve local search results and climb the SERPs. But, don’t limit your potential to just SEO. Use other digital marketing techniques in collaboration to enhance your outreach.
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