86% of consumers rely on the internet to find local business and almost a third (29%) search for
local businesses at least once a week. 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 strategy to your business right now.
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 making optimizations to your site to help it rank
better for a targeted local audience. While a traditional SEO strategy gives
you the opportunity 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 we talk about
local search, there are different ranking factors in play. The main focus is to
take information for local search, search engines depend upon such as local content, social profile pages,
links, and citations to provide the most relevant local results to the user.
Business listings lay
the foundation of a solid local SEO strategy. Many small and local businesses
miss out on attracting new customers simply because their listings and local
citations are either non-existent or incorrect. To be successful, you must make
sure your site and listings are optimized across the web. This will give your
business more exposure on sites like Google Maps, Yelp, Facebook and more.
There are several
other optimizations to be made for your site to rank in local SERPs. Here are
just a few:
·
Maintaining your Google My Business page
·
Management of customer ratings and reviews
·
Consistent backlink outreach
·
Content creation
·
Website monitoring and maintenance
·
Social media promotionStructured Data and Schema Markup for Local SEO
It’s important that
the coding on your website matches the local listings that you are placing.
Google bots need help in understanding the context of your website content. One of
the best ways to help your website rank is to make sure you have local
information marked up correctly on website pages such as your About page and
Contact page using structured data and schema markup. Technical SEO is
something that often requires the help of a professional. It’s worth paying a
little more when you build a website to have it set up properly the first time.
The secret to Local SEO
Local SEO is most important
if you want your business to stay relevant in local. If you want your site to
show up in the local search results, you need to have a local SEO agency on
your side that knows what it takes. We helped dozens of local businesses get
found by customers looking for their services. If you are ready to help your
local business stand out from the rest, contact us today!
