What is Local SEO?
If a company meets with its customers directly — either through a storefront or service area — it’s termed a “local business” and a unique set of techniques and skills can be used to increase its visibility on the Internet.
The goal of a search engine is to most fully deliver on Search = Best Search Return.
Local SEO (Local Search Engine Optimization), also known as local search marketing, is when a business is online but its products or services are mostly or fully of interest only to people in their local area.
For businesses like restaurants, brick and mortar stores, real estate or in-person services, it's important to be sure that when local users search for things, the options they're given are most locally relevant.
If someone is looking for a hardware store that sells paint, it's likely they want the store down the street and not the one a two-hour drive away.
How is local SEO different than standard SEO?
According to Google, 46% of searches have a ‘local intent’. And 72% of consumers that did a local search visited a store within five miles.
The world wide web (www) is a big place, and for some types of search, location doesn't matter. If I'm looking for a video that shows me how to patch the old nail holes in my wall, it doesn't matter where the creator of the video is located. Anyone in the world with good enough SEO and authority can rank for a search query like ‘how to paint my new apartment’, when the search query has much more active purchase intent behind it, it becomes ‘paint supplies near me’ or ‘professional painters in [location]’.
What is local search?
The use of "near me " or the name of a city indicates to Google that a search is local - for these types of local search query, search engines understand that what the searcher wants is business suggestions or lists based on location, and so that’s precisely what they offer up in the local search engine results pages (SERPs). Fun fact, they'll use your IP location or device GPS to determine the country, city, or post/ZIP code that you're located in.
Local SERP Features
You are probably familiar with what’s known as the ‘local pack’ on Google SERPs, the block of three to five business listings that appear below the map in the results displayed after a Google search with local intent.
Are they the best companies? Maybe.
Are they the biggest local company? Maybe.
How did these businesses get onto that map at the top of the page? Local SEO.
And they most likely have claimed and completed their Google My Business pages. We'll talk about that in a minute.
92% of searchers will pick businesses on the first page of local search results.
How do I rank well in local search?
There are three key elements to local SEO:
Distance: How close is your business to the user?
Relevance: How relevant are your products and services?
Reputation: Do you have positive reviews, clear contact information, easy to find open-close hours, a website they can visits?
The items below are all factors to look at when evaluating a site's local SEO or working to improve it.
Google My Business
Only 44% of businesses have claimed their Google My Business listing
Google My Business is a free listing that Google makes available for almost any business. Odds are, unless you've just opened there's already a partial listing. As mentioned above, it's to make sure your business is listed with the correct address location (distance), shows the right business category and lists the right service or product types (relevance), and that your hours, website and contact information is correct (reputation).
Mobile-Friendly Websites
As of 2019, mobile devices, excluding tablets, generated about half of all website traffic globally. And 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly using the search results.
Make sure that your website is easy to use on a mobile device. This is as easy as grabbing your phone and opening up the home page. Is the text easy to read? Are the images showing? Can I quickly make a reservation, call your phone number or send you an email? If the answer to any of these is 'no' or 'not easily' then that's the place to start. No point working to get local search traffic if 60%+ can't use your website.
Location in your keywords
Search engines read the text on your website. You may be "The Worlds Best BBQ" but from a local SEO perspective, better to be "Dallas's Best BBQ". Make sure your website content lists your locations, the neighbourhoods near you - you should also consider adding it to the page titles and headlines if it's relevant.
This is easy to check as well, by doing your own searches. Type in your company name or the services you offer and see if you can find your own website - even better ask some local friends to try it as well.
Still not sure? Request a quick local SEO report if you're curious about what your website ranks for currently.
Local Citations
Citations are places with mention of your business, which usually display your business name, address, and phone number.
No one uses the yellow phonebooks anymore, so there are a few places that are particularly important to get in place for local SEO. If you don’t appear in the places people are looking for businesses like yours, you’re likely to overlooked or overtaken by the competitors that do.
Some places to consider locally are local business organizations, city business pages, review sites or blogs. Bigger picture, sites like Yelp and Bing are helpful, you don't need a paid package, just make sure the listings are correct.
Why is Local SEO Important: The Numbers
Local search has some of the highest conversion all local advertising channels - Unlike traditional advertising (e.g. local newspapers, leaflets, direct mail, etc.), with local SEO there is little wasted exposure.
Many of the best local SEO opportunities are free (for now!) - ou reach potential customers when they need you — not when they don’t. This makes local business SEO both efficient and cost-effective.
You have control of what users searching locally see - Many local searchers are looking for a specific business’ name, but many who search don’t have a specific business in mind when they begin their hunt. It doesn't hurt that positive reviews make 91% of consumers more likely to use a business for the first time.