Local SEO Strategies to Help You be Seen in Searches

Local SEO Strategies to Help You be Seen in SearchesOne of the most enduring, yet elusive business principles is finding your target market. Today this has more to do with finding your “geographic” market since most people are using mobile devices to find businesses.

The What and Why of Local SEO

Many strategies now exist allowing businesses to tap into a person’s local search behavior and drive them to their business. This is what’s loosely defined as local SEO. There are numerous strategies and tactics used here to optimize a business’ digital footprint and attract a local audience through online traffic from the search engines. Most of this has to do with a business’ “map pack” – their highly optimized business data that helps them rank higher for specific search terms.

This is important because many people are using Google Maps on their mobile phone to conduct searches for specific types of businesses near them (e.g. “pizza near me). You want to make sure you show up when this search happens because it’ll help drive a lot of traffic and revenue your way. In fact, Social Media Today says about 72% of customers who conduct one of these searches will visit a business within a 5-mile radius of their location. Out of these people 80% will make a purchase while at the business. Clearly, you can’t afford to miss out on this traffic.

Core Strategies for Your Local SEO

Whether your business already has basic SEO in place or it’s starting from scratch, there are some strategies that you should employ here, including:

  • Set up and optimize your Google My Business listing making sure that your phone number, address, and business hours are accurate. Add pictures of your store and its products or services. Make sure to include search terms in your meta data and business description.
  • Optimize individual location pages for each of your business’ various locations. Include details that are specific to each location on these pages (e.g. photos).
  • Having credible, authoritative websites linking to yours will also help with your local SEO. This is especially true when local sites and businesses (e.g. neighborhood associations, chamber of commerce, local media outlets) link to your website. These backlinks tell Google that it’s worth their bot’s time to investigate your business.
  • Many people (about 80%) who conduct local searches spend time looking at the reviews. Google also wants to see a business’ review so they can determine their credibility.
  • Taking time to do some keyword research is invaluable as it’ll tell you how much competition exists for those specific keywords. Once you have a list of the local keywords that you want your business to be ranked for you should start working these keywords into your SEO elements (e.g. title tags, meta descriptions). Doing so will help give your visibility a boost.
  • Voice search is another important consideration. One business discovered that 75% of their business was coming from smart speaker owners. This makes sense because when you’re at home having a discussion it’s a lot easier to ask your smart speaker for an answer than it is to grab your phone or your laptop. As this number continues to rise, it’s important to optimize your website in this regard so you’re sure to show up here. When doing so try to remember to use natural language like someone would use when searching for a business like yours.

Conclusion

As a business you already have a lot of work to do so why not let a professional take care of your local SEO for you? The Local SEO Company has been handling this work for many highly satisfied clients for quite some time now. Contact them so they can get you set up for success today.