In this article we explain local search marketing and how it can help you increase the visibility of your business and outlets locally.
Doing local SEO means activating a very powerful tool for small businesses that have physical locations (local businesses) in a limited territory.
If you are reading to this article you probably typed one of these keywords into Google:
- google local search site promotion
- local search engine marketing
- google local search seo
Research has shown that as many as 4 out of 5 consumers use Google to find information about local businesses such as address and phone number.
This means that if your business is not optimized for local search, you could end up losing 80 percent of your potential customers.
To help you withoptimizing your business for local SEO, we have created a step-by-step guide that will help you learn about the tools you need to improve your online and local image.
On the other hand, if your company also operates internationally, we recommend you read Agency Implementation Strategies Seo International.
Local seo what is
“Local SEO is that strategy that helps companies promote their products and/or services to customers and leads located in a specific territory.”
A Local SEO strategy aims to improve the localranking of a website on search engines.
The purpose is to improve the visibility of our site, in a specific geographical area.
This branch of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), is very useful in case we want to promote our own business, which provides services in direct contact with the public. So it is the case of physical stores, hotels, restaurants, artisans, dental offices, etc.
In fact, searches such as “plumber in Milan,” “electrician in Rome,” etc. are not uncommon.
This type of search, based on Local SEO, is called Local Search.
Local Search Engine: why it can help your Business
Considering that the most popular searches currently involve “near me,” or “near me,” studying a local positioning strategy has become critical. Especially with the arrival of smartphones.
In fact, let’s try to perform any Google search, for example for a Chinese restaurant. Thanks to geolocation, the first results that will appear in the search will be precisely the Chinese cuisine restaurants closest to us.
To group information dedicated to local search, search engines rely on an algorithm to return the most relevant results to the user.
Before we go into detail to see how to implement a good Local SEO strategy, it is important to understand who can particularly benefit from it.
As a first thing it is important to say that these strategies are part of the activities carried out on the Web and are mainly aimed at local activities, we mention only a few as examples:
- Bars, Restaurants, Pizzerias, Pubs etc.
- Medical, Dental Practices etc.
- Wellness Centers, Gyms, Beauty Centers etc…
- Artisans and Merchants
- Stores of all kinds
For convenience, we have not reported all product categories.
We can say that if your business serves a pool of Customers within a 10 to 15 km radius Local SEO can definitely help you find new Customers.
As you read this article, you will discover how Local SEO, via a tab on Google My Business, allows you to find lots of “pass-through” customers.
Now let us see in detail what is possible.
Local SEO strategies: best practices
To improve your web presence in local searches, there are three things you absolutely must do:
- Optimize your company’s Google My Business account;
- Improve on-page SEO by updating your business website;
- Working with digital PR to get inbound links and collaborations.
Google My Business Optimization
Google My Business has become the key to local search. Since Google believes that it is more suitable to share content and activities that it can verify, it came up with My Business: the free tool offered to businesses to satisfy users’ searches.
Creating a page on Google My Business is very simple: you just open an account by entering all the information that might be useful to the user (e.g., address, opening hours, phone number, and so on) and request verification.
In addition, you can encourage your customers to share their reviews, responding to both the good ones and the ones that are critical of your business, so as to provide a complete picture to those who will search for you on the world’s most widely used search engine.
Update your website
Now that you understand how to optimize your business on Google My Business, you will need to implement the second technique to improve your visibility: working on local SEO.
When you draft content on your website’s blog you are giving yourself anopportunity to be found among local search results (local search results).
Whenever you write an article, therefore, you should be very careful to optimize it for search engines by using specific keywords to be included not only in the content, but also in the SEO title,header and meta description.
Create content tailored for a local target audience
Big G is getting smarter and smarter (have you ever heard of Google Discover?) and that means it is able to understand and enhance what is quality content, penalizing those written with black hat SEO.
But while covering general topics will help you attract a wide audience, focusing on writing local and industry news will allow you to engage users in your area.
So what to do? The advice is to become a mainstay in your industry and in your area by promoting and organizing meetings, sharing news and other information-type content on your blog.
Also, don’t forget to highlight your clients’ success stories and case studies-this will help users get a definite idea of what you can do for them.
Optimize your website for mobile devices
Local search and mobile search go hand in hand (9 out of 10 users perform local searches from smartphones).
Users will easily search for reviews, directions, or contact information. If you haven’t already done so, make it easier for your potential customers by creating a mobile-friendly website.
The future is in smartphones, and Google’s recent move to mobile-first indexing, demonstrates this.
The most common mistakes when companies do Local SEO
Mobile searches have increased, which is why any company with a physical presence must necessarily work on Local SEO.
Research by Marketing Signals found that two out of five companies do not have a website optimized for Local SEO
With the boom of smartphones, mobile searches have increased, which is why any business with a physical presence must necessarily work on Local SEO.
An optimized website is not enough to be found by users in a specific area.
New research by marketingsignals.com has shown that revenue lost due to Local SEO errors is really high, and the same report found that 37 percent of local businesses do not even have a verified Google My Business tab for their business.
In addition, 32 percent of companies do not even have a mobile-optimized website, and 29 percent of respondents said they have never worked on local search queries.
On balance, Marketing Signals’ study showed that there is still a lot of confusion about the world of Local SEO, and below we will explain what the most common mistakes in this field are. Before we do that, however, let’s take a step back and focus on the king of SEO: content.
Content-related errors
When it comes to content, quality must be prioritized over quantity. Creating numerous pages without a clear strategy does not guarantee ranking improvement.
The correct tactic is to develop a content marketing strategy based on organic search trends.
With the passage of time and updates, Google is increasingly refining its understanding of theintent behind a specific search query.
This highlights the need to publish optimized, high-quality content.
At this point we advise you to:
- Do a competitive analysis to identify any gaps that can be filled
- Carry out additional research of the keywords most used by your potential users.
Below are some tips to better optimize your content:
- Update obsolete or low-involvement items;
- Improves existing articles, including expanding them in terms of length;
- Add Alt tags to your images for Google to read them as such and position them;
- uses Cascading Header Tags;
- Insert internal links to higher-performing pages.
SEO Local Marketing: what mistakes you absolutely must avoid
The first big mistake is to ignore Local SEO.
If you have not already activated this strategy to increase sales for your business, know that you are missing out on some great opportunities to improve your website’s ranking within local search.
Below are some common Local SEO mistakes that you absolutely must avoid in order to get noticed by your potential customers.
Google My Business tabs duplicated or never updated
Duplicate tabs on Google My Business create a negative user experience that could affect your NAP.
In addition, user reviews could flow into different accounts, which could create confusion as well as loss of valuable opinions.
If you have two boards or more, the thing you can do is to go ahead and create a unique account by going ahead and unifying the existing ones.
Lack of links to authoritative sources
Links from recognized local sources play an important role in optimizing a business for Local SEO.
This includes links from directories, local businesses, and local institutions consistent with your business.
All information distributed in the form of backlinks must match the business information found right on Google My Business.
Not having an accurate NAP list on each directory is a negative ranking factor.
The power of local SEO
This guide to local SEO is intended to help you succeed in your local area.
Keep everything in mind for better online visibility–we can’t wait to see you on the first page of Google!
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