Four out of five consumers use local searches to find local information, which means if your business isn’t optimized for local SEO, you could be missing out on 80% of your potential customers.
So how do you go about this? Well, in this article, I have gathered 17 in-depth local SEO tips and a guide to improve your local SEO rankings and outrank your local competitors, no matter what type of business you do.
So if you’re a small business looking to generate money from your products or services, this article is for you.
What Is Local SEO?
Local SEO is defined as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) done on your website to increase the online visibility of your local business on search engine results, with the ultimate aim of driving organic traffic and improve conversion rate.
Why Local SEO Matters?
Local SEO matters because:
- It helps you generate leads from search engines, the place where people are actually looking to spend money (Quality Leads)
- It helps build an online reputation, brand credibility, and trust
- It requires just a one-time investment. Once your business is ranking, you don’t have to really spend much on it. It helps in generating “free” traffic.
Top 3 Local SEO Ranking Factors 2020
The 3 main local search ranking factors are:
- Google My Business (Proximity, categories, keyword in business title, etc. )
- Links signals (Inbound anchor text, linking domain authority, linking domain quantity, etc. )
- Reviews (Review quantity, review velocity, review diversity, etc. )
- Set Up Google My Business (Local Packs)
Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool for local businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Google Maps.
The above image is how GMB would display the search result above other results in the form of snippet listing related to location.
For example, “Restaurant in Los Angeles” or “Plumber near me”. This involves the name of your business + location or location detected by Google.
- Create Local Listings
Creating local listings is one of the most local SEO tips. It’s like signaling to Google that your business is well-reputed and is trustworthy.
It is highly recommended to go for other local listing websites for getting more citations for your business. Yelp, Citysearch, Manta, Yellow Pages, etc. are some of the good website directories.
Don’t forget to have positive reviews and your business information as well. Google needs them
- Maintain Consistent NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number)
After you have created a Google My Business Listing and local citations, next up in the local SEO strategies is to make sure you have maintained consistent information about your business throughout these listings.
So how do you go about this? Well, very simple here. Maintain the same information on every local listing, your site and each and every place where your local site is mentioned – make them all the same as your GMB listing
Having a consistent NAP ensures that your business is trustworthy and credible enough in Google’s eye. In fact, you need to be careful here.
Since Google is just a mere machine, you need the information to be 100% exactly matched. For instance, if your business’s name in GMB listing ends with “LTD”, then you should not forget to mention this as well in every mention.
Use the Moz Local to check your NAP consistency across important citations.
Read Entire Article Here: 17 Local SEO Tips 2020: Guide For Local Business Owners
Local SEO Tips by Jacob Ellzey 