When you have a website, you have access to market your product or services to the entire globe. Local SEO, however, works differently. Local SEO enables you to rank higher for searches within your local area. Even if your online presence matters a great deal, it’s equally essential that potential customers can find you physically.
Even though in times such as these, you may not have too many people interested in visiting your business physically, you should continue to target the local audience actively. Optimizing for your local area, therefore, is what local SEO is all about. When optimizing your local SEO, one of the foundation areas that you should begin with is ‘Google My Business.’
This isn’t where local SEO begins and ends, though; there’s a lot more to it, and it’s not just Google that’s important. When you optimize your local SEO, you customize your online presence to captivate business from local searches on different search engines. For purposes of this article, we will concentrate on local SEO on Google, because most people use Google anyway.
Factors That Influence Your Local SEO
Now, if you own a website and are trying to target a specific area or city, even if you’re not in it, the best thing to do is to optimize your content. What this means is that you’re going to spend some time creating a lot of content about the area. If you have an address in the area, it’ll be much easier to do than if you do not.
We earlier mentioned that local SEO targets businesses in your local area. To this effect, it’s then essential that search engines such as Google are aware of your exact location to rank you higher. Let’s look at some of the factors that can influence your local SEO.
- Your Address
So you have a business. Your clients are probably going to be a mix of local as well as non-local clientele. To serve your local customers well, you have to ensure that your address appears to them correctly on Google.
Serving your address to search engines conveniently ensures that your business seems closest to users looking for similar services. One of the best ways of providing search engines sees your business address is through the use of schema.org tags. Using an excellent SEO plugin will make adding your business schema a walk in the park.
- Google My Business
You have to have an excellent Google My Business listing for the best local ranking on Google. For this to happen, all you have to do is to enlist, ensure all your locations on the listing are updated then add photos to your listing. One advantage of Google My Business is that your customers can leave reviews, so always encourage them to leave positive reviews of your business.
When your business gets positive reviews, potential customers, and even Google itself sees and scrutinizes your business. In a way, you could liken this to being at the local farmer’s market. If one person samples your products and likes them, they’re sure to spread the word about your services.
This sets the ball rolling for other customers to visit your stall. Don’t stop at requesting for reviews from your clients, once your clients have given the thumbs up for your business, respond to the comments left. They’re sure to be back for more.
- Update Your NAP
Your NAP refers to your Name, Address, and Phone number. Sometimes, a business could have multiple locations spread out over a geographical area or region. If this is the case for yours, you should update your NAP and ensure that the information on your Web Page matches the information on your Google My Business listing.
The principal address of your business should mostly appear on every page of your site and then have a different page that contains updated addresses of all your other locations. Updating your NAP enables search engines like Google to make the right connection between your business and the address.
- Local Directories
Don’t ignore business directories such as YELP. Search engines will gather information about your business and locality to prioritize you. In this case, you will have to find directories that work best for your area and get your business listed there as well.
- Social Media
When you interact with your followers and customers on social media, you build your brand awareness on the online space. When your business is active on social media, you have higher chances of bringing onboard new customers. It’s therefore essential that you continue to engage with your followers who will recommend your services to potential customers. When you do this, Google will recognize it as its ranking businesses.
The Benefits of Local SEO
- It helps you to manage and build your reputation.
One way of driving up your business traffic and increasing sale for your business is when your customers leave reviews about your services on your Google My Business listing. Through such listings, customers are more likely than not to engage with a business that has positive reviews rather than one that’s full of negative reviews.
- It helps you to build your relevance and prominence on search engines.
Do this by link building and content marketing. When you consistently create content that relates to your local area, which the community finds relevant to their needs, you’re on the way to building a name for yourself and making yourself relevant to your given niche.
Not only are you building your brand awareness, you’re also increasing customer engagement, thus bringing your customers much closer to your business.
- It improves your rankings and translates traffic into sales.
Building citations on sites such as social media sites give your business better visibility. This translates to your customers finding your business much faster. When customers can find what they’re looking for quickly on search engine sites, they are more likely to engage with your company and purchase a product or service.
Conclusion
Achieving the best visibility possible is essential to any business that wants to get and remain at the top of the food chain. That is why Web Daytona has successfully helped brands, businesses, and SEO professionals to improve their local SEO for years.