I bet you didn’t know that almost 50% of all Google searches are local? Interesting right?
More importantly, up to 56% of local businesses have yet to claim their Google My Business listing. If you’re not quite sure what this listing is, your Google My Business page is a local listing which allows search engine users to see all of your key business information, reviews, services and where you are located. The best part about this local listing is that it allows your business to appear to searchers who are local to you.
For example, if you own a restaurant, the searcher won’t have to search for your brand name specifically in order to find you. Your listing can appear for searches such as ‘restaurants near me’. This is a powerful free method of advertising your business for local searches and map results. If 56% of businesses have yet to claim their listing, they are putting themselves at a major disadvantage.
I strongly suggest you setup a GMB listing now if you haven’t already done so!
Whilst claiming your Google My Business listing is a great starting point, there are still several steps for you to implement in order to have success at Local SEO. First you need to learn what Local SEO actually is and the key factors in order to improve it.
So, what is Local SEO?
Local SEO refers to the method of ‘optimising’ your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches. These searches take place on Google and other search engines such as Bing. In most cases, without big budgets its very difficult to rank a website nationally for competitive keywords. However, its much easier to rank a website for a local search area and a more realistic target for a local business.
So what are the steps to improve your local SEO?
Improve Your Local SEO Step By Step
Step 1 – The Basics
As 61% of all local searches are made with mobile devices, its important that your website is optimised for mobile and tablet visitors. Recently Google has maded public that mobile optimisation will contine to be a major ranking factor moving forward.
If you’re unsure how to optimise your website for mobile devices, feel free to reach out to us and we’d be happy to have a chat about it and help you.
Step 2 – Consistent Information
The next step is to make sure all of your important contact information is consistent online. Check the information on your website, GMB listing and any online directories and make sure everything is consistent and correct.
Here’s a little example.
Let’s say that you run the local bakery—it’s called Millie’s Bakery.
You would clearly want to pop up for searches like:
A local search like “bakery near me”;
A specific branded search like “Millie’s Bakery”;
Various questions that your online information can answer such as “what time does Millie’s Bakery close?” and “how long will it take to walk to Millie’s Bakery?”; Millie’s Bakery phone number”;
But these aren’t traditional queries, because Google displays this information in card-like results in the SERPs.
Still can’t quite get your head around it or don’t have the time? Get in touch today to discuss your site and any service we might be able to provide!
For most businesses, the primary keywords to target will be quite obvious. Let’s say that you’re a dentist in London—how do you think people will search for your services? They’ll probably go to Google and type something like:
“dentist in London”,
“emergency dentist in London”,
“teeth whitening dentist London”.
Focus your time on implementing these types of queries into your pages to maximise your visibility locally. Are you a local business looking to take advantage of our advice but don’t have the time? We offer bespoke SEO packages to suit your size and budget.
Step 3 – On-Page SEO
Another term you may have heard experts use, is ‘On-Page SEO’. This refers to the content and structure of your website pages. Its important to optimise each page of your website using these best practices in order to give it the best chance of ranking highly for your relevant keywords.
Here are the main points to check:
Keyword in H1
Keyword in the title tag
Keyword in URL
Short and sweet URLs
Enticing meta description
By implementing these steps, you’ll greatly improve your search ranking and visibility in Google for local searches!
If you have any questions or want some help with improving the Local SEO for your website, be sure to get in touch and our team will be happy to help.
