You must have heard about the term SEO, a number of times. It stands for Search Engine Optimization. Businesses perform SEO to improve the discoverability of their websites on Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. It could be just about anything, that you are planning to sell. You may be selling products, services, or knowledge. No matter, which industry you are in, you will need a website, to compete in the market today. With the help of a website, you can reach out to customers, who are beyond your geographical area as well.
The ultimate goal of SEO is to increase your site’s visibility online. You will be attracting customers who are looking for your business.
More About Local SEO
Now, there is something called Local SEO as well. Local SEO comes in handy when you are providing goods or services in a certain area. It is important for attracting customers, who are also looking for the same services or products, at any given time. Research says, that 90 percent of customers search for local businesses online. Gone are the days, when people would search for their needs and wants, by visiting physically.
You could be having a set shop or business in a specific geographical area or may run an online business. Local SEO can help your business grow in many ways. This is the only way you can feature higher up on the search engine’s pages like Google. Google also happens to be the No. 1 search engine, so most digital forms of marketing are based on Google’s algorithms. If you want a strategic advantage, then you must incorporate Local SEO into your marketing plans.
Businesses That Need Local SEO And Ways To Do So
There are certain businesses that need Local SEO, more than others. They are bars, restaurants, salons, plumbers, coffee shops, local museums, casinos, universities, and local consultants. You need to create a specific plan or strategy for the same. Here are a few key steps or ideas, through which you can create the right SEO strategy for your website.
- Determine which products are important for you. If you are a food business owner, you might want locals to discover your business. You could aim for more footfalls if you have a seating area as well. On the contrary, you could be looking for home delivery options, as many youngsters want delivery of their food to their homes and workplaces. It is important for you to find out the anchor food item. Concentrate on that to attract first.Later on, you can diversify. You have to incorporate some key terms, that customers are searching for. This will help you in keyword research. You can use local SEO tools, to search for the highly searched terms later on. Moreover, you can also find out geo-specific keywords, ascertain their search volume, and then finally decide, which keywords to target.
- Perform an audit of your website. It is rather important to do this before you start expecting ROI. Moreover, you should do this, before optimizing your site. You can check out the page loading speed, the aesthetics, and also the user navigational features. How convenient is it, to find out what you are looking for? This is what the customers see, as well. So, you have got to think from their perspective. You can also do an SEO audit. This will help you to identify technical or on-page SEO. Before you start creating more optimized content, you have to address the underlying issues. The best thing to do would be to hire a SEO Specialist who can do the task for you, in a professional manner.You also stand to gain some important information, in the process, like the site speed, missing meta descriptions, missing page titles, broken links, duplicate content, and bad mobile responsiveness. With mobiles like smartphones becoming a constant in our lives, it is quite evident that people will perform local searches on their phones. More than 80 percent of the people in a certain area, perform searches with ‘near me’.
- Conducting competitor keyword research should also be high on your agenda. One of the main goals of local SEO is to outdo your competitors. In order to achieve this goal, you have to find out, what keywords they are looking for. Performing a competitive analysis is the only way out. You also need to check where your competitor’s backlinks are coming from. Furthermore, you also need to check, what keywords your site is also ranking for. You can utilize your SEO tool to find out a list of keywords, which your competitor’s site is ranking for organically. After you have done that, you can check if the same keyword’s search volume and other metrics work for you, or not. The main aim is to see what suits your business, rather than blindly copying others.
- Finding Geo-specific keywords, is the very next step. When you add your location to the above deliverables like keywords according to search volumes, the results could be great. Conduct searches for location-based keywords, unless you have a good number ready, to incorporate.
- Implementing On-Page SEO is the next best thing. It is all about optimizing your page for localized keywords. There are a few best practices at this stage, which you must follow. On-page optimization consist of practices like keyword mapping, title, and meta description optimization, content creation, internal linking, and image optimization to name a few.
Finally, you ought to collect a lot of customer reviews. Customer reviews play a huge role in local searches. Authentic reviews make it even better. Positive reviews also increase the visibility in local searches. Additionally, your reputation also gets a huge boost. You can enlist your business on GMB and other local directories as well. Social media is also another game changer, in this sphere.
These are the essentials, which can take your business to the next level. You can also apply the above strategies to multiple business locations.