What is Local SEO?

Local businesses having physical presence locally like a shop or a local office, where people visits frequently, needs to optimize their website in order for people to find them in real life. Even if you’re not getting visitors at present in your premise, you’re still targeting people who are located in the same geographical area as you are. So you need to optimize for that area! This is what we call “Local SEO.”

 

Why Local SEO is Important?

Customers always search for best products and services near them and they want it fast.

Ask yourself the questions:

•     Are you ready to deliver?
•     Is your business showing up at the time when local customers are searching online?
•     Are they going to pick you out of all the local businesses offer same products and services?

The answer to the questions above is to optimize your local business through “Local SEO”.

 

 

Difference between Traditional SEO and Local SEO:

• Traditional SEO focuses on improving site’s visibility on a global scale, where local SEO allows you to capture the local location to connect with searchers in that area.
• Traditional SEO usually aim to rank for specific keywords and trusted content, on the other hand, local SEO aims to rank for particular location tied to the business that work on a local search marketing campaign.
• Local SEO is about optimizing your business for locations, while traditional SEO is about optimizing your website for unique content.

Optimizing Local SEO for your business:

Optimizing for Local SEO is based on building citations, optimizing the website content with local keywords and generating positive reviews for the business. It also drives more website traffic, leads, and conversions since the strategy is more relevant to the base of local customers.

 

Steps to Optimize Your Local SEO:

• Create Google My Business Account –

When you create a Google My Business account with all the requested information, it will be added to your Business Profile, which will appear in Google Search local results, the Google Search Knowledge Panel, and Google Maps.

 

• Get Regular Reviews from Happy Customers

Happy customers to write a positive review on your business, encourages more local customers to visit your shop or buy from you. Always respond to existing reviews in a professional way, thanking the reviewers and addressing complaints in a proper manner.

 

• Optimize for Voice Search

Voice search is growing rapidly now-a-days. So, in local SEO, it’s vital to optimize for how people ask questions when they speak into their devices, as compared to how they type out their searches.

 

• Optimize Website for Mobile

Mobile visits to websites grew exponentially in recent years, so you need to optimize your website for mobile.

1. Ensure your website loads quickly.
2. Use bigger fonts that are easy to read in mobile.
3. Use images and texts, conveying only the information you need
4. Ensure great UI for great UX.

• Use Local Keywords in Content

Keywords should be relevant to local customers. Also, include mentions of region-specific landmarks and hotspots in your content.

 

• Update in Local Directories

Provide correct business name, address, and phone number in directories. Also provide a proper description of your business.

 

• Try to get Quality backlinks

1. 1. Number of quality links to a page determines the importance of the website.
   2. It can improve the domain and page authority of the website.
   3. Search engines use bots to index websites based on the quality of backlinks.
   4. It will drive more traffic to the website.

In essence, Local SEO can have a major impact on driving more customers and digital traffic to your store. When done right, you will get more leads and more sales from local customers. You can also start establishing more of an identity within your community of trust and expertise.