Ever wondered what is local SEO? If you’re new to digital marketing and want to learn more about digital strategies to help your business build online traffic. In this article, we’ll give you everything about local SEO.
What is Local SEO?
Local SEO is a variant of traditional SEO that concentrates your optimization efforts on attracting more local users. For example, you’re planning to travel and look up “best hotels in San Jose, CA.” If you manage or own hotels within that region, you’ll need to appear in the top position of local search results. Local SEO can assist you in getting there.
Also, a local search is more specific to a particular location than general Google search results. Local SEO is optimizing your website’s visibility to appear in local results. Local SEO is essential because it assists you in the following:
- Enhance your online visibility
- Increase people to your brick-and-mortar site
- Get more targeted traffic to your site that increases your odds of conversion
- Increase your credibility and establish trust
SEO vs. Local SEO
Local SEO and traditional SEO are focused on improving your position in search results online. As a result, more users can find the business, contact it, or purchase from your company. What’s the difference?
SEO concentrates on increasing the visibility of your website at a global or national size. On the other hand, local SEO lets you target the local area of search to reach out to searchers within your local area. SEO, as well as local SEO, utilizes various strategies. However, local SEO solutions use specialized methods to aid you in connecting to local users.
After you’ve learned the distinction between SEO and local SEO, Let’s examine the key features of each.
Do Seo And Local Seo Affect Each Other?
It is challenging to create a clear line between SEO vs. local SEO, and there’s an inevitable overlap between the two methods. But, conventional SEO efforts will likely aid the locally-focused SEO in the reverse direction if appropriately executed.
When you’ve got an SEO strategy in place, it needs some tweaks to begin driving more local, qualified traffic. For example, use specific keywords for your location and content instead. General information can allow you to target a local audience.
Adding these pages can aid your organic SEO strategies since you’ll be on top of different search engines and other relevant results. In navigating the waters of traditional SEO vs. Local SEO, you should seek out the experts like the experts at Salazar Digital.
We’ll be able to help you answer your local SEO questions as well as local SEO concerns. So, you’re sure you’ll get the most effective business outcomes.
6 Ways To Improve The Effectiveness Of Your Local Seo Strategy
Let’s get to the most crucial part: improving the Local SEO strategy and boosting the local SEO ranking. There are a lot of elements to this, but we’ll focus on the most critical aspects:
Claim and improve your GMB listing.
GMB (also known as Google My Business is the most crucial component of the Local SEO strategy. This tool by Google lets you make free business listings. It’s among the most important factors Google will consider when determining the ranking of businesses in local organic search results and results for snack packs.
You will need to supply the following information for GMB listing: GMB listing:
- Your complete and accurate business name
- The address of your physical store or office
- The exact location of your home on an image
- Your business’s industry
- Your telephone number and the website (if appropriate)
When your listing is live, It is essential to confirm it’s live by making a telephone contact or mail.
- Upload pictures of your business. It could be pictures of your office, store, or even the grounds.
- Please provide your hours of operation.
- Include additional categories that could be relevant to your company.
- Include additional phone numbers if you have them.
You can further improve the performance of your GMB account by posting business news and other fresh content regularly. Use the GMB function to keep your customers on what’s happening and provide information about forthcoming events. In addition, it allows you to connect with your clients deeper and more personally and improve your visibility on local search results.
Always keep mobile in your mind.
With smartphones becoming an integral part of our everyday lives, It’s only natural that lots of people are using their smartphones to look up local businesses and information. A research study revealed that most respondents had used their smartphones to perform the “near me” search. It indicates how many users are using their phones to conduct local searches.
It is crucial to meet the needs of these users by optimizing your site to work on mobile screens. Design a mobile-friendly site for mobile users, so they can easily navigate it or get the information they require.
Ensure you have the click-to-call button on your website and the GMB listing. It could make a big difference since 60 percent of mobile users have directly contacted businesses via the results of a search.
Find plenty of reviews from your customers.
Reviews are also a significant factor in your local search results and ranking. Therefore, having a lot of genuine reviews, particularly those that are positive, can help increase your visibility in local searches and also in improving your image. So, you should collect more genuine reviews from customers for your company.
Keep your eyes on websites on which Google expects businesses to publish reviews. Therefore, in addition to your site and the GMB listing, it will also gather review reviews on consumer directory sites and social media.
The focus should be on link building.
The authority of your domain and the number of links are among the main factors influencing your rank in local search results and results from snack packs. Like regular SEO, local SEO requires link building to increase your profile on the web. But, the domains that link to you must be pertinent to the area you want to target.
Verify NAP/citation consistency
Google evaluates citation signals, such as citation volumes and NAP (name address, address, telephone number) uniformity in local results. Therefore, your information must get listed on the top citation sites. In addition to GMB, consider Bing Maps, Yelp, and Facebook. Make sure you choose directories with more authority in their domains than smaller directories for listing.
Most importantly, ensure your company’s NAP is uniform throughout all channels and sites. Check for typos, address or phone number discrepancies, duplicate listings, and fix them to enhance the local SEO.
Take advantage of your social listening.
Social listening was initially used to gather marketing information. But, it can also fuel the regional SEO approach if you know the types of insights to get the most value from the information they provide.
Utilize social listening to discover what your audience members in your area are saying, whether they’re talking about your business or general. It can also gather information on audience desires, preferences, etc. Utilize these insights to discover how you can improve the way you conduct business or even your products or services.
The social listening you do can assist you in determining the types of local content your public might be searching for. Creating an effective local content strategy to meet these needs is possible. Additionally, you might find long-tail keywords that you can apply to your strategy to optimize your content.
Are You Ready To Go Local?
These are the fundamentals to improving your regional SEO strategies to the next stage. Be aware you’re local SEO efforts may span several places. You can also incorporate these tips into your SEO to cover different locations if you’re aiming at multiple areas. Use these tips to increase your search engine visibility and the size of your business.
In case you are ready to go local, we can help you. We have local SEO services for small and medium-sized businesses in San Jose, CA, and nearby areas. Feel free to contact us for more details.
Salazar Digital – Marketing & Web Design
1172 Murphy Ave suite #208, San Jose, CA 95131, United States
408-662-1315
