LOCAL SEO
Local SEO is an important part of search engine optimization, and often businesses aren’t aware of what it is, or its benefits for businesses looking to be found online. While SEO is essential for almost every website, local SEO has specific benefits for certain business types and should be a priority when making optimizations to gain exposure online. In this article, we’ll take a look at the question; ‘what kind of businesses need local SEO?’.
What is Local SEO?
Before we look at the details of what kind of businesses need local SEO, let’s take a brief look at what local SEO is.
Local SEO, much like national SEO, involves the optimization of both on-page and off-page factors. The process is essentially the same but is focused on businesses that gain much of their business from local searches. A local search would be classified as a search for a business or service that would be expected to be within a certain geographic location, usually, the town, city, or county that the user making the search is based.
what kind of businesses need local SEO?
Example categories of businesses needing local SEO would be physical high street shops and mobile services such as plumbers, electricians, and decorators. These businesses rely on customs in their local area as a main source of income. They, therefore, benefit from Google searches such as ‘plumber near me’ or ‘website designer in Blackpool‘. There are some exceptions, however. For example, a local shop may also sell products online, so would need to incorporate a national SEO strategy.
Local SEO Example
A decorating business based in Lancashire, would usually only want customers within that county. Some larger firms may have the infrastructure to offer the service nationally, but generally, a decorating service would travel only within their local area.
Therefore, when customers in the county search for a decorating service, whether they mention Lancashire or not, that business needs to appear on search engines. A potential customer may search for ‘decorator near me’, ‘best Lancashire decorating firm’, or ‘decorator in Lancashire’ as examples.
How Local SEO Works
Over recent years, Google searches on mobile devices have overtaken desktop searches in volume. It’s easy to grab a mobile phone and make a quick search, especially when customers are away from their homes and looking for a service or shop close to their location.
Google takes multiple factors into account when establishing a business’ location and the area they serve. The search engine also looks at services provided and the feedback from customers, usually in the form of reviews.
A local business can appear both in regular search results and in Google’s Business Profile listings. These listings display at the top of the search results when a local search is made, showcasing ‘the best’ local businesses for the search. Factors considered are; the location of the business in relation to the user making the search, time in business, services offered, and feedback from customers. Google Business Profiles include Google Reviews which play a key role in how these local listings rank in searches.
Properly utilize Google My Business (GMB)
Google has increased the importance of GMB – which means that any business information you add to it reflects on Google Search, Google Maps, and Google+. This is meant to make it easy for customers to find you irrespective of the device they are using.
When creating or further developing your GMB for local SEO, ensure that:
- Your GMB is filled in completely and accurately with relevant, and consistent information.
- The GMB location you’ve listed is owner-verified.
- The specific city and town that you are targeting are mentioned in the GMB landing page title.
- The GMB primary categories are consistent with your product and that they match a broader search category.
Ensure that the NAP on your website matches the NAP on GMB
Apart from your physical address, the NAP (Name, Address, and Phone number), should be consistent with the actual name of your business, and it has to be the same wherever these details appear online.
More specifically, you should use an exact template for your NAP wherever you use these details – whether it is on your website, Google My Business (GMB), Google+ account, or other websites and directory listings.
See to it that your website has a map of your location
Besides having contact information on your website, it is very important that you have an actual map on your website to show your precise location. The code to add a map to your premises can be added to the contacts page on your website.
Additionally, some of the information listed below will also be very useful to have on your website, and specifically, on the contacts webpage:
- Store opening and closing hours
- Driving directions to your premises from well-known landmarks
- Phone call links for direct calling on mobile phones
- Social media links and sharing options
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