Local SEO: The Definitive Guide (2021)

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a search engine optimization technique that helps you to grow your business in your area by optimizing your website or business for a specific local area or city.

If you have a shop, restaurant, or agency and you rank for any service related keywords on a search engine, then local SEO can help you to grow your business

Investing in Local SEO is no longer something to debate on when it comes to your digital marketing strategies. 

Google searches may tell you who in your region is searching for your products or services, and if you aren’t there in their search results, you might be losing out on consumers who want to buy in your location.

Social media marketing, for instance, is more than just a fad but a staple among businesses who want more engagements online. 

But since the web still beats social media when it comes to conversions, you need to focus on SEO to remain relevant. 

This article is designed to help you optimize your company for local SEO. 

Traditional SEO is concerned with rankings, while local SEO focuses on brand awareness. Online business directories are crucial for your business to be discoverable online. 

Google My Business is a top choice because it directly affects your SERP rankings if you’re properly listed in it.

Local SEO for Google’s Business Directory 

As far as local search results are concerned, Google’s My Business directory has established itself as the top business directory today.

Google is generous with their content; therefore, they provide you assistance and verification as a legitimate business online. 

To ensure you optimize your business for Google My Business, you’ll need to create and validate a Google My Business account to help your consumers to tell their friends and followers about your business. 

Do not respond to a review until it asks where you are located. Your opinion on a product or service in a particular locality and state is beneficial to get you online traction. Giving feedback is boosts user-generated interaction as well. 

Google may reward your company with an in-demand sidebar position in Google’s local search if it verifies your firm as genuine. 

SEO optimization is essential, but don’t limit your Local SEO campaign to it. It also helps you provide contact details and maintain updated hours to make it easier for those looking for your products or services. 

Today, more than ever, it is imperative that customers have access to current data owing to the disruption of consumer purchasing behavior and company operations that will take place by the year 2021. 

Keyword Research For Local SEO 

There are several methods for conducting keyword research. You may put your services or keywords into Google’s Keyword Planner to get an estimate of how many people are looking for such terms. 

To help users get relevant results to their search, Google’s mission is to provide relevant content to the user’s query. 

Relevance is an essential element for both local SEO and regular search. The creation of content for local search is reliant on taking the proper steps.

You must ensure that search engines such as Google will find your company relevant. Once you have determined what keywords local consumers use, make sure you target those keywords or phrases.

When selling goods at your Brooklyn, NY boutique, you should narrow your emphasis to keywords or phrases like “kitchen accessories shop Brooklyn” or “kitchen accessories Brooklyn,” as well as particular product keywords or phrases to attract your target consumers. 

A few wooden cutting board examples include “wooden cutting board Brooklyn,” “salad bowl Brooklyn,” and “ceramic bowl Brooklyn.” 

Key Factors of Local SEO

1) Prominence 

“Prominence” is how well your retail company stands out from your rivals in the context of local SEO. 

Google will also examine your company’s reputation and the legitimacy of your material before allowing you to join the search engine. 

Your internet visibility helps local SEO. Google and other search engines can discover and verify your business by making it easy for them. 

A well-established and consistent web presence assists Google in classifying your company as reputable and trustworthy. 

For these reasons, focusing on these several aspects may help you rank better in organic search results. 

Many methods to increase and maintain your company’s presence are listed below: 

• Getting more customer reviews on your website and other sites like Google and Facebook 
• Being active on different social media platforms and, if feasible, having your profiles verified are essential steps to take. 
• Getting local press and working with bloggers, so there are more mentions of your business online. 
• Obtaining backlinks from news websites in your area or other places 
• The creation of relevant content that stays on your website and the distribution of such material through social media 
• Curating and sharing content from other sources that are relevant to your business
• Including your company in directories that are relevant to your industry is a good idea. 

2) Proximity 

For local SEO, relevance and popularity are the last ranking factors. Additionally, this study found that being the most significant local ranking factor was essential. 

As a local retail company, you should be sure that when customers in your community search for relevant subjects, Google returns your store. 

There are three different methods that customers may look for a local company, including: 

1) Non-Geo-Modified Search 

The kind of search on which users do not specify the location in their query is known as a traditional search. It’s a more wide-ranging search, but it still has to be considered when making your material more efficient. 

The search term “kitchen accessories” might be a valuable target for your kitchen accessories shop to use a specific example. 

2) Geo-Modified Search 

The location, such as the city, neighborhood, or consumer type, is part of this kind of search. An example of a target search term for a prospective client who lives in Brooklyn is “kitchen accessories in Brooklyn.” 

3) Near Me Search 

When the user specifies that they want nearby companies as search results, they do a near-me search. An example might be “SEO Consultant Near Me” or “buy kitchen accessories nearby.”

Titles and Meta Descriptions for Local SEO 

When used in search engine results, the meta title acts as the heading of your search results. Keep all meta titles to about 50 to 70 characters and utilize the most related to your post’s topic. 

You have a bit more wiggle space with your meta description. You are allotted between 135-160 characters, which is more than enough room to do some keyword optimization while also marketing your content’s value to prospective viewers. 

Consistently having your name and contact info on the Internet is essential, and making it simple for the search engines to find boosts your discoverability even more. 

Establishing a NAP is essential for this task since it allows you to get this vital information. As site-search crawlers look for websites, they should search your site for crawlable HTML content. 

Search engines don’t index screenshots and embedded pictures, so don’t just include a NAP in them. Most sites have the NAP situated in either the header or footer. 

How does Interlinking help to boost your city page’s ranking?

Internal linking is a way of connecting to another of your site pages. To expand on the navigation and the sidebars, this does go beyond that. 

Internal linking may be a great method to connect similar sites, such as when different parts of your site’s services can overlap and bring to light interesting information to someone learning more about the subject. 

Using internal linking will help retain visitors on your page instead of leaving your site and returning to Google. 

NAP or Citations

The four-map data aggregators (Factual, Foursquare, Express Update, and Neustar Localeze) offer numerous data maps for American businesses and search engines.

The importance of consistency cannot be overstated: double-check your citations on these four data aggregators to make sure they are correct and comprehensive. 

There are discrepancies, such as typographical errors, shortened abbreviations, absence of a suite number, or incorrect phone number. 

Google may not display your company in search results if it can’t establish whether your business info is accurate. 

Moreover, search for any duplicate entries to make sure you’ve removed them. Gaining exposure in your town as a member of the Chamber of Commerce will provide you with an inbound connection. 

Conduct an Audit of Your Local SEO 

Search engine optimization is an ongoing and intuitive process. Don’t stop making changes and then determine what worked and what didn’t. A thorough audit allows you to discover areas of your website that need improvement to help you reach your goals. 

When doing a local SEO audit, be on the lookout for how your Google My Business appears in the SERP. Ensure that all information is accurate. Check if your site can be crawled on Google Search Console without any errors that could hinder indexing. 

You need to fix your on-page SEO and include citation audit and competitor analysis so you can compare how your website is doing compared to your competitors. 

Local Map Pack Results 

Some 3-pack results appear above organic results on Google. Local businesses that reply to searches are included below. 

Instead of going through the search results one by one, you can receive a bird’ eye view of all the businesses on the map, along with their location, hours, and contact information. 

Because all impacts have a star rating, a 3-pack is vital to attract nearby consumers.

You can get your GMB listing first before adding your business info with a verified and updated address. Respond quickly to any online reviews, positive or bad, and update your listing with photographs of your business and items. 

Optimize All Elements of Your Website 

Every new blog post is an opportunity to be noticed; it’s an additional page indexed in search engines that ranks your site; it’s also a unique point of contact for potential customers (SERPs). 

High-volume keywords should be in the URL, title, header, meta description, and body of every piece of content you generate to ensure good rankings in search engines. 

Here are elements you need to optimize: 

1) Images 

Pictures may help visitors stay on your website by breaking up long passages of text with images and adding visually appealing design elements to the overall appearance of your site. 

Also, they are capable of doing much more than that. It is important to follow search engine optimization (SEO) standards for your pictures, file names, and alt text since this may result in a higher position on search engines. 

2) File Name 

To optimize your picture, give it a descriptive and clear filename. Your last-resort filename should avoid words like DSC19823(3).jpg. 

3) Alt Text 

Alt-text is a term that describes an HTML property. The alt text and its accompanying HTML content are essential because screen readers utilize it to

Describe the picture to the visually impaired. Google’s crawlers also scan the site’s content to determine what the image is. 

Google will disregard the image if it does not contain an alt attribute. It’s a tiny adjustment, but it may have a significant impact on your website’s total search engine rating! 

4) Location Sites or Pages 

If your business has more than one physical location, you should create location pages for each of them. 

The more information you provide to your customers on your location pages — such as your name, address, phone number, store hours, unique shop descriptions, parking/transit information, promotions, and customer testimonials — the better off you’ll be. 

It’s also a good idea to avoid using the same content on several location pages. Provide a localized About Us page for businesses with a single location. Use a Google Map on your website’s location page to earn extra time bonus points. 

5) Create Locally Relevant Content 

Content creators may now write for their audience instead of web search engines as Google improves its algorithms. 

Writing about topics that appeal to a broad audience may get you a huge following, but if you want a local readership, you should focus on local or industry news. 

Become a local expert in your profession by promoting industry events, news, employees, and other educational resources. 

Try to develop material for your customers or clients that goes beyond what your company offers. 

Try creating an online directory to let prospective companies learn about your region before you try to recruit them. For on-page local signals, consider a map of nearby services or a city-wide events calendar.