Tips To Optimize Your Business For Local Searches

#1 Optimizing your website for local searches

Concerning the business website and the on-page, here are some of the simple things to do to optimize it for local searches.

Identify local searches terms

First and foremost, it’s mandatory to optimize our content for actually what our local users are looking for. Using the Google Adwords keyword tool, identify the local search queries that are closely associated with your business offerings.
Rather focussing on the single keyword like “photo restoration services”, you will get multiple keyword ideas what your intended prospects are actually searching for. Like, ‘wedding album restoration near me’, ‘black and white photo restoration’, etc.

Interestingly, in recent years, the ‘near me’ searches claims exponential growth.

For instant, ‘stationery stores open near me now’ or ‘Chinese restaurant near me’.

The search query that ends with ‘near me’ shows the user’s eagerness to take immediate action on the search results or visiting the local store instantly.

With this data, let’s optimize our website and its content to serve better for those local search terms.

Create new pages for specific locations for local searches

If you have your business operates from different physical locations, create individual pages for each location.

Make sure to have distinct content across multiple location pages. Possibly, you can have a detailed and locally descriptive ‘About Us’ page for different locations.

Don’t forget to mention your business working hours, NAP details, store descriptions, parking information, delivery details, customer reviews and testimonial in the respective pages.

You can also explain how the local users are benefitted out of your products and solutions. Even for paid promotions like Google Ads or social media ads – you can specifically promote individual pages based on the analytics.

Especially, adding Google Maps to your website would be a great boost in encouraging users to locate you quickly.

Win the game with Local Content

Every new page or post you create is yet another opportunity to rank in the search engine results page.

When you write generic content, this will target a broader audience. For the tunnel approach, it’s obvious to create localized and distinct content. To do so, correlate your business offerings with local events, news, incidents, gatherings, etc.

Write locally descriptive content that better highlights the issues of the local users and how your products or services offer them a solution.

Including the testimonials from the local happy customers would be a no-brainer solution.

Make sure to mention the location or area names in your commercial service pages or landing pages to improve the chances.

For example, ‘best plumbing services in Scottsdale’, ‘landscaping services in Florida.’

Business for the local searches. Make sure your site is a Mobile-friendly one

The majority of the local searches are through their mobile devices. So, ignoring the mobile-friendliness of a website is nothing but losing around 80% to 90% of business opportunities. And, often the mobile searches intend to know your business contact information, or directions to reach your store or for customer reviews.

Make your site easy-to-navigate for mobile users rendering the mandatory information within a few clicks.

Optimize for Voice Searches too

Waiting for a local train or while traveling, people don’t prefer typing the search queries. Hence, Google to make their job easy – introduces the search results for voice queries too.

Notably, the search terms will be long-tail than usual. Make sure to have your content more conversational like someone speaking to the other personally.

When they search for ‘how to reach Devon showroom near me’, Google gets its current location details from the mobile’s GPS specific information and tries to offer the most relevant and accurate results.

So, your content must include the query terms like how, where, when, what, etc and answering those related questions.

Then, improve your internal linking structure of the website interlink the related pages strategically.

For local searches. Use proper Schema Mark-up

Using schema mark-up is an effective way to outrank the rivals in the local market. Such structured data helps search engine to fetch more additional information about your business. Further, it displays in the form of ‘featured snippets’ that helps the user in getting the required data quite easily.

Adding the homepage schema mark-up allows your business to display in the knowledge graph sections.

Also, ensure to include the list-type content, table of contents, comparison charts, etc for better ranking in terms of featured snippets.

Indeed, your website is ready with essential pages, localized content towards the local search terms, mobile-friendly and conversational for voice searches.

The next very big things are its promotions.

#2 Optimize your Google My Business account for local searches

In order to get your business on top for local searches like ‘near me’ (as below), you will have to list it in Google My Business and optimize it properly.

It’s highly important to follow the instructions while listing your business on GMB. It includes feeding complete business NAP information, directly to your physical address using Google Maps, choosing the proper category, including a detailed description, adding photos, etc.

You can further include as much data to your GMB profile to better compel the users to opt for your products or services. Like below, you can mention the attributes like the upcoming events, free services (Wi-Fi, parking), etc.

#3 Acquire Quality Backlinks

As usual, backlinks work well in boosting your local SEO too. If you want to rank for ‘near me’ or ‘nearby’ search terms, try to get backlinks for geographic anchor texts.

In order to improve your ranking for ‘near me’ for Milwaukee location under the category pet care, then the anchor texts may be ‘best pets shop in Milwaukee’, ‘pets care in Milwaukee’, etc.

However, don’t often use the exact keywords as anchor texts. Anchors are also a factor to determine whether the link is natural or manipulated. So, let it flow with the content.

Meanwhile, engage with local influencers to get you authoritative backlinks as well as for further business promotions.

#4 Build more Local Citations

I agree Google has a big community or eco-system. Still, it can’t be everywhere at once. So, it depends on several other resources like directories and local listing sites, to make sure that your business information it has is perfect.

Indeed, it doesn’t want to deliver wrong results to its results in terms of an old address or not-reachable contact numbers, etc.

So, build as much as listings on the local directories and citations sites that are niche-related and geo-specific.

Also, it allows the user to redirect to your website directly from those listings. Hence, you can drive some decent volume of organic traffic through local business listings.

Make sure to provide the proper business name, address, phone number, and other details exactly. Being consistent in listing on the local directories is more crucial.

Whenever you change your physical address or contact details, make sure to update it in all the listings, GMB, and business websites.

#5 Requests for Reviews

It’s hard to get anything without being asked.

So, ask your happy customers to offer their valuable reviews about using your business products and services.

Display it on your website, landing pages, location-specific pages, and also while listing on GMB.

It’s a sign of trust and makes prospects to trust your brand and go with it.
Create more case-study based content and broadcast it. Conduct or take part in local events (related), to gain brand exposure.

#6 Leverage the power of Social Media

SEO and social media should go hand-in-hand. Especially when it comes to local SEO – social media influences greatly.

Most of the users before taking any hard decisions would check out the reviews and positive flags on the business, products, and services on social media. Indeed, social media is the platform for people to share their real opinions about anything in the world.

So, it is mandatory to acquire more social followers, retain the brand credibility and good reviews for further promotions.

So, Finally

I hope you are ready to rank and rock your business for the local searches. Keep yourself updated with the changes in the ranking algorithms and opt for the best workable SEO strategies. But anything you do, it’s significant to produce strategic content that offers the appropriate solutions to the target users whether it is locally or internationally.

That doesn’t mean that you can ignore backlinks or social media promotions. Altogether can help you accomplish your business goals.

Published on: Nov 5, 2019