Local searches draw local clients and increase the potential of driving quality traffic.
That`s because people love local businesses for their accessibility. They can visit the business locations, see the products or services, and interact with the owner, which builds relationships and increases sales.
To increase brand awareness and attract more local clients to your business, optimize your website for local SEO.
Local SEO helps clients know the exact geographical area to find your business, and this content explains how you can optimize your website and appear on local searches.
What is Local SEO?
Local search engine optimization (local SEO) refers to practices that enable websites to appear on local search results.
Importance of Local SEO
Local SEO increases online visibility and makes it easy for local clients to find businesses. This increases website traffic and boosts brand awareness.
It also enables businesses to target an audience persona with a high purchasing potential.
Additionally, local search results display essential business information like contact, location, working hours, and reviews. This increases trust and makes it easy for people to know where and when to find your business.
How Search Engines Determine Local SEO Rank
Search engines display websites on local searches based on backlinks from relevant resources and the keywords used in the content.
When deciding how to rank a website on the local search results, the search engines determine a site`s.
Relevance
This refers to how a local business aligns with the local search queries.
For your business to appear in the local search results, you must create content that aligns with their search queries.
To enable this, use keywords related to your business location. This enables search engines to rank your content in relevant search results and attract clients.
If you are selling bricks, for example, you can use bricks as the main keyword in combination with your geographical location and your company.
So, your keyword can be like this: bricks for sale at Sunshine Brick Layers Company in Miami. Then spread the keywords evenly in your content, and ensure they flow naturally.
When somebody searches for brick companies or bricks in Miami, your company will show up and drive traffic.
Distance
Distance refers to how far the location term used in a search query is from the potential search results.
If you use your location name in your website content, you will match with the search query and rank.
However, even if a searcher doesn`t specify a place, search engines display results based on their location as specified in the databases. If your content contains the location name searched, it will have a high chance of driving traffic.
Authority
This implies how well-known your business is.
Search engines determine business prominence based on:
- Positive reviews and ratings
- Quality Backlinks
- Brand mentions
- Domain age and traffic
These elements build reliability and signal search engines that your website offers value to clients hence increasing your website rank.
Follow this resource to learn how to build your website authority.
How to Optimize Your Website for Local SEO
 |
| Image by Thirdman: Pexels |
For your website to appear on local searches, you have to align its context with people`s searches. This will enable search engines to align people`s searches with your website and rank it on the relevant queries.
To do that,
List Your Website in Business Directories
Business directories are websites that list businesses to increase brand awareness and help clients find complete information.
Listing your business in business directories enables your clients to know your business location, working hours, and contacts.
It also builds trust and reliability and increases the chances for your business to appear on local searches.
To create an effective profile in business directories, include your contacts, location, and working hours so clients know how to reach you.
To increase credibility, ask your clients to share positive reviews. When people share genuine review questions, reply to them and improve your business where needed. This lets people know they are dealing with a professional, which strengthens your authority and helps draw more traffic.
Some of the reliable business directories are
See how to list your business in business directories in this content.
Create Business Profiles on Social Media
You need to take your business where your clients are. And on social media, you can find an audience for any business.
To avail your business to local clients on social media, create social media profiles for your business. Then join local social media groups related to your business and interact with group members.
To drive clients to your business, offer valuable contributions. Post educational content related to your business. If for instance, you offer mechanical services, you can teach people how to change car tires, fill a punctured car tire, etc. If someone asks a question, offer helpful answers.
That will prove your expertise and convince people to visit your website to learn more about your services.
This content teaches more about how to conduct social media marketing.
List Consistent Contacts Online
Having unmatching business contacts on online platforms confuses your potential clients and makes you appear untrustworthy.
Ensure that contacts match all online platforms related to your business.
Online contacts, in local SEO, are abbreviated as NAP, which implies name, address, and phone number (including the area code).
If your NAP is consistent, it is easy for search engines to crawl and index your website, and match it with relevant search queries.
Add your NAP on your web pages` footers or headers and contact pages, too.
Optimize Your Citations for Local SEO
Citations refer to brand mentions on third-party websites.
Mistakes like wrong phone numbers, company spelling mistakes, and wrong address numbers confuse search engines about your business information.
Therefore, to boost your ranking potential, verify your data to ensure that it`s consistent across all of your online platforms.
Analyse Your Internal Linking Structure
Internal linking makes a website navigable, enabling people to easily find the information they need on a website.
To build an effective internal link structure, put the important pages at the top.
For instance, if you want your blog to be the first page people see when they visit your website, place it at the header. If your contacts page is a lower priority, place it at the footer.
Moreover, interlink related pages so people can find relevant information when they follow the links. Interlinking unrelated pages misleads people and reduces their trust in your site, making them ignore your business.
Also, search engines crawl and index a website through the links, enabling them to understand and align your website with your target searches.
However, create short URLs. Short links are easy for readers to understand.
Moreover, incorporate your target keywords to enable search engines to match search queries with your web pages and increase your website rank
When your website ranks, it increases trust and builds authority to your target audience hence attracting more clients.
Here is a comprehensive resource about how to conduct internal linking.
Optimize Your Website Content with Local Keywords
Content drives more traffic if it matches with readers` search queries and solves their intent.
Therefore, for your content to rank on the local searches and attract clients, it must solve their problems.
You can know your audience`s problems based on their search queries. For instance, if people want to know how to start a taxi business in Houston, Texas, ensure your content covers the requirements for starting a website in that particular location.
For your content to appear in the relevant searches, you have to incorporate the keywords people use when searching for related content. That`s because search engines align content with search queries based on the keywords used.
So, in the case of how to start a taxi business in Houston, Texas, your content will appear in those searches if you include the appropriate keywords.
To do keyword research, put yourself in your readers` shoes and brainstorm the words they may use when searching for related content. If you sell cars, for example, you can come up with keywords like
- New Landcruiser Prado in New Jersey
- Affordable secondhand Toyota cars in Florida
- Cheap used Vitz in Texas
Then put these keywords in keyword research tools to see if they get many searches so you can use keywords that have a high potential to rank your content.
When you find the appropriate keyword, incorporate it in your content naturally so search engines know the context with which to rank your content.
Here is a resource on how to conduct keyword research and increase your site rank.
Include Location Pages to Your Website
Creating dedicated website pages for your business location details gives clients much descriptive and complete information.
It also makes it easy for people to find information about your business.
The information to add to the information pages includes:
- Business name
- Address
- Phone number
- Location
- Working hours
- Promotions and Offers
- Positive reviews and testimonies
However, information pages are more helpful when you have different business locations, but if you have a single-location business, a descriptive about us page is enough.
Create Local Content
 |
| Image by Zen Chung: Pexels |
To appeal to local searches, your content must be aligned with your audience`s needs. So, if you are promoting local businesses, create content that relates to people`s livelihoods.
For example, if you are running cafes, you can create cooking content aligning with your audience's local foods. This will make them resonate with your content and persuade them to perform your calls to action.
Creating blog posts targeting your audience`s intent boosts your site rank and improves your reliability and authority in local search results, increasing conversions.
Learn more on how to identify your audience`s intent so you can create content that converts.
Make Your Site Mobile Responsive
 |
| Photo by cottonbro studio: Pexels |
Mostly, people make searches on mobile phones. To increase the chances of appearing in these searches, make your site mobile-friendly.
You can make your website mobile-friendly by ensuring that it adjusts to small and big screens, which you can do by
Choosing a responsive layout
When creating or updating your website, use a theme that adapts to different screen sizes without slowing the site load time.
Some of the mobile responsive themes you can use are
To check if a site adjusts with a mobile screen, you can use mobiReady.
To use it, paste your website`s URL in the tool and it will show you how the site looks on mobile.
Alternatively, you can open your website in Firefox. Then, press control + shift+M and you will see how the site looks on mobile.
Using the appropriate image size
To enhance your website responsiveness, compress your images to the required size. Too huge image sizes reduce a website's speed and lower its rank.
The standard image size to use for your blog posts is 1200px by 630px.
Moreover, use clear images that are visible on small screens.
Using a large, readable font
Small font can be readable on desktops, but it gets reduced more on mobile, making it unreadable. That can bore mobile users and make them ignore your website, which lowers a site`s rank.
To make your content readable on mobile, use a mobile-friendly font such as Roboto. Don`t use fancy fonts that readers have to struggle to read your content.
If you have problems choosing a friendly font, use your content management default font. Each content management system has a default font that`s mobile-friendly.
After optimizing your website for mobile, analyze it to see if it`s mobile-friendly. Some of the tools you can use to test your website`s mobile responsiveness are
Paste your website URL in the tool and analyze it. You will get the results and how to improve your website`s mobile-friendliness.
Get Authoritative and Relevant Backlinks
Backlinks enable people to find your site through different platforms, which improves brand awareness. They also enable search engines to crawl your site through different sources and raise your rank.
To build your local business authority and trust, find backlinks from relevant websites with an authoritative domain.
A domain can be authoritative if it`s old—one year and above—and uses white hat SEO methods. Moreover, it must have high traffic and many quality backlinks.
This helps expose your website to many people and increases the chances of boosting traffic.
To know whether a website is authoritative, use tools like Ahrefs website authority checker tool.
You can use this tool by pasting the website URL in the tool and clicking on the check authority button. It will reveal the site`s authority so you can decide whether it`s worth linking to.
If it`s worth it, write a persuasive email seeking the owner for a backlink.
You can create backlinks using methods like guest blogging, fixing broken links, or earning natural links by creating helpful content.
Here is an off-page SEO content to help you learn how to find quality backlinks and build your website`s authority.
Conduct a Site Local SEO Audit
This entails assessing your website to know whether it can rank on the searches you want.
You can do that by verifying your business listing information accuracy in your online profiles. Inaccurate information misleads your audience and makes you seem untrustworthy.
Moreover, make sure your site is crawlable by checking your link structure and ensuring each link is interlinked to relevant and indexable links.
To verify links, use tools like:
Also, ensure to analyze your website for mobile responsiveness so it appears on mobile search results.
Besides, examine your overall website performance and debug it in case of any error. Problems that can lower your website performance include slow loading speed, HTTP error messages, broken links, etc.
You can measure a site's performance using tools like Google Search Console. It will help you see your site problems, if any, and suggest solutions.
Here is a resource to learn more about how to conduct a website audit to improve your rank and conversions.
Conduct Local SEO to Rank in Local Searches and Drive Conversions
People are easy to convert if they work with people in their locality. That`s because they access the business and have personal interaction, building trust and increasing clients to your business.
Optimizing your website can help you reach many local clients and increase conversions to your business.
To conduct local SEO, create local content, and find quality backlinks. This will help you attract more people who resonate with your business.
Moreover, list your businesses in business directories and ensure you have consistent information across your business profiles.
That will build credibility and help you drive more clients and increase sales.
0 Comments