Have you ever searched for stuff like:
- Salons near me
- Flower decoration professionals near me, or
- Best bakers in (any city)
- Laptop service providers in (any city)
- Best school/college in (any city)
If Yes, you get a list of preferred results to choose from. The results typically contain the details like the name of the business, distance from your location, the time of its opening and closure, and the services it provides. It also usually lists the star rating provided by its customers.
Did You Know?
- There is a huge 900% surge in the searches with keywords like “near me” and “close by.”
- Around 92% of the people who search online go with searches/businesses that are displayed on the first page of search results.
- 1 in 3 searches on a smartphone was found to be conducted just before visiting the store.
- 88% of people who perform a local search are transformed into visitors within 24 hours.
- Also, 72% of people who search for local businesses visit the store within five miles.
- Around 78% of local-based searches result in purchases that are made offline.
These are just a few of those amazing facts that make you realize the importance of local SEO solutions for your website or business. You need to understand local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) if you wish to see the local audience find your business online.
What is Local Search Engine Optimization?
A branch of SEO that focuses primarily on optimizing a website to be found in local search results is referred to as Local SEO.
Local SEO is a search engine optimization strategy that enables your business to be more visible in local search results on Google.
If your business has a physical location or serves some geographic area, then local SEO strategies may be beneficial for you. Local SEO can help your business grow if:
You Google for any important keywords related to your business, and it appears on the map with three listings underneath it.
Google analyzes the behavior of users during the trillions of searches seeking local businesses and figures out that people need results from their immediate area. Therefore google’s local search algorithm involves a factor of proximity, and this is the reason that Google takes your location into consideration when you search a local keyword. With the contemporary growth in mobile internet access and a surge in mobile search, local SEO has become crucial for the success of any business that offers local products or services.
Local SEO is crucial because:
- 80% of the money is spent within a radius of 20 miles from their location.
- 90% of purchases happen in physical stores.
Local SEO Solutions
To build a local SEO strategy for your business, go through the steps mentioned below so that there is no stone unturned.
- Maintain your listing on Google My Business
When you claim your business on Google My Business, you get the opportunity to show your business on the top three results and also on the results under the three results in Google Maps.
When you claim your business on Google my Business, you are required to provide information like:
- Name of your company
- Address or the location where you provide services
- Website
- Duration of operation/services
- Images related to the services provided by your business
- Logo
- Methods of payment that you accept
- Products and services
This step requires you to provide most information so that people understand what kind of services you provide and what your business is all about.
The best part of listing your business on Google My Business is that it is available for free. It enables you to give customers different ways to reach you. The tagline of Google My Business says:
“Engage with customers on Google for free.”
- Leverage online directories to submit your information
It is crucial to submit your information on the online directories as the more your presence on online directories, the better.
By submitting your info to the online directories, you can build your brand authority along with influencing and attracting more customers to your website.
Some of the online directories you can leverage are:
- Bing
- Yelp
- HubSpot
- Apple Maps
- Yahoo
- FourSquare
- HotFrog
- YellowPages
- Superpages
- Merchant Circle
- Better Business Bureau
- eLocal
- NextDoor
- DexKnows
- Alignable and many more.
When you list your website on these directories, you ultimately grow the trust of your customers in your business. Moreover, it increases the chances of your website being noticed by more customers.
- Create your social media presence
Today, the best way to make your business go places is to build up your effective and impressive presence on social media. Can you believe that the number of people spending time on social media is still increasing; the time they spend is also increasing.
It is free to create an account on social media and provide you the easiest opportunity of growing your business. The famous social media channels where you can create your presence are:
- Snapchat
All of them possess specific features which you can leverage to make your website get organic traffic.
Can you believe it?
More than 3 billion people are expected to be on social media. As of 2020, the average time spent by people on social media is 144 minutes.
A big reason to be on social media.
- Communicate with your customers online
Your website can be a big victory if you have a chatbot. And if you communicate with your customers over social media, that serves as the icing on the cake.
When you bridge the gap between your customers and your website/business, the chances of making your brand effective increase exponentially.
When you are kind and caring towards your customers you end up increasing your customer base and also earn their trust.
- Optimize already existing content with local keywords
The most important and basic task of SEO is keyword targeting. A basic SEO campaign lets you optimize your content for keywords so that you get good ranks in search results.
- Scrutinize the online reviews
Recent research says that 88% of people trust online reviews. When you shop online, you might have taken into consideration the reviews provided by the customers.
If you get reviews from the people regarding your website, you should always reply to them so that the customers feel that their reviews are not being neglected.
- Leverage geofencing advertisements
The ultimate local SEO solution is geofencing. This is because it grabs the attention of the customers physically close to your business. Moreover, it lets you reach the customers of your competitors.
Geofencing works especially well for local businesses as it draws a virtual boundary around your business. Also, when the customers are not in that boundary, these serve as ads for your website.
The Bottom Line
By leveraging the local SEO solutions, you can build up your brand awareness, along with providing you with a competitive edge over similar websites. This will let you take control of your audience. If you don’t feel confident in applying all these solutions on your own, we recommend you take up an online SEO training course and learn about all the best practices. It will help you gain expertise in other aspects of SEO as well.
