Local SEO – A Secret Sauce Behind Business Success

Are you sure that your online visibility is not blurry? 

Have you ever heard of Local SEO for business?

it’s now a trending concept that is helping businesses to generate more customers in their geography. First and foremost, let me make this concept clear and then I will provide you all the important details. 

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is a trending marketing strategy assisting businesses to promote their products and services to their local customers. 

Difference Between SEO and Local SEO

SEO, as we all know, is a powerful way to improve the SERP ranking of a website or a business. 

The primary difference between SEO and local SEO is that where general SEO aids to increase the ranking of a website nationally, local SEO primarily focuses on a particular area and targets more on your local audience. To accomplish successful local SEO, you need completely different strategies and approaches than that of general SEO. 

Importance of Local SEO

• Enhances the local traffic towards a website. 
• It boosts the visibility of your brand within a specific locality or region.
• To increases the possibility of converting an online search into offline shopping.
• It aids to catch more customers in your locality.
• It helps you to get more leads from the crowd of mobile users.

Striking Facts About Local SEO

• Almost 80% of local searches convert into a purchase.
• Almost 50% of Google searches are intended for a local search
• There is more than a 500% hike in local searches in the last few years.
• Almost 50% of the searchers tour the store on the same day of performing the local search.
• Nearly 76% of the local searches performed on smartphones visit the store for sure.

Effective Tips to Optimize Your Local SEO

Performing local SEO may seem a simple and easy chore, however, there are many significant practices that need to be followed to achieve the desired outcomes.  

A few of these can be seen as under:

1. Review Your Homepage
   To optimize your website for local SEO, the first thing you need to review is the home page of the website.  Make sure your home page explains very well who you are, what services do you offer, and what is your location.
2. Leverage Google My Business Account
   Improving your business profile is an effective way to boost your SERP visibility. This can be better achieved with the help of a Google business account created for that business.  There are a few important points you need to consider while creating your business profile. These include providing correct and up-to-date information about your business, including your company’s logo, providing clear information about the products and services you sell, giving immediate response to the customers, and so on. Also, make sure to include your offers and discounts in your business profile.
3. Check Mobile-Responsiveness of Your Website
   People are shifting from desktops to mobiles at a very rapid rate. In fact, there are already a huge number of users that use mobile devices to perform a search. This gives a rise to the need for a mobile-friendly website. Make sure your website’s design is mobile optimized and fits very well to a variety of mobile screen sizes and resolutions. 
4. Optimize Your Location Pages
   This point is highly crucial if your store is situated at multiple locations in the given area. Following details need to be clearly defined in one or more of your location pages
   • Your store opening hours with specific timing details
   • The name, address, and a valid phone no.
   • Attached google maps on all pages
   • Parking availability
5. Create Separate Pages for Different Products and Services
   You may think of explaining all the products and services on one single page. However, it is good to avoid the same as it may diminish local SEO rankings. Opt for creating a unique, separate page to explain every single product or service you provide. This will benefit you with better and more effective results.
6. Make an Optimal Use of Your Metadata
   Metadata i.e. a few lines of text written below your website URL on the SERP. These lines are very important to create the first impression of your website as well as your business. Visitors often read this data before clicking the website URL. Make sure this metadata is clear, impressive, and logically explains the area of your business to the reader.  Also, make sure to add your city and location in your metadata if you are aiming to improve your local SEO.
7. Ensure to Create Social Media Accounts
   To achieve good rankings for your local SEO, you must have social media business pages on various social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter. It serves as a bonus and another way to point your location when it comes to improving your local SEO.

Role of Content in Improving Your Local SEO

Drafting and publishing good quality content is one of the most effective ways to improve your local SEO. It is a superb way to rank yourself for the local keywords involving relatively less competition. 

There are various different types of content that can help your local SEO. These include creating city-specific landing pages, creating state or region specific landing pages, FAQ pages, SEO optimized blogs, and so on. 

Requisite Tools to Manage Your Local SEO

1. Whitespark
   Whitespark is a great website that aids to increase the number of your online customers significantly. It is a great tool to boost your rankings, drive more business, and accelerate you towards your success.
   The most prominent local SEO tools offered by Whitespark include
   • Local rank tracker 
   • Reputation builder
   • Review checker
   • Local citation finder
2. Review Trackers
   Review tracker is one more powerful tool to manage your local SEO. The tool enables you to create and maintain a solid online reputation by monitoring and analyzing your customer reviews. Brands like Subaru, Midas, and American Family Insurance are already utilizing Review Trackers. The tool offers many different pricing plans from which you can choose as per your budgets and requirements.
3. Moz Local
   The next important tool that offers a brilliant way to perform your local SEO is Moz Local. The tool provides various important data and methodologies that help you to boost your website visibility. The local provides easy and effective location management by availing you with the facilities like location data management, real-time profile management, data cleaning process, review management, and so on.
4. Synup
   Synup is another effective reputation management and digital marketing solution specifically designed to help your local SEO. You can perform a variety of important tasks including managing your listings, monitoring your analytics, and generating reports with the help of the tool. The tool avails you with numerous listing updates and provides immediate notification whenever a review regarding your business is generated.
5. SEMrush
   SEMrush is another prominent tool capable of aiding you with your SEO and search analysis. It provides users with various important information including website traffic information, keyword information, relevant SEO information, and so on. The most popular and widely used tools provided by SEMrush include competitor analysis, backlink checker, and keyword research.

Conclusion

We all are more interested in the things which are geographically nearer to us. Hence, local SEO has become a crucial aspect to execute a small scale business that operates within a specific region or locality. 

It optimizes the SERP ranking of a website for a specific region or locality instead of working on a national level. Focusing on your local SEO means more local traffic that turns to more local customers and ultimately more local sales.

So guys, what are you thinking about? Drive ahead your business with powerful local SEO strategies. Meanwhile, if you want a digital marketing expert, you can get in touch with Indylogix Solutions.