Locals Only - A guide to Google's Local Search
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is just like?regular-fit?SEO?but with a focus on a local geographical area.
Often?your?local area. Although you could be searching for results in another town or country, of course.
So for example,?“Bouncy Castle Hire Castleford”
Or?“Bouncy Castle Hire Near Me”
The ‘O’ in SEO is for ‘Ohhh, THAT’S how you get found on Google.’
Just kidding. It’s 'Optimisation'.
And that’s all about making ongoing tests, upgrades and tweaks to help you appear in the amongst the most prominent positions on the page.
In this case, we’re talking about the Local Pack. Or Map Pack as it’s sometimes called.
It’s the section that has a map, and a few businesses highlighted just below.
Anatomy of the Local Pack
The Local Pack is a set of results that nestles right in (usually) below the ads and above the organic listings.
It features a search title, a small Google map, and typically 3 business listings.
Each business listing shows the
You might also be lucky enough to see a concoction of other informational tit-bits, such as
There may also be links to
So your Google Business Profile is a hotbed of useful data snippets alongside an interactive map. Ooooooohh.
What more do we need?
Why would you want to appear here?
Hmmm, ok… Is this a trick question?
Only, I think you’re here because you know it’s useful to be here.
You already know people are searching for businesses just like you in your local area.
And if you want stats to prove it, there are copious amounts doing the rounds.
But, while we’re on the subject let’s highlight just one.
“Near me”?or?“close by”?type searches grew by more than 900% over two years.?Source.
And that, my friends, was in 2018. Can you imagine how popular it is now?
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Google’s local listings appear above the organic ones. The unpaid pinnacle of the page. This stuff matters to people.
And so, as business owners and marketers, we want to make sure it matters to us.
How do I boost my local ranking performance?
Well,?good wholesome on-page SEO?is a stupendous place to start.
We have tonnes of content to help you with that side of things. Although, what does content actually weigh anyway?
While you ponder that thought, why not check out our ‘What is SEO?’ or ’SEO 101’ videos to get started?
You can’t beat the basics done well.
BUT WAIT, you cry, this is a guide about LOCAL listings.
No, you’re right. Soooo, you’ll be pleased to hear there are also some local-specific strategies you can deploy.
We’ll get into those later. But at the very least, do?make sure your website is mobile-friendly.
84% of local searches are made on mobile devices, so you need to be expecting them.
For now, let’s take look at some of the moves you can make to optimise specifically for inclusion in the local pack.
#1 Location
Google says it bases local results on relevance, distance, and prominence.
In fact, distance is such an important signal that results can vary from one street to another in the same town.
So your local pack ranking can vary dramatically across a relatively small geographical area.
All this makes sense, of course. When you’re looking for coffee shops, tube stations, or public toilets, metres matter.
But the same considerations are in place when you’re searching for a timber merchant or trampoline park.
So location is clearly mahoosive. And sadly, it might be the only one you can’t do much about.
Much.
Because, to rank in the map pack, you will need a bonafide physical location there.
Maybe that’s realistic, maybe it’s not.
But you can still build location-specific landing pages to help you rank in the organic listings.
Just be sure to include unique, location-specific content to justify the page.
Don’t just duplicate identical service landing pages, bang a town name on the end and find and replace the town. This is bad.
Do include:
OK, Let’s look at some of the things you can do to help your business appear in the?local map pack. Starting with Google My Business. Or, as it has been recently renamed, Google Business Profile
#2 Google Business Profile
If you want to appear in the map pack, you’ll need a Google Business listing just to get in the game.