What is Local SEO? How to Improve Your Local Rankings

As a small business owner or marketing manager, you understand the importance of reaching potential customers in your community. However, with so much competition online, it can be difficult to stand out in search engine results. That's where local SEO comes in.?

Now more than ever your business’s footfall and traffic to your website are both critical parts of keeping your business operating sustainably. Without customers, where would your business be? Local SEO can play a huge role in getting new and existing customers to your business whether that be online or visiting your shop in person.?

By optimising your website and online presence for local search, you can increase your visibility to those searching for businesses like yours in your area. In this guide, we'll be sharing tips and strategies for boosting your local SEO and ultimately helping you get found by more potential customers. Whether you're just getting started with local SEO or looking to take your efforts to the next level, we've got you covered. So let's dive in and start boosting your local search rankings today.

What is Local SEO?

First things first, what actually is local SEO? Local SEO refers to the process of optimising your website to rank higher in search engine results for a specific geographic location or area. This is typically done by including location-specific keywords in the website's content and meta tags, as well as building local backlinks and citations.?

The goal of local SEO is to increase visibility and drive traffic to a physical business location or captivate a specific service area. This type of SEO is particularly important for businesses that serve a local area in a saturated market, ie. hospitality or services. Why is this? Because users are much more likely to use broader terms to find what they’re looking for, ie. “Restaurants in Northampton”.?

Why is Local SEO Important?

Local SEO is important because it helps businesses, big and small, grow their visibility for their brands in local search results. This is crucial because the majority of consumers who search for local businesses online will often choose a nearby business over one that is further away. The latest studies have revealed that over 97% of internet users have searched online to find a local business, and this number continues to climb. Pair this with the fact that over 46% of all Google searches have local intent, you’ll start to recognise its significance.?

With local SEO, a business can increase its chances of being found by these local consumers, which can lead to more foot traffic, phone calls, and online conversions. Additionally, even if those users aren’t quite ready to take an action, it can help improve your brand awareness in the areas in which your business operates.?

Local vs National SEO

If you’ve heard of the term local SEO, then it’s likely you’ll have some understanding of what national SEO is. But how do they differ??

For starters, Local SEO focuses on optimising a business's online presence for the specific geographic location where the business operates, whereas national SEO focuses on a much larger pool of the population. National SEO is geared towards optimising a business’s search presence for the entire country or region within which they sell their products or provide services.?You can learn more about this in our downloadable digital guide to SEO.

Local SEO includes tactics such as claiming and optimising Google Business Profiles and local citation work while national SEO includes tactics such as link building and content optimisation on a national level. Local SEO, as the term suggests, focuses on targetted specific locations whereas national SEO strategies will strive to rank for broader and less targetted keywords.?

8-Steps to Build Your Local SEO Strategy

Now for the part of this guide, you’re probably most interested in, how can you build your own local SEO strategy. We've included 8 easy to implement steps to get you started.?

1. Conduct a Local SEO Audit
2. Claim and Optimise Your Google Business Profile
3. Create High Quality, Localised Content
4. Build, Manage and Update Local Citations
5. Use Structured Data (Schema Markups)
6. Build High-Quality Links
7. Encourage Reviews
8. Monitor Your Local Competition

1. Conduct a Local SEO Audit

A local SEO audit is a process of analysing and evaluating the various elements of a website and its online presence to identify any issues or areas for improvement that may be impacting its ability to rank well in local search results.?

To get started with your local SEO audit, you would typically start by analysing the technical aspects of your website, such as its structure, navigation, and overall performance. This can include things like checking for broken links, missing meta tags, and duplicate content. This is also a good practice for SEO whether you want to rank nationally or locally. You should also evaluate the website's content and look for opportunities to optimise it for local keywords and phrases and ensure the website and its content is mobile-friendly.

Once you have completed your audit, you can use the findings to create a plan for improving the website's local SEO and increasing its visibility in local search results. This can include making technical changes to the website, optimising content, building local citations, and improving the website's backlink profile.

Continue Reading?

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