What Is Local SEO: A Beginner's Guide To Boosting Your Business Online

Around 97% of people who use online search do so to look for local businesses. If that isn’t enough to convince you of the power of local SEO, we’re not sure what will.

For businesses with a local angle, embracing local SEO is no longer a ‘nice to have,’ but a necessity. Local SEO can help improve your online visibility, putting you at the top of the list and ensuring customers know where to find you.

But what does it take to master local SEO? Take a look at our beginner’s guide to boosting your business online.

What is Local SEO? Local SEO Basics

Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is a digital marketing strategy that helps businesses optimize their online presence to attract more local customers. By optimizing your content, you can help your business appear further up the search engine results pages, helping users find you when they’re looking for products and services in your local area.

Some of the main components of local SEO include:

Google My Business (GMB)

Whether they’re searching at home, on their phones or in their cars, people will turn to search engines to look for local products and services. Having and optimizing a Google My Business listing can boost your local visibility, providing customers with the information they need. From providing business information such as address, website and phone number to opening times, all of your key information must be included here.

Local keywords

Incorporating relevant local keywords into your website content, your metadata and headings can help search engines recognize your relevance to local searches, prioritizing your business over other, less-relevant results.

NAP consistency

It’s important that your basic business information such as your name, address and phone number (NAP), are consistent across different platforms to help build trust with both search engines and users.

Local citations

Having your business mentioned in online directories can help give your business further credibility, and also provides the backlinks that can improve your local search engine rankings.

Mastering Local SEO

Local SEO sounds like a simple way to help drive more traffic to your business. So why are so many businesses failing to use it correctly? Mastering local SEO involves a combination of technical knowledge, content optimization and strategic marketing. Whether you take this on yourself or use a professional local SEO agency, you can make your business more visible to potential customers when they search for businesses like yours.

With 46% of all Google searches related to local information, now is the time to take the opportunity to improve your local SEO.

How to Boost Local SEO Rankings

There are three key steps you can take to implement local SEO:

1. Optimize your website

Optimizing your website can make it more appealing to search engines, while also providing a better user experience. Mobile optimization, quick loading speeds and using relevant keywords within your content can all help optimize your website for better search engine performance.

2. Encourage positive reviews

Encouraging satisfied customers to leave positive reviews on websites such as Google My Business, Trip Advisor and Trustpilot can help influence your search engine rankings and provide useful information to customers.

3. Create local content

Creating local content that is tailored to your local audience’s needs and interests can help provide them with more valuable content, but also adds to your search engine visibility.

Local SEO Strategies

Once you’ve optimized your website, there are some local SEO strategies you can undertake to help improve your rankings further, helping to outshine your competition.

Local link building

Seek link-building opportunities from local websites, blogs and directories to help improve your website’s authority, allowing you to move up the local search engine rankings.

Local schema makeup

Schema markup can help provide search engines with vital information that will be useful to web searches, including business hours, reviews, location details and more. The more relevant information you can provide about your business, the better it will feature in search engine rankings.

Geotargeted pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns

PPC campaigns targeting your local service area can help advertise your website to local customers searching for your products and services, and can be an affordable way to advertise your business.

Local SEO Marketing Tips

Want to know some additional best practice SEO marketing tips? The following could make a big difference to your online visibility:

1. Stay consistent

Maintain consistency across all of your online platforms to help build trust and credibility. If something changes about your business, such as your opening hours, make sure you update your online information.

2. Monitor performance

Track your SEO performance using tools such as Google Analytics to help understand what’s working effectively, and areas for improvement.

3. Engage with the local community

Develop a marketing strategy that can help you engage with your local community. From sponsorships and events to working with influencers, you could help enhance your brand’s visibility and reputation at a local level.

4. Optimize for voice search

Voice assistants, such Alexa, Siri and Cortana, are used by 62% of Americans. Optimizing your content for local search, such as using natural language and long-tail keywords, can help provide relevant searches to those using these assistants to find local products and services.

5. Make the most of social media

Use your social media platforms to help engage with a local audience. Share local events, promotions, and testimonials and connect with your followers to help build relationships and improve your local presence. Using geotags and location-based hashtags can help boost your visibility among local social media users.

Get Better Local SEO Results With Help From PMI

Local SEO can open a lot of doors for local businesses, and with the right strategy in place, you can expect to see results quickly.

At PMI, we provide a range of services that can improve your local SEO performance, ensuring your business is ready and waiting when people turn to their search engines for information. Contact us to learn more about our SEO services and to give your business the local boost it needs to succeed!