Local SEO is a term you’ll hear thrown around quite often. It’s a good idea to know what it is and whether it can help you. This beginner’s guide will provide an overview of the main topics within Local SEO, including ranking locally in Google Maps, local social networking, and how local SEO helps in generating traffic.

SEO or search engine optimization is a growing interest these days. There are thousands of people all over the world looking for “SEO Services”. With this being said, there are thousands of people trying to achieve the top ranking of Google with their business based on the city they live in or want to target. This means local SEO is a great way to focus on a specific area that you would like to rank. It is important to target your client.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO helps customers find your business online. Local SEO promotes websites on search engine results pages when a searcher’s query contains a city or region name, or when a user is physically located in a specific area.

It’s different from traditional SEO, which optimizes your site to rank high in SERPs for queries that are relevant to your business, regardless of location. Local SEO focuses on the geographical component of where people and businesses are located.

How can local SEO help you grow?

Local SEO is particularly important if you primarily serve customers at a local level. Almost  97% of consumers use the internet when searching for businesses in their local area. If you aren’t using SEO to boost visibility, then chances are that your competitors will reach out to consumers before you.

Even if you don’t have a physical location, but rather serve customers at their homes like a plumber or electrician – local SEO can still help grow your business and build brand awareness in your target area.

Overall, local SEO can be incredibly powerful for small businesses and is certainly something worth investing in!

Steps to building a successful local SEO strategy

1.     Optimize your website for local search

If you’re not optimizing your website for local search, your business is missing out on several qualified leads. On the flip side, if you are optimizing your website for local search, then you’re very likely going to get more traffic and ultimately more customers.

Local SEO is critical to the success of any company operating in a local market. If you own a business with physical locations, or if most of your sales happen in person instead of online, you must optimize your site to rank in local search.

2.     Keywords are vital for local SEO

Keywords are vital for local SEO because they help Google understand what your business does and where you’re based. They also give searchers an idea of what they can expect from your website when they click through the search results page.

Once you know how to find the right keywords for your business, you’ll be able to optimize your content so that it ranks higher on Google. That will help attract more visitors who are interested in buying from you.

3.      Develop a localized content strategy

The most important part of building a local SEO strategy is to develop a localized content strategy. The best way to do this is to start with research. Find out what people in your area are looking for when they’re searching for businesses like yours.

To find out what your potential customers are searching for, use tools like Google Trends and Google Autocomplete. These tools show you the most popular searches related to any keyword. These are great resources that can give you an idea of what people are searching for when they look for businesses like yours.

Then make a list of keywords that relate specifically to your business and see how often those words are searched per month using Google Keyword Planner. This will give you an idea of how many people are searching for specific terms.

4.     Deploy an effective link-building strategy for local SEO results

Link building is an essential part of SEO. Links show search engines the quality and authority of your site. When you build links to your website, it’s like telling search engines, “Hey, this site is credible enough to be worthy of consumer’s time.”

Google says that when it reviews a website for ranking, it also reviews credibility. One must use credible sources for citations in their website content to build trust. The local SEO requires you to build honest local reviews for your services. For instance, if your target audience is in Houston, you must use local SEO services for Houston. Many times people confuse citations with links because they do look similar on the surface. However, although reviews can work as a citation, they also work alongside links to improve your click-through rate (CTR).

Key Takeaways

Local search engine optimization is a tough nut for businesses to crack. The competition is fierce, and it takes a lot of strategies to get noticed among the millions of businesses competing for the same customers as you. If you want to reach local customers in your area, it’s vital that you put in the right local SEO strategy to make it happen.

After reading this, you should be able to craft a well-thought-out local SEO strategy that will support your business goals. You should start seeing results quickly and if you’d like to learn more, please write us down.