When you hire a guest posting service UK Company like Rankwisely to create guest posts for you, one of the first few questions you’ll be asked is, “What’s your local SEO like?”
Unfortunately, not too many people understand what the term “local SEO” really typifies.
Yes, everybody knows what SEO means – optimising your web pages to rank higher on Google. But when we add “local” into the mix, does the definition stay the same or point at something else?
Read on to find out!
What’s local SEO?
To understand what the term “local SEO” means, we’ll like to create a hypothetical scenario, which we believe most of us are acquainted with.
Open a different tab on your web browser now and search for the phrase “SEO services.” What do you see? If I’m to take an educated guess, Google has shown results featuring SEO service providers within the region where you are doing the search from. If you migrate to another state or country or use a VPN and perform the same search, the results you’ll get will most likely be different.
Now, what do you think is happening here?
In order to provide the best answers to people’s queries, Google has decided to consider the location of the searcher.
In simple terms, local SEO is the act of optimising your web pages so that it can be visible to searchers living within your immediate vicinity.
But there’s one more point that needs mentioning.
From the hypothetical scenario illustrated above, do you think Google has shown you all the SEO service providers that are actually in that area?
Of course not! Google has only shown you those business owners (SEO service providers) that deemed it fit to optimise their sites for local SEO and perhaps those that have activated their Google My Business Listing accounts.
PS: Google recently claimed that 46% of all the searches that happen on their platform are location-based searches, wherein searchers use phrases like “around me,” “near me,” etc.
Benefits of Local SEO
- Helps businesses promote their products and services to local customers
- Makes your website visible to geographically related searches
- It helps you stand out in maps, directories, social media, and local searches.
- It helps you sell to people who may not have known that your business existed.
- It increases your rankings on the SERPs and raises you above the local competition.
- It receives the highest conversion levels of all local advertising channels.
- It gives you an opportunity to outrank your local competitors.
- Makes your business visible on Google Maps, and other location-specific directories.
- It boasts a far greater conversion rate as compared with several other digital marketing techniques.
Do I need to optimise for local SEO?
One of the questions that have often lingered on the lips of most business owners is whether or not their business needs local SEO. And the simple answer is: Yes, your business needs local SEO if you think you need to sell to people around you.
But for the benefits of those who might still doubt, we’ve compiled a list of business areas we believe have the most pressing need for local SEO.
- A local firm or small business entrepreneur
- A service-based business firm
- A business targeting a local audience
- A franchisee or a franchise owner
- Desire to appear on local directories
- Have different branches scattered across multiple locations within a country
Do I need an expert to set up local SEO?
As much as we all love to think SEO is a game anyone can dive into, there are some aspects of it that are meant only for the expert heads. Local SEO is one such aspect.
In fact, in order to optimise your website properly for local intent, you might need to begin the work right from the website development phase up to the SEO optimisation stage. So, to cater to all of that, you’ll definitely need to hire an expert web developer like Hurryworld.com and a local SEO expert service like SEO Service Canada.
Tips for improving your local SEO
Although we said the job of optimizing a site for local relevance is reserved for the expert heads, there are some parts you have to play as the site owner to keep the ball rolling. These parts include:
1. Activate Google My Business
First and foremost, reach out to Google to get your Google My Business account activated. Once approved, your business will start to appear on Google search pages and Google Maps. And anytime someone does a location-specific search, your site will be amongst the list of results that get displayed to them.
2. Start creating location-specific content
To help the internet associate your business with a given location, start creating content that discusses the subjects about that area. However, that’s not to say you have to change the theme of your site and focus solely on just one sect of people. What we mean is that you should leverage the power of blogging and create as many location-specific contents as the location-unspecific ones.
3. Appear on local magazines and blogs
Every city or town has that one blog or magazine which is dedicated to discussing the events in the city. Find out about yours and start publishing contents relating to your business on their platform. Bear in mind, though, that some of these blogs might not be willing to accept your posts. If you were to ever stumble on one such blog/site, do not hesitate to reach out to a blogger outreach SEO company like Rankwisely. They have an awesome reputation for getting posts on the most hard-to-please sites.
4. Create citations
A citation is any reference to your company’s name on the web. With a detailed citation about your business on the internet, search engines will be able to determine your location and deliver you to location-intent searchers as one of the best results.
5. Get reviews
Encourage site visitors and customers to leave reviews about you. This will help improve your Google My Business reputation because, according to several popular online review sites – Yelp, Google Maps, and TripAdvisor – over 90% of consumers read online reviews before deciding whether to patronize a business.
Leave a Comment