Here are some great local SEO tips that will help improve your site’s ranking – take a look below.
1 Sign up for your Google My Business account
One of the most effective ways to gain more visibility within Google’s local search results and achieving higher rankings in Google Maps is to optimize your listing on Google, including your business profile.
However, you still need to link your Google My Business account with your business in order to enable these kinds of improvements to your business profile.
After you enter all of the required information in the dashboard on your Google My Business account, all of this information will be included in Google’s Local Search Results, its Search Knowledge Panel, and your business profile for Google Maps
Be sure to customize your business profile on Google.
Create your Google My Business account and then validate your company’s ownership of the account.
Specify your name, the service or product you offer, ways to pay, and add lots of photos
Ask customers to write reviews of your business
Honestly address any customer comments
Include relevant and accurate details
2 Obtain reviews from your customers
Not only will that help to optimize your profile on Google My Business for your customers to write glowing reviews about your business but it also enables more local customers to make purchases from you.
The following are some tips to help motivate yourcusoemrs to post a review for you:
Ask for a detailed summary once the transaction is complete
Send a text or email asking customers to write a review on your company (but only after you check your internal survey to ensure the customer was not unhappy or dissatisfied)
For less positive reviews, give qualified reactions to grievances and current ratings
3 Optimize voice search
Voice search has and will continue to increase exponentially in the future also. That is why it is critical to automate it into your local SEO during COVID in terms of how requests are made by people and how questions are asked when individuals use their smartphones.
In contrast to text searches, in voice search consumers are more likely to use longer keyword phrases.As a result you will need to change the SEO of your content to better match with conversational language.
When you are optimizing for voice search, it is important to keep in mind that user intent is something that is remembered because these types of searches are usually conducted when a user is looking for a specific piece of information. For example, if they are cooking they want to have useful and quick responses and want a specific recipe from Alexa. If voice searches are used by a prospective customers to ask about what your business hours are, this information needs to be readily available.
4 Create content that is based on local news or events
The best thing to do is to create material that effectively communicates a specific issue to attract local customers’ interest. However, you need to make sure it fits in logically with your business model.
The following are certain strategies that you can use:
Create location-specific pages on your website that contain premium local information if you are trying to target various regions in your local area
Create content that promotes local causes through your organization
Create blog posts about local activities, news stories and incidents
For example, a small property company could create different pages on their website, one for each of the places, and include hyper-local content regarding changes within the local real estate market or current news. That type of strategy can help position a business at any specific location.
5 Mobile responsive website
According to Statista, there are an estimated 3.5 billion smartphone users. It is expected that this trend will grow to as much as 3.8 billion users.
How the mobile usage trend relates to local SEO
Switching from the web over to mobile is taking place faster than what had been anticipated. This confirms that your website should be boosted so that it is a leading local SEO player and to be successful with users of smart devices and smartphones.
The following are some useful tips to help you achieve this:
Provide an interface this is free of bugs
Carefully use photos with just the details you really need
Use readable fonts
Make sure your website loads quickly. It should load in three seconds or less..
6 Use local keywords
Your keywords should be relevant to local users. It is definitely worth it.
Google’s Keyword Planner can help you filter keywords based on location-based searches to provide you with insight on the most common search term for your specific field. That will allow you to local list the keywords you want to use. You should use them in your website’s content as well as the meta content and URLs.
Also, reference local hotspots and national landmarks. For example, you might want to include references to the best local auto services.
7 Create specific pages for your targeted locations
If your company has more than one location in a region then you need to have location pages. You need to provide the following pages:
- Name, address, and contact
- Store hours
- Custom descriptions
- Testimonials
- Promotions
- Parking access
- Google Maps incorporated in every tab
Be careful because you might have numerous locations and need unique content for each of them.
If you have just one location, it is created to have an “About Us” page that focuses on local information. For example, if you own a food store, your “About Us” page is the ideal place for you to discuss your store’s association with supplying food for local events in your town.