What Is Local SEO? 8 Most Important Factors

If you’re a local business owner, you might have realized how important it is to rank in search results that are specific to a particular geographic region.

After all, most consumers turn to the internet when they’re looking for products or services in their area. That’s why optimizing your site for local SEO is essential if you want to attract new customers and grow your business. Local SEO has different factors to be considered than an average SEO strategy, and local search results might change faster than others. 46% of all Google searches come from local searches. This shows how important local SEO is for businesses that generate revenue from local customers. The search results have become even more intelligent today, when users type location-based keywords while they’re trying to find a  type of restaurant or a specific service in a particular area, Google recognizes the query locally and offers all location-specific options in search results.

Although there are several different points compared to regular SEO work, backlink campaigns, on-site SEO(including technical SEO) still play a big role. In this article, we will talk about the local SEO factors that you need to be aware of in order to be included in the location sensitive search results. How is local SEO done to rank high in search results? Let’s examine all the details together.

1) Start with keyword research

Keywords are the foundation of any good SEO strategy. That’s because they help you identify the terms and phrases that people are searching for when they’re looking for businesses like yours. So, take some time to do some keyword research and identify which keywords are most relevant to your business. Once you have a list of keywords, you can start incorporating them into your website content, blog posts, and even your social media posts.

2) Optimize your website for mobile devices

These days, more and more people are using their smartphones and tablets to access the internet. That’s why it’s important to make sure that your website is optimized for mobile devices. This means having a responsive design that looks great on any screen size and making sure that your content loads quickly on all devices.

3) On-Page SEO Factors for Local SEO

On-page SEO for local businesses is similar to some old-fashioned SEO tactics. Local search listings have a significant weight on page content, so you should pay attention to produce content of the highest possible value.

In general, if you want to target a keyword, you can include your target keyword in the following fields:

• Titles
• Content
• Meta description
• URLs
• Subheadings
• Image alt tags
• Internal links

Let’s examine these areas in more detail.

• Make sure to include a relevant keyword with your City / Region when writing the title on your page. e.g. If you are working on local SEO for Edinburgh, you can add Edinburgh. Similarly if you are aiming a specific area in the city, you can add the relevant name. Let’s say New Town or Bruntsfield to your title.
• At least one of your H2 tag on your page, should include your City / Region or a relevant keyword. This is where you want to include some variations of your keywords in your subheadings, and perhaps the city / district name you’re targeting if appropriate.
• Try adding a relevant keyword with City / Region to your URL. The structure of your URLs is another opportunity to help you better organize your content and help search engines learn more about your business. There have been many studies showing that Google considers the keywords in the URL valuable. However you shouldn’t do keyword stuffing which means you should  use the appropriate keywords. For example if you have a legal services agency based in Edinburgh and would like to rank higher for the keyword “legal services edinburgh”  you can use /legal-services-edinburgh/
• Try adding a relevant keyword with City / Region to your content.
• In addition to resizing and compressing your images to load quickly, you should also optimize them for local search. It is useful to include a relevant keyword with the City / Region in the alt tags of the images on your page.
• Add a internal links pointing to other pages on your site. When you link to the target page, use the keywords and phrases you want the target page to rank on. If you want to sort locally, you can include your targeted city name in some of the anchor texts of these internal links.
• Try adding the marker that contains your business to the Google map on your page (if available).
• In addition, you need to ensure that your website is suitable for mobile devices. This is even more important with mobile-first indexing.

4) Local SEO and Link Building Relationship

Link building within local SEO campaigns is extremely important and is also something that is often overlooked. Compared to standard SEO campaigns, local SEO relies heavily on links from other local websites that are relevant to your business. By getting links from high quality and relevant websites, you can improve your local SEO score.

5) Local SEO and Clickthrough Rate Relationship

Another signal that has an impact on local searches is the clickthrough rate.(CTR) It is not surprising that the CTR is a strong signal, as it is even used as one of Google’s core quality score measures on the AdWords platform. It is reasonable for searchers to measure the user experience with this metric.

To maximize your CTR, you can follow these steps:

• Be sure to use structures that comply with the Schema.org guidelines and can be adapted to your site.
• Make your title tag as engaging as possible.
• Type a detailed meta description that is relevant to what users are searching for. You can also include the city and region names in the meta description.

6) Claim your Google Business Profile listing

Google My Business is a free listing that allows you to control how your business appears on Google Maps and in local search results. Claiming your listing is a great way to improve your local SEO because it gives you the ability to add photos, hours of operation, contact information, and more.

If you haven’t already done so, you should register your. Here are some things to consider when you sign up for Google Business:

• Write properly formatted and SEO-compliant content.
• Choose the right categories for your business.
• Upload as many photos as possible.
• Add a local phone number to your listing.
• Add your business address which is also specified in your website.
• Upload a high resolution profile image and cover image.
• Include your opening times and days.
• Collect actual reviews and rating points from customers and clients.

7) Get listed in local directories

In addition to claiming your Google My Business listing, you should also get your business listed in other local directories such as Yelp, Freeindex, and Yell. These directory listings can help improve your visibility in local search results and help new customers find you online.

8) Encourage customer reviews

Customer reviews are one of the most important factors when it comes to local SEO. That’s because potential customers often read reviews before making a purchase decision.

Local comments directly affect local search rankings, so you may need to spend some time getting them. It should be noted that this does not only mean Google reviews. However your priority should be Google’s comments.

To start with, you can contact your existing customer base and ask whether they want to leave you a comment. You can encourage them in various ways over time (maybe a discount, etc.). Creating a page on your website that instructs your customers on how to make a review about your business will make their job easier.

Conclusion

For many businesses, local SEO can be an extremely effective way to reach potential customers. By optimizing your website for local search terms, you can make it easier for people in your community to find your business when they are searching for what you have to offer. In addition, local SEO can also help to improve your visibility in search engine results pages, making it more likely that potential customers will click through to your website. By applying the local SEO best practices, businesses can drive organic traffic and increase sales.