This blog post will discuss Local SEO, and how it become a necessity for many organisations aiming to rank higher in 2021 as local users typically have a higher conversion rate and the implementation of ‘mobile first indexing’ prioritizes businesses local to the user.
How to improve local SEO
Optimize for Google My Business
Secondly, improving local SEO requires webmasters to optimize their website for online directories such as Google My Business.
By ensuring that your contact details are both accurate and consistent among your website and online directories; it allows Google to verify who individual webmasters are, what type of business/website they manage and where they are based.
The verification process gives Google more confident in determining whether or not a website/business is real and authoritative.
Optimize URL, title tags, headers, meta description, and content
It might seem obvious but if you intend to improve your website ranking in local SERP’s it important that you optimize your URL, title tags, headers, meta description and content to contain keywords local to you. By ensuring that you target keywords containing geographic information it allows:
(1) Google to know more clearly where you are based and who your customers might be and
(2) allows you to target less competitive keywords that may have a higher click through rate.
Add location pages to your website
Location pages on a website is great for both search traffic and search engines.
This is primarily because it allows for potential customers/traffic to clearly see where a company might be physically based and if it within their means to travel there.
Location pages also allow search engines to have a clearer idea on where you are based and use this information to identify and target local users.
Inbound Links
A good link profile is essential to any successful SEO strategy; however, especially when you need to rank in local searches.
You will need to identify possible relevant and authoritative links that you may be able to attract with an outreach campaign e.g. online forums, local newspaper, guest posting and/or social media groups.
A good first step in identifying these links are by analysing the link profile of competitors using software such as Moz Link Explorer.
Importance of Social Media
The line between social media and search are becoming more blurred as search engines like Google try and optimize result pages to cater to individual users.
Considering this, social media profiles are becoming more important in ensuring a good search ranking; as it can provide for an opportunity to create valuable back links, engage with customers and gather more date on traffic.
Ensure your website is mobile friendly
Above all else optimizing your website for mobile users is essential to any SEO strategy including improving local SEO.
This is due to Google implementing mobile first indexing and allowing for mobile friendly websites to rank above others. And because the majority of searches are now performed by mobile devices.
A good read expanding on this topic is available here.
Following all of points above is a great first step in ensuring that your website rank higher in local searches regardless of niche.