Local SEO – 10 Ways to Improve and Optimize Your Website for Local Search

If you have been trying to increase the traffic of your business but you don’t know where to begin, the article below is a comprehensive guide. It is imperative to ensure that you optimize your website for search engines and conversion. The process will help your business grow dramatically and improve the quality of the website.

Local SEO is an intelligent method of ensuring that your business grows dramatically and makes a higher return on investment. It is an amazing feature, especially for brands looking for local exposure.

Optimizing for local searches helps your website rank higher for keywords directly related to your niche and the specific areas that you serve. Several clients are likely to engage with a local business within their region. This type of SEO helps send targeted traffic to your site and highly optimize your conversion rate.

What Is Local SEO?

Local search engine optimization is classified as a branch of SEO that is directly focused on optimizing your website to be found on local searches. It utilizes various tactics to improve your brand’s visibility in local search results. It is imperative to note that the local search rankings will occur when a consumer includes a local keyword phrase on the search engine. Primarily, local SEO increases your online visibility by all interested searches on the market. In addition to improving your brand awareness, it also helps to drive leads, virtual store traffic, and sales for your local business. 

Why Is Local SEO Important?

Especially if your business has a physical location, connecting your local links will enhance your virtual presence. Local SEO brings customers to you, and every brand should invest its resources in having a practical strategy. The virtual SEO strategy helps your brand stand out from a crowd, and you will be able to rise on the front page and compete with other businesses. Remember that most consumers click on the first links on the search engines. 

Gives You Competitive Advantage

Optimizing for local search intent will help your business appear in the first five positions or rank first on various search engines for local queries. It will help you crack into the top local organic results and dramatically improve the chances of your brand being discovered. 

Attract Visitors and Newcomers

Local SEO will help you attract visitors and newcomers to the area. They would likely search for local businesses.  For instance, visitors searching for new hotels or shops in the local area can easily discover your brand. 

People Love to Buy Local

Most people are supporting local businesses. Thus consumers are more interested in searching local brands and helping the growth of the local economy. Local marketers should use this opportunity wisely to increase their brand awareness. 

Phone Searches Drive Sales

Millions of consumers use their phones to search for local products and services. When users search for products using their phones, the first companies to appear on the search engines are local companies. This is especially true when people are traveling. 

It’s Inexpensive

The Local SEO strategy is very inexpensive compared to other methods such as paying for ads. Local search optimization helps you use Google as a cost-free method of advertising your business. 

Who Needs Local SEO?

The following stakeholders require local SEO:

• A business with a local presence where clients visit such as hotels.
• A brand that serves a specific geographical area
• A business that travels to customers, for instance, locksmiths or plumbers

10 Best Ways to Optimize Your Website for Local SEO

Local SEO is beneficial for small businesses that operate within a specific region. It prioritizes appearing on the particular SERPs in a certain area. The method relies on marketing your products, services, and business to local customers and leads. The following are the best ways to optimize your website to rank high on a search engine’s local results.

#1 Claim Your Google My Business Page

Google My Business is the best tool to help implement local SEO. Using this tool helps your website rank high on relevant local search pages. Once you are registered and verified, all the information is added to the Business Profile. In a way, it is a business listing for the digital era and it will help with the Google local algorithm.

#2 Get Regular Reviews from Happy Customers

It is imperative to encourage your customers to leave positive reviews on your website. Positive reviews help to optimize The Google My Business and promote more local consumers. Local citations are a great way to improve your local rankings.

#3 Optimize for Voice Search

Voice searches can dramatically improve your optimization for local intent. It is imperative to note that your consumers use long-tail keywords in voice searches compared to the regular search. Thus it would be best to make various adjustments, such as your content being more conversational.  A person conducting a mobile search is likely to use voice search to find a local business website that has a physical store in the area.

#4 Create Content Based on Local News Stories or Events

Most local businesses connect with the people of that locality. To attract them it’s necessary to create local content that appeals to them. Some of the strategies that you can incorporate to ensure that your content is relevant to local events or news include:

• Writing blog posts related to local events, activities, and stories
• Creating videos about local charities
• Creating location-specific web pages for your website that have quality content

#5 Optimize Your Website for Mobile

Millions of consumers are using their phones to search for goods and services. Some of the methods you can incorporate to ensure that your website is mobile-friendly are as follows.

• Making sure that your website is optimized for speed 
• Incorporating bigger fonts that are quite easy to read
• Inserting images on your website
• Use intuitive UI for better UX

#6 Hone in on Local Keywords

Local searchers are likely to use phrases in their queries. Using these keywords would help you gain more local search visibility. Also, find a local resource to improve your local lingo.

SEO tools such as Google Keyword Planner help you to filter various keywords depending on your location. This tool enables you to run local keyword research and create a  list of relevant keywords. 

#7 Use Location Pages or a Location-Specific “About Us” Page

Location pages are integral, especially if your brand has different locations in a specific area. The page provides information such as store hours, name, address, phone number, parking availability, individualized descriptions, and Google maps among others. 

#8 Take Advantage of Online Business Directories

Online business directories include YellowPages, Yelp, MapQuest, and Foursquare. Getting your business information on these directories helps increase visibility and dramatically increases your local SEO. 

#9 Focus on Link Signals (Get High-Quality Backlinks)

The best ways to increase your link signals are:

• Create high-quality content on your website 
• Strive to get a guest blog on high domain authority sites
• Get together with local influencers to improve your local link building

#10 Create a Dedicated Webpage for Each Product/Service You Offer

Ensure that each product or service you offer has its own webpage. This method helps to improve your local SEO and make your website rank higher. 

Bonus Tip – Implement SEO Best Practices throughout Your Website

Remember that your website will have a better content strategy, blog posts, and quality inbound links if your website is SEO optimized. There are various SEO best practices to help your local SEO efforts and natural rankings on SERPs. 

Conclusion

There are multiple potential customers in your local audience searching for products and services. This local SEO guide took you from creating a Google business page to how you could attract links to improve your web presence. Your business will stand at a very competitive edge by incorporating these local SEO tips.