Nowadays, people are looking to purchase superior quality products and services closer to them. As a business owner operating within a given geographical location, you need to make certain that your business is readily visible to local customers at the exact time they are searching.

Local competition is getting stiff, and hence the need to ensure that your local business ranks higher on search pages to outshine your top competitors is paramount. You have the role to create brand awareness within your business locality, and this is possible thanks to Local SEO services.

But before we can go deeper, let’s understand what local SEO is first.

In layman’s language, local SEO refers to all the processes and tactics employed to have your local business ranking higher on the search engines. Unlike traditional SEO, local SEO focuses on a specific region. It’s meant to boost your business’ visibility in a given locality so that customers can have an easier time locating you.

What is Local SEO

Most people tend to think that local SEO and SEO refer to the same thing; the fact of the matter is that the two are different. Whereas, local SEO targets a specific region (where the business is located), and SEO targets a wide area. Local SEO creates awareness of local potential customers. On the other hand, SEO creates awareness beyond certain geographical regions.

How can you make local SEO work for your business?

Wondering how local SEO works as well? Well, here is how to go about it.

Customize Your Google My Business Profile (GMB)

If you are looking to achieve higher ranks on Google maps and become more visible in Google search results, you should start by customizing your Google My Business profile. Doing that isn’t anything complicated and won’t incur you any costs.

To get started with GMB, simply visit http://google.com/business, and provide all the details requested.

The next thing you should do is to optimize your GMB listings with solid descriptions, business hours, categories, acceptable payment modes, etc. Likewise, upload your business logo, business photos, product or services etc. The information you will provide is added to your company profile, which is visible in Google Local Search results, Google Maps, and Google Search Knowledge Panel.

Make certain that you populate all the relevant sections to make your listing is complete. Generally, business owners can optimize their business profiles on Google by:

– Providing valid and up-to-date business details

– Including their logos, mode of payments, product/services, business hours, business photos, etc.

– Encouraging customers to give their honest feedback

– Responding promptly and sincerely to customers feedback

– Publishing posts (to create awareness regarding products, special offers events, etc.

5 Additional Tips to Dominate Local SEO

Seeking Reviews from Satisfied Customers/Clients

Yet another effective way to boost your local SEO — and eventually dominate the Google local search results — is by encouraging your customers to leave feedback regarding their experience with your products and services.

If you are offering excellent services, you will receive positive feedback/reviews. These will have the impact of encouraging other potential customers to purchase from your business (now that they have an idea of what to expect).

Here is how to go about it:

Request that all your customers/clients leave feedback in person after every sale
Make efforts to send post-purchase messages and emails, requesting clients/customers to give feedback
Give timely responses to existing reviews in a professional tone — show gratitude to all the business reviewers and manage complaints in negative reviews

Optimize Your Website for Mobile

How to Optimize Your Website for Mobile

Recent studies have shown that nowadays most individuals prefer to use their mobile devices over PCs when accessing the internet. This alone should tell you the need to optimize your local business site for mobile. Some quick hacks to help you optimize your local business website include:

Make sure that your local business website loads quickly (less than three seconds)
Use bigger fonts — will enhance visibility and make content easier to read
Use photos sparingly — only those that convey the most crucial details regarding your local venture
Make certain UI is intuitive for a great UX

Optimize Voice Search

With Google voice search expected to increase popularity in the coming years, experts advise you to embrace it in an attempt to boost your local SEO. Rather than just focusing on how potential customers who type in Google when searching for your products and services, it’s also worth thinking about what they’d say into devices.

With the voice search, potential customers are likely to use long-tail keywords as contrasted with the regular searches. As such, you should adjust your content’s SEO to resonate with the more-conversational tone of a speaking customer.

Likewise, take user’s intent into considerations while optimizing for voice search — such searches are the most popular with users looking for specific details. If a prospect uses voice to ask a question — when does your business open, for example — he/she should be able to get answers promptly.

Embrace the Use of Location Pages

There is nothing as useful as having location pages, especially if you are operating a business with more than one geographical location. Location pages should highlight some of the following details:

Business operating hours
Business name, address, and contact numbers
Business Promotions and offers
Real Business testimonials
Parking availability
Individualized descriptions
Google maps — for each location page, etc.

If you have multiple business locations, it would be much better if you curate unique content for each page.

Base Your Content Around Local Events

You want to capture your potential local customers’ attention, and a good way to achieve this would be to base your website content around local happenings. People want to familiarize themselves with what’s happening in their locality; and, therefore, the idea of authoring posts that relates directly to local issues would really work magic.

Some hacks here include:

Authoring posts based on local news, events, or activities
Creating video clips around local charities supported by your business
Creating a location-specific web page(s) on your site with superior quality local content. That’s if you operate in different zones of a region.

Conclusion

The above are some of the things you can embark on to boost your local SEO and eventually dominate the SERPS. It will take you some time as well as effort to achieve results; however, you shouldn’t feel overwhelmed. If you feel overwhelmed, there are Local SEO Companies like lilikoi agency that can assist.