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9 Ways to Improve Local Search  

kokou adzo

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digital marketing, seo, google
✍️✨ “Copywriter of the Month Awards 🏆 Vote for this article

If you own a business, you must attract new buyers throughout to grow your revenues. Local search engine optimization (SEO) is a great way to make it easier for people to find your business when they search for your products or services.  In very simple terms, local SEO refers to practices that optimize your company’s profile on the internet.  Businesses use this strategy to attract valuable customers from their localities through search engine results.

Companies that don’t optimize their websites for local search miss out on the opportunity to reach customers in their localities, increase sales and grow their revenue. Local SEO convinces search engines that your company deserves prominent displays on local search queries. Search engines consider various factors when ranking businesses highly on organic search results. These include relevance of businesses to user queries, prominence of the business online and distance from user location.

9 Ways to Improve Local Search Rankings for your Business

You can improve your business’s local search ranking in the following ways:

1 Customize Landing Pages to your Location

Landing pages encourage potential customers to take action when they visit your website. Besides boosting conversion, you can use well-optimized landing pages to improve local search rankings for your business. A great way to do this is to customize landing pages for your business location to give visitors positive experiences. You can do this by ensuring your landing pages load fast, are well designed, mobile-responsive, and carry strong, but relevant calls-to-actions.

 

2 Use Website Structure to Rank Multiple Landing Pages

If your business has branches and you want to improve local SEO for multiple locations, you’ll need a separate landing page for every location to rank highly on local search results. Doing this allows your website to appear on location-based searches. The most effective way to rank landing pages for different locations is by integrating the different locations in the website structure. But don’t stop there. Optimize the headers, meta tags and images for each location. Additionally, ensure that each landing page carries unique content even where the services or products offered in every location are the same.

2 Leverage Google Business Listings

One of the most effective ways to improve local search is to create a Google business profile for your company. Your profile should also be optimized for search engines to attract customers. You can optimize your profile by completing all the information required, adding photos, and service or product descriptions. Use high-quality photos on your listing to boost user engagement.

Ideally, your photos should show the exterior part of your business, including signage, and interior sections. The photos should also be consistent with the categories associated with your business. For instance, add product photos if you run a retail shop, food/drinks for restaurants or rooms for hotels.

3 Ensure Consistency Across Local Directories

Another way to make your business more visible to people in your area is to be consistent in the information you list on local directories and search engines. But doing this manually can be tedious, time-consuming and can be prone to errors when you’re listing your business on multiple directories and search engines.

A great way to overcome this challenge is to use local search platforms like Moz and RenderSEO. These platforms allow you to manage your listings. Use them to keep your business details like name, phone number, and address accurate and consistent across hundreds of directories and search engines.

4 Publish Local Content

Content is an integral part of optimizing your business for local searches. Search engine optimization is about giving your target audience positive content experiences on all platforms and devices. To do this, focus on publishing quality content that caters for the needs of people in your business locality. Post hyper-local content online to make your business visible to potential customers nearby.

You can do this by integrating hyper-local terms in on-page optimization spaces like titles, headings, text and image alt text.  Additionally, use the Google Post feature to inform your audience about new business offerings or special events. Using this feature consistently can boost user engagement on your listing and push your local search rankings up. You could also use posts to mention offerings that aren’t directly related to your main or business categories.

5 Keep Tabs on Customer Search Trends

Customer search trends change from time to time. Keeping an eye on current search trends can give you a better understanding of changes in search behavior and interests. This enables you to identify the right topics and keywords to promote your brand.  Monitor search trends by analyzing the most valuable keywords and checking how searches for those words trend. After doing so, monitor the performance of your website to see how visitors convert.

 

6 Optimize Websites for Mobile Devices and Voice

In today’s highly digital world, customers interact with brands constantly. Most people search the internet from mobile devices. To improve your company’s local search, create a mobile responsive website. Ensure it has quality content, clear images and loads fast on mobile. You should also optimize your website for voice to respond to questions or inquiries made via digital assistants within the shortest time possible.

Additionally, install a chat bot on your website to provide quick responses to frequent questions about your product or service offerings. Check your site’s internal search metrics to find out which questions users ask about your business and provide answers to those. You may use third-party tools to identify common queries from users.

7 Add High-Quality Links to Content

Adding high-quality links to your content can make your business visible to your local target audience. Linking web content to reputable, local sources that publish valuable quality content is an excellent strategy for improving your local search results and boosting the credibility of your business. Take time to research local websites and blogs that help your target audience solve problems and link them on your website.

8 Use Keywords that are Relevant to Local Searches

The best way to attract local traffic is to publish content that responds to your audience’s search intent. You need to research local keywords to find the terms that your local audience uses to search for local products or services online.  An effective way to start generating a list of potential keywords is to start with the service or product and business category. Most users include location modifiers at the end keywords to narrow their searches. Consider using a keyword research tool to unlock more keywords.

Conclusion

The internet has changed the way people search for products and services they need. Although you may be running your business from brick-and-mortar premises in different locations, you need to make it easier for potential clients to find you online. You can get your business at the top of local search results by applying the nine strategies discussed above.

 

 

 

 

 

Kokou Adzo is the editor and author of Startup.info. He is passionate about business and tech, and brings you the latest Startup news and information. He graduated from university of Siena (Italy) and Rennes (France) in Communications and Political Science with a Master's Degree. He manages the editorial operations at Startup.info.

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