Local SEO is a powerful tool for any business with an online presence. 46% of all searches on Google are for a local business or local service (Search Engine Roundtable). If your business serves a specific area or has brick-and-mortar locations, you can enhance the local SEO to increase traffic and reach more ready-to-buy leads. 

What is Local SEO? 

Local SEO helps you rank better in local search results. It allows you to connect with searchers in your area that are looking for a product or service that your business offers. These search terms usually include the product, business, or service with additional information about a specific location such as “Lady Gaga concerts near me” or “Lady Gaga concert in [city name].” Whereas general SEO could be “Lady Gaga concert” or “Lady Gaga tour” where the search terms aren’t focused on a specific location. 

Below are five ways you can improve your Local SEO. You can use these tips as part of your online marketing strategy for SEO. 

How Google determines local ranking

Per Google, local results are based primarily on relevance, distance, and prominence. A combination of these factors helps us find the best match for your search. For example, its algorithms might decide that a business that's farther away from your location is more likely to have what you're looking for than a business that's closer and therefore rank it higher in local results. 

#1 Use Your Google Business Profile 

Yes, we know. This is very obvious, but we want to make sure you know how important it is! One of the top factors that Google uses when ranking businesses in local search results is your Google Business Profile, formerly known as Google My Business. (You can also check out our other blog, 8 Ways to Optimize Your Google Business Listing.) Make sure that you have claimed, optimized, and are using your Google Business Profile. This is a great free resource that Google provides for you. 

• Verify your business via postcard or phone call
• Add all your business information or as much as you can. This includes your business name, physical address, business hours, business category, phone number, and website.
• Upload photos of your business. Photos can be of your brick-and-mortar location, both from the inside and outside. You can also add photos of your products or services, logo, team, and any other relevant information. 
• Provide additional categories that may be relevant to your business.
• Share Google Posts about business updates, offers, and fresh content regularly.
• Encourage your customers to share reviews online and respond to reviews.
• Answer Google Questions and like the questions that have useful answers. By liking questions, this will tell Google that it’s a good question and can be pushed to the top. 
• List your products. You can list your best-selling products so that when your business shows up on the search results, people can see the exact products you’re offering. 
• Add services to your profile. Keep in mind that this feature is available to all services businesses or a business that offers services. 
• Set up the booking feature if you offer appointments, reservations, or anything similar. 

#2 Get More Reviews

Reviews are essential for your business. Review signals also play an integral role in local search and particularly for the Google map pack. Some of the main things that Google takes into consideration are the star rating or sentiment of the reviews, keywords in the reviews, the number of reviews, how recent or often reviews are published, and if the owner is replying. 

According to Google, when you reply to reviews it shows that you value your customers and their feedback. High-quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility and increase the likelihood that a shopper will visit your location.

Work towards having a consistent flow of authentic reviews for your business. Besides your website and your Google Business Profile, focus on other online directories like Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, or any other listing that is relevant to your business’s industry. Maintaining a healthy amount of reviews and replying to them, preferably positive ones, is going to boost your business’s visibility. 

#3 NAP Consistency (name, address, phone number) 

One of the biggest things you want to have in your online presence is consistency. You want your business name, address and phone number, AKA NAP, to be the same in all your major online listings like your Google Business Profile, Facebook, Yelp, Bing and other online search engines or social media platforms. Any duplicate listings that are wrong or discrepancies need to be resolved to improve your local SEO. 

Google takes the NAP into consideration in local search results. When you have a NAP that is crawlable HTML text and has a “Contact Us” HTML text, Google will show it better according to location-based search results. 

#4 Mobile-Friendly Websites

When creating a website, make sure to keep mobile in mind. The majority of search queries come from a smartphone. 82% of people use their mobile devices for a “near me” search, according to Uberall. People will use your mobile site to look at reviews, look up the address, and find your phone number. 

Your website should be easy to navigate on mobile devices and have easy-to-see click-to-call buttons. Some of the more common issues for mobile users include not being able to see the main menu correctly, images being too large, and just being difficult to navigate. 

#5 Local Link Building

Link signals also play an essential role in your overall ranking. Local link building is a great opportunity to boost your Local SEO by building relevant and local links to your business website. These links let Google know that your business is legitimate and checks out. Link signals such as linking domain authority can influence the local search ranking and snack pack results. 

Something to think about when link building is to focus on authority websites in your target region. These authority websites can be small local newspapers, school websites or .edu sites, chambers of commerce, local community groups, city-specific sites and directories, and other businesses. Guest posting and partnerships are also other ways to gain relevant backlinks. For example, a business might have a help page linking back to a few local resources.

#6 Optimize, Optimize, and Optimize

You want to optimize as much as possible. This includes your URL, title tags, meta descriptions, headers, body, and any other kind of content. If you're posting new blogs, that means it’s a new indexed page for your site that can be targeted in a new search phrase.

For content that is geo-targeted, you want to make sure that it’s optimized so it has a better chance of showing up in the “near me” searches. The more specifications you add, the better it is. This is a great opportunity to be found in search engine results pages (SERPs). The key is to find a balance between adding your business name, region/city, and what you offer without being too spammy. For example, you can add your business name to your newest blog like “this was brought to you by the team at Apotheca Marketing Agency in Tampa, FL.”

#7 Perform an Audit

This may seem obvious, but it is a crucial step in improving your local SEO. Set yourself for a quarterly audit to review your website, URLs, online listings, and content. 

You want to optimize as much as possible. This includes your URL, title tags, meta descriptions, headers, body, and any other kind of content. If you're posting new blogs, that means it’s a new indexed page for your site that can be targeted in a new search phrase. For content that is geo-targeted, you want to make sure that it’s optimized so it has a better chance of showing up in the “near me” searches. The more specifications you add, the better it is. This is a great opportunity to be found on search engine results pages (SERPs).

SEO is not a one-time thing! It’s an ongoing process that you need to maintain and update as needed. Performing routine audits will help you understand what needs improving and what is doing really well. 

Start to Improve Your Local SEO! 

Using these strategies will help you improve your local SEO and help you take your SEO efforts to the next level. Although these are not all the ways to improve your local SEO it is a solid foundation of the essentials. After you implement these strategies, you will see your local SEO improve and discover new ways to get even more traffic as you become more familiar with local SEO.