If you own and manage a business, you’re already aware of the importance of SEO for your business. Simply speaking, it’s a long-term strategy for elevating your leads and reach within
the market. It does so by making your services visible for the consumers looking it up on Google or other search engines.
But,
Let’s say you’ve got a rather specific audience in mind. Maybe you own a physical store that you require the nearby users to come to, or you own a business that serves only the users of a specific region. In such cases, a full-fledged SEO strategy might not be your best bet. Simply because a “global” consumer-base isn’t what you’re aiming for. You’re aiming for more of a localized approach, and this is where local SEO would kick in.
Below, we’ve mentioned the basic know-how that you need to have regarding local SEO, and the FIVE biggest strategies under it that you could follow.
Local SEO: What exactly is it?
Imagine you’re having pizza delivered to your home. You look up the stores available online for delivery, and the ones near you pop up in your suggestions. Now let’s imagine you’re at your friend’s house, in a different locality. And again, you’ve got a pizza craving. Now when you search for stores, it’s the ones near your friend’s house that’ll show up. Not the stores that appeared under your previous search. This is Local SEO doing its thing.
Local SEO strategies help businesses pinpoint, and focus on just the right audience. If you own a cab-service for a particular city, or a food-chain for a specific region, it doesn’t matter whether or not you pop up in the search-engine of a person sitting 1000 miles away. Your services need to be “hyper-focused” at the target audience, and you need local SEO to ensure the same.
Table of Contents
Make Google’s “My Business”, your business
We mean, make it your priority. Claim your listing, and fill out the necessary content. This listing is what comes up on Google Search, and Google Maps, and placing yourself on it is important for the local SEO listing.
And remember, do not forget to add in those keywords. All across your content, including both primary and LSI keywords. This accounts for over a 20% chance of getting your business into the local pool of listings.
Also remember, if you own multiple locations for your business, make sure you claim your GMB for each one of these locations. Each of these sites would be manageable from a single login.
The internet is vast, every step is mighty, and you can never have “enough” SEO.
It’s almost impossible without local business schema
We’ll keep it simple here. Local business schema is a structured set of information you can add to your website, that’ll make it easier for search engines to know more about what you are, where you are, and what exactly is it that you provide.
This is an essential step towards optimizing your website for local SEO, and it’s a major ranking factor. In a way, it speaks to your search engine, and tells it how and why your business provides what users are looking for.
Because the search engine must be made aware of that.
List yourself within the local business directories
Local business directories are just the platforms that list the businesses within a particular category. For example, Facebook, the above-mentioned GMB, Yellow Pages, and Apple Map are among the commonly used ones. Apart from these, there might also be local business directories tailored for your local SEO needs. Add your entries onto these platforms, and get your business listed. Because, will the search engine notice? Yes. Search engines will use the data listed under these directories, to analyze it and rank your business higher (or accordingly), in SERPs.
Local directories simply serve as that extra yet necessary step to magnify your presence online. The more that is, the better.
Weaving those local links
Creating quality backlinks are important, even under basic SEO. For search engines and users alike, it speaks for the “reliability” of your business. So, of course you ought to be doing that. But, there are some adjustments to be made for making backlinks beneficial especially for local SEO.
For one, instead of trying to hunt for links under generic websites, look for the ones that hold value in your specific area. Maybe local organizations, bloggers, or local magazines and newspapers. That’ll help increase your chances of being recognized in the local pool.
Now of course, you want to make sure you actually help these authoritative websites in one way or form. You need to provide something for them to refer back to. Maybe write a blog for their target audience, engage in local activities or events, or write guest posts for local bloggers. We suggest you don’t just expect them to lend you a free hand. Never works.
Content is still king
There’s pretty much nothing that contributes more to online visibility, than proper and reliable content that actually provides solutions. So, if you’re regular on creating quality blogs, posts, and videos, you’re halfway there. Local SEO just demands a bit of optimization.
In term of the topics you’re writing on, do not just pick what others are doing. Before providing anything, always ask yourself this- what are the users in my vicinity looking for? Find an answer to that, and create content per requirement. If you own a food chain in Gujarat, you could write about the favorite cuisines in your region, or about the best go-to for peaceful dine-ins. There isn’t much that your local users could gain, from a blog on the restaurants at Las Vegas.
And in terms of keywords, keeping things localized is once again the key. Mentions of the local area, or local events and attractions, should always find their way in your web-content and meta data. It lets the search engine and your users know who you are, and what you provide.
The take-away
Just imagine you’ve got a kid, who’s really hungry. You take all that effort to cook something really delicious, and end up shipping it to some random guy overseas. Who wasn’t even hungry to begin with!
So, it’s just about finding your users. Whom are you trying to provide for? If your target audience lies right around you, that’s where your services need to be aimed at. And a proper set of local SEO strategies are important to pinpoint your services the right way.
We won’t suggest you dive into this yourself. That’s one of the biggest mistakes that blooming businesses make. There are various aspects that go into mapping out SEO strategies that actually work, and you need a proper team of SEO experts that knows what it’s doing, to ensure the same. To speak for ourselves, the team we house at KickStart Solutions consists of experienced personnel who are big on getting things done. Feel free to contact us to have chat about your business.
Either way, do not just rest on an option. We suggest you conduct your research and get in touch with a team that’s best for you. Just make sure you do get a team. Let’s not go DIY here.
