If you’re running a business with a physical location or you serve customers in a localized area, then local SEO is extremely important to gain more visibility from prospects (users in your local area), as well as make your information more accessible.
There are three main goals that local SEO efforts can achieve, and that will ultimately bring more customers to your business:
- Ranking in the Map Pack
Having your business show up on Google Maps via a Google Business Profile is crucial for a local organization, since most users nowadays use online maps as their main form of navigation. Your Google Business Profile should, at a minimum, list your address, your phone number, the name of your business, and the services you provide. This helps users find you when looking for the type of store or business you offer (e.g., when they search for “clothing store near me”). If you have local competitors, it’s not only important to create a Google Business Profile, but to optimize it, as well. You don’t just want to be in the map pack in general – you want your business to be the first featured map listing among all your local competitors. After all, it’s typically only the top three listings that a user will ever see for a local search result. Finally, you want users who come across your map pack listing to see some reviews & user interaction. These features showcase both that your business is real and that you as the business owner are attentive to your customers.
- Optimizing your Website for Local Searchers
Once you have authority in your local map pack, you want your website to reflect it. Users expect a website to provide them with complete information on what a business offers, how trustworthy the business is, and how the business can be visited and contacted. You need to make sure your website offers the same information as your GBP listing, like hours of operation, name, address, phone number, and services. Additionally, you could go a step further and list out experts working at your organization or in your facility, your reviews, and local partnerships, events & PR features. Trust signals like these help a business establish local authority with Google & rank for regular search results below the map pack. - Getting Local Search Results for Local Service or Product Keywords
Finally, aside from the keywords on the type of business you operate, you wanna rank for local product or service-related keywords because of their conversion potential. For example, if you run a local clothing store in Boston, you will likely see less purchases when ranking for a location-neutral informational keyword, like “how to style a white shirt”, than a local navigational keyword, like “high-quality white shirts in boston”.
Contact Fire&Spark today and get a free consultation on best practices for local SEO.
