As a business owner, you know how important it is to show up on search engine results pages (SERPs) when potential customers type in keywords related to your product or service. But did you know local SEO can help your business rank higher on SERPs? Local SEO is a set of best practices that help search engines understand your business’s location and serve relevant results to searchers.
The first step in successful local SEO is making sure your online presence is accurate. Your business’s website, Google My Business profile, and other local listings must all contain the correct information—including your name, address, phone number, and website URL (NAPW).
Once your NAP is set up, it’s time to start building authority through online reviews. Research shows that customers read and trust online reviews before deciding to make a purchase. Plus, having a steady influx of online reviews is also a known local search ranking factor. To encourage customers to leave a review, create an incentive program that rewards them for writing a positive review.
To get the most out of your local SEO efforts, you need to optimize each page on your site for its intended purpose. This includes creating a dedicated page for each unique product or service you offer. This ensures that your content is relevant to a local search, and it makes it easier for search engines to crawl and index your pages.
According to Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors study, link signals and onsite content are the two most influential factors in determining your local pack or snack pack ranking. That means you need quality, locally relevant links from high-authority websites in your area. You can find these websites by performing searches for the keywords that your customers use to search for businesses like yours.
In addition to acquiring links from authoritative websites, you can also build a strong local link profile by leveraging your relationships with other businesses in your community. This can include things like business partnerships, community outreach programs, or even guest posting on other local blogs.
Another effective way to boost your local search rankings is by enhancing your on-site content with local-relevant keywords. You can do this by adding them to your website’s copy, URLs, and meta titles. By taking a strategic approach to local keyword research, you can write content that naturally incorporates these keywords without sounding contrived or overly commercial.
One of the most overlooked aspects of local SEO is ensuring that your website is mobile-friendly. This is because a significant percentage of local searches are performed on mobile devices. Having a mobile-friendly website will help your business rank higher on local SERPs and improve the user experience for your customers. You can test whether your website is mobile-friendly by using Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. If you find any issues, you can fix them easily by following Google’s guidelines for mobile-friendly sites. A poorly designed mobile-friendly website can negatively impact your local search rankings, so it’s worth the investment to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile users.