What is the Key Role of Local Search Optimization in SEO?
The key role of local search engine optimization in SEO is to help your company and its website rank high in Google, Yahoo, and Bing’s search results when people (potential customers) search for your company’s name or products and/or services.
A local search is when someone searches for something, like a business or service, within a specific geographical area.
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Why you should optimize for local search:
Your local audience aka your local customers, the ones who haven’t bought from you yet, are using Google every day to find products, services, and businesses near them. When they search for anything near their location, search engines will show them “local search results” on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Are people finding your business online?
Your local search ranking (how high you show up in search results) can be improved by publishing localized content on your website, using local keywords in your meta descriptions, and tagging your physical location on social media posts.
Thankfully, with local SEO there isn’t too much keyword research involved – meaning you can probably guess what people in your area would ask Google if they were interested in your products, services, or business.
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Here are some examples of keywords that are geared toward local search and mobile searches:
Digital marketing agency in Richmond, VA
Boutique in Williamsburg, VA
Bra Fittings near me
Divorce lawyer in Arlington, TX
Notice how each of these search terms include a specific area?
What keywords and key phrases does your target audience search for on Google?
Five KPIs to track with local search optimization in SEO:
Direction Requests.
If someone requests directions to your business via Google My Business, that’s a good sign that they are considering visiting your location.
Some people will request directions to see how long it would take to drive to your locations, while others request directions when they’re ready to visit your physical location.
Phone Calls.
For service-based businesses and brick and mortar shops, phone calls are important. All our Local SEO clients, including e-commerce boutiques can keep track of their phone calls, along with other KPIs via their dashboard.
Visit our Local SEO page to learn more!
Website Visits.
For e-commerce and service-based businesses should keep track of how many website visitors come from Local SEO efforts.
One of the easiest ways to track website visitors from Local SEO is to check your Google My Business insights once a week, or whenever you’d like to.
Reviews.
The number of reviews a business has affects it’s ranking in the local pack, which is the Google Maps section on the first page Google Search results (when you search for local businesses or services).
As of November 2021, we haven’t noticed any significant differences between companies with a low rating and those with a higher (5 star) average rating.
Tip: Include important keywords in your responses. For example, if someone gives us a great review for our Local SEO service, we will mention “local SEO service” in our reply to their review.
If you have no idea which keywords to include, just thank them for buying whichever service or product they purchased.
Keyword Rankings.
Outside of the local pack section in Google Search results, and in every other major search engine, you’ll see the organic search results (along with a few ads in the mix).
Ideally, you have keywords or key phrases that you want your website to show up for when people in your area are searching for your products or services. For us, one of the keywords we target is “Digital Marketing Agency in Richmond”.
Keyword rankings fluctuate, sometimes drastically from week to week. Some days we rank on the first page of Google Search results, and on other days Google pushes us way back to the 10th page! The next day, we’re back on page one.
It’s frustrating, which is why a lot of SEO agencies stopped tracking keyword rankings. Clients would freak out every time they saw their rankings plummet, and it made a lot of great agencies look like they weren’t doing a good job.
But we still track keyword rankings for all our Local SEO clients, because while it’s widely considered to be a “vanity metric”, our clients still like to see where they rank in search results without having to manually search for their keywords and look for their website.
Additional Reading:
If you’re struggling with SEO, then you may want to start asking, “Who?” Not “How?”
SEO is very complex. You could spend hours on YouTube and Google trying to learn it all as you go, or you could find high-quality SEO professionals to do it all for you.
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