What is Local SEO?

What is local SEO?

Local SEO (Local Search Engine Optimization), is a variant of SEO that seeks to market your business to a specific locale or area. Much like SEO, local SEO relies on both on and off page optimisation to serve products and services to local customers. Why should your business undertake local SEO?

• 96% of PC owners conduct local searches
• 46% of all Google searches are local
• 64% of local customers use search engines and directories as their main way to find local businesses
• 50% of local mobile searchers look for business information (like a company’s address or phone number)
• 78% of local mobile searches result in an offline purchase
  

Why is local search important?

Local search is important because it serves potential clients with businesses in their area thus increasingly the likelihood that contact or a purchase will be made. What’s more, with the rise of Google My Business and Google Maps the company is actively assisting searchers in finding businesses close to them. If Google suggest something then it is well and truly worth considering. 

How to perform well in local search?

Performing well in local SEO is slightly different to performing well in standard SEO. As one can imagine, there is much weight given to certain criteria that triggers a business to appear on Google Maps and Google My Business. 

Website ‘localisation’

Localising your website means referring to the city or region in which the business is based in a natural manner throughout. For example, “luxury marketing agency London” or “luxury marketing agency”. The first search query is designed to address those searching in the London market and the second those searching outside of the capital, For businesses with various locations this may mean creating specific pages for each office, creating content hubs that feed into said pages (localised content, of course) and gaining backlinks from local events and publications. 

Citation Building

A key component of local SEO is to make sure that your NAPW (Name, address, Phone number and Website) appear consistently across the website. This is commonly achieved by directory listings and ensures that there is consistency in how your key contact details are presented. 

Claiming your Google My Business listing

Did you know that only 44% of businesses claim their Google My Business listing? This means there is a huge opportunity for businesses out there to get ahead of their competitors by having a GMB listing. The free listing is what you see when you search for a business online and is one of the most important steps in starting to dominate local search. 

Managing reviews and ratings

Reviews showcase the quality of the service that clients receive and send signals to search engines on how trustworthy your business is. Regularly updating reviews on your business listings is a fantastic step in starting to outmaneuver your competitors and gain ground in local SEO. Various factors such as the amount of reviews, the quality of the reviews and where the reviews are from (which sites) impact local SEO rankings. We always suggest starting with Google My Business and their own review platform as, after all, Google likes Google.

Backlinks

Much like normal SEO, backlinks are an important aspect to local SEO and show trust and authority in a website. Links from local newspapers or magazines, bloggers, business associations and businesses greatly boost local search results.

We hope that our starting guide to local SEO has given you some ideas and useful, actionable tips that can he;lp you improve your rankings in local search. As a luxury SEO agency, we specialise in assisting businesses in all areas of SEO. For more information and to discuss your business requirements and needs, contact our team via hello@theluxurymarketingagency.com or on 07835 233607.