Appealing to a large audience that spans other cities and even countries is a major achievement. However, before you even think about reaching that scope of popularity, you should focus on appealing to your local area first.
Focusing on the local market might just be one of the best things you can do for your business. The best way to reach out to that market is with local SEO.
What Is Local SEO?
Local SEO is a set of practices and efforts that improve the local visibility of a business.
This mostly benefits small businesses that are competing to gain an audience in a certain region.
The results that can appear in a local search result usually answer “near me” or “in (CITY).
A good example of local SEO at work is when you search for “best divorce lawyer” Instead of seeing results for the best divorce lawyer around the world, your results page is going to be filled with law firms that are geographically close to you.
Local SEO is beneficial for all business sizes. With the right marketing efforts and strategies, you can potentially help your business grow. Why is it such an important part of a business?
Why Local SEO Matters
To understand its importance, you need to put yourself in the shoes of a regular person. Say you’re looking to find a dentist on the Gold Coast for your next check-up.
You’re going to want to find the best dental clinic on the Gold Coast for convenience. Even if there are better ones in Brisbane for instance, the one nearest to you is still the prime choice.
Over half of all Google queries today are for local searches. Even if the person is doing their daily research, business with good local SEO practices can increase their chances of being noticed by that person. Here’s an important statistic that further cements that idea:
According to Google, from 2017 to 2019, there was a 900% increase in searches that involved the phrase “near me.”
Taking notice of the trend, Google started to put more priority on geographically-related searches. Google used three primary factors for local SEO: proximity, relevance, and prominence.
The gist of it is that with good local SEO, your business can appear more frequently when a person makes certain searches. It gives your business the visibility it needs. In today’s highly competitive business landscape, such visibility is vital for your growth and success.
Now, it’s high time you know a few important changes you can make to increase your local SEO.
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Set Up Your Google My Business Account
Google My Business is the heart and soul of local SEO. You’d first want to list yourself on the platform. Make sure to put inaccurate details about your business address and contact information.
The goal here is to let Google know that your business is authentic and currently active. To do that, you can respond to customer reviews on your business and use Google Posts within your account. Once verified, there’s a good chance that your business will appear in the local Google my business listing previously called Google maps.
You must accept reviews from your customers. As much as possible, respond to these with messages that don’t sound generic. Engaging with your customers is always beneficial.
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Create Social Media Accounts – Streamline All Necessary Information
You’d also want to establish a good social media presence for your business. Stick to major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It’s not enough to create social media accounts, you also need to be active across all of them.
It’s also vital that the information you put in your social media accounts, website, and Google My Business page are all the same. This is an important part of the process that lets Google know that your business is real.
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Optimise Online Directories
There are four online directories that you’d want to focus on being a part of, Factual, Foursquare, Neustar Localeze, and Express Update.
These are the directories that Google, Apple, Bing, and many others use to gather map data. Again, the key here is to ensure consistency across all of the information that you provide to these directories. Any small errors in spelling can have repercussions on your local SEO so be sure to double-check everything.
Improving your local SEO is beneficial but it does come with its own set of challenges. With the right marketers by your side, however, it will be a lot easier to manage your local SEO efforts. Our expert team of marketers in Constant Clicks can provide you with the right set of tools to nab the local audience.
In time, you’ll be able to appear more often when people around you search. From there, it’s all about keeping a steady pace for growth.
Constant Clicks offers local SEO services to help rank your business, drive more traffic and most importantly INCREASE the revenue of your business.
Book a FREE SEO strategy call today to discover how you can outrank your competition and GROW your organic leads without having to pay per click.