Complete Local SEO Guide

Apart from the traditional way of marketing which involves face to face meetings and communications, the trend of targeting potential customers with the aid of digital marketing has captured the attention of several companies worldwide. Search Engine Optimization is the way with which you can enhance your online presence. When it comes to targeting the local area, Local SEO has to play a critical role.

Also Read: A Comprehensive Guide To Improve Your Local Search Rankings

Before presenting the guide for local search engine optimization, here I would like to mention some among several significant highlights for the year 2015.

• Photos Upgrade announced by the Google My Business – It allows businesses to choose the images that they want to show to the online visitors.
• Mobile usages already surmounted laptops for local searching
• Mobile-friendly updates released by the Google.
• The introduction of ‘Collections’ on Google+ by the Google.
• It is found that Businesses got more clicks and calls through local searches.
• Links and user behavior gained importance in local search ranking factors, a study by Moz.

Having highlighted some notable information for the year 2015, now through this blog, I am going to provide you a complete guide for Local SEO. While having a read on this blog, you will come across the following points regarding:

• New ways to perform Local SEO Process
• The mistakes that you often do in local search marketing

Ways to Perform Local SEO

Create Your Profile on Google My Business

By setting up your business profile on the Google My Business , you add advantage to your business. While creating a profile, you should make sure that the information provided by you about your products and services should be relevant. In addition to it, you have to verify all the essential details such as your website, address, email(s), operating hours, and contact number and all these should be up-to-date. Doing so will make your business correctly listed and easy to find in the Google Maps. Aside from this, you can put some high-quality images as the use of graphics is trending across the industry and tempting online users.

Adopt responsive web design

A website created with responsive web design is compatible with a variety of devices and can throw several additional advantages for your business. I have already mentioned at the top of this write-up that the Google is also considering responsive web design as an important factor by which it provides rankings to the sites.

Get your business listed

Listing your business locally on several well-reputed online directories will give you an exceptional advantage to support your Local SEO campaign. The more authentic citation you have for your business site, the more authenticity you will gain. Several online tools like Synup is available that can help you to accomplish this task.

Online reviews – create the perfect impression

Online reviews are the most powerful way to create a great impression on the market. The online reviews have proven their significance as the tremendous number of online visitors first read these reviews to determine the quality of your local business. Having great feedbacks can give you the opportunity to attract and serve enormous clients as it establishes a trust factor in the minds of the visitors. Even Search engines like Google help you to remind your valuable patrons to provide their feedbacks.

Create engaging content

Despite having responsive web design, a website is worthless without engaging content. Thus, always publish useful content that looks crisp and to-the-point to engage more customers. Above all, your content should be written to support your SEO campaign so that you could share it over various platforms to promote your site well.

Common Mistakes That Hinder Local SEO Success

Ignoring site registration

For supporting local SEO campaign, it is highly recommended to register your business on well-reputed platforms such as Google+, Bing, and Yahoo. Registering your company on such platform is the ultimate way to improve rankings in SERPs. However, those who consider it not important have nothing left but to repenting.

Also Read: How To Make The Most Out Of Local SEO In 2021

Neglecting the role of mobile

Already mentioned at the beginning of this blog, mobile searches already surpassed laptops and desktops in 2015 and will continue to dominate. The Google already confirmed that in the countries like US and Japan, mobile searches will continue to dominate desktops. Local businesses entirely depend on mobile SEO as smartphones have specially equipped with local tracking to provide the benefits to their users. Thus, never ignore the role of mobile in the local SEO process.

Not Paying Attention towards online Reviews

Online reviews are very crucial to any business as they may affect your SEO ranking about 8 to 9 percent. Having quality online reviews favors your business and improves your rankings. For instance, if you get complaints online then instead taking it in a negative manner, take it as an opportunity to sort out those issues to turn those negative feedbacks into the positive ones.

Overlooking quality content

Content is the most effective medium to drive traffic to your website, but your content must contain useful information along with facts (if requires) and authentic links to support. If you wish to get success for your local SEO campaign, then you should not overlook or compromise with the quality of the content.

Keeping faith only on SEO

Content and SEO compliments each other. Thus, focusing only one at the time cannot yield expected results. Further, instead of relying on you SEO strategies, you should equally focus on e-mail marketing, content marketing, and social media marketing along with a variety of off-page activities to get assured success.

Notable Predictions

Social media to play crucial role in Google’s organic rankings

In the coming times, the Google will rely on social media platforms by which it will provide rankings fo your businesses. Thus, you need to draw solid strategies to target social media to make most of these useful platforms for the best interest of your company. When it comes to local SEO, it does not ask you to hire a full-time social media marketing professional. All you need to do is to post regular updates on your social profiles and respond to your customers who contact you through your social channels.

Mobile Optimization Will Be Preferred Over Desktop Optimization

As everyone is talking about the same so, one can deny the fact that over the past few years, there is considerable increase has been seen in the number of mobile users. The local SEO will consider mobile optimization as an important factor to achieve high rankings in SERPs. In the year 2015, mobile searches surpassed desktop searches and will continue to be the first choice for online visitors for information searching.

Local Search Will Dominate

With the introduction of several gadgets like Apple’s Watches and more sophisticated smartphones that are specially designed for providing local searching, it is being expected that soon rankings will be generated by location or street.

Voice Search over Smart Devices

We cannot say we live in the era where technology is at its peak but also can’t deny the fact that it makes our lives easier. In the coming times, it is being assumed that voice search will be highly used for local searching as it gives convenience to the customers. Thus, you will have to work on identifying the voice-friendly keywords and phrases to empower your local SEO efforts.

Embedding Links in Mobile Applications Will be Crucial

We all witnessed that how mobile applications have captured the place of websites. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and many more are some excellent examples to see as they all are running their applications for smartphones. Thus, creating relevant links to the mobile apps that further point towards your websites or social profiles will improve your rankings in search engines.

Wrapping Up

In the end, I would like to say that Local SEO serivces is a part of SEO, and it is a complicated process. However, I tried to cover some important points with the hope that it will prove beneficial for you. For any suggestions and queries, you can drop your valuable comment/feedback below.