Ways to Enhance Your Local SEO

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Local search is extremely powerful for all businesses, but can sometimes be forgotten about. If people want something, they are going to want it fast and not have to travel far to get it – that is where local SEO comes in! 

What is Local SEO?

Essentially, Local SEO is all about increasing search visibility for businesses that serve their communities face to face. There are two types of businesses that should rely on local SEO. 

1. Brick and mortar businesses, that have a physical presence
2. Service area businesses, that operate throughout a certain geographic area 

Google My Business

Google My Business has become the main focus of local search. Google My Business is a free tool that allows you to manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps. If you are a new business in particular, then adding a Google My Business page should be your number one priority. Let’s take a look at the different areas you can add and optimise: 

Name of Business – This needs to be the same as the name on your website 

Opening Hours – Make sure these are always correct and if they need to be changed you do so. It’s also important to know that you can add seasonal hours on this platform if necessary

Phone Number – Your phone number should be the same across all your channels, website, social media, etc

Email Address – You do need to add an email address that customers can contact you on. You can use a different email address to set your account up if you need to 

Address – Make sure your address matches the one on your website, you will need to add an address for the postcard but you can hide the address if you don’t have a physical store that people can go to 

Description – This is your opportunity to tell people about your business, you are limited on characters so make sure you get all the vital information across that customers would want to know

Business Categories – You can select multiple categories here but make sure that the one that best represents your business is the Primary Category as this is the only one that will appear on your business listing

Photos – According to Google’s own data, “Businesses with photos receive 42% more requests for driving directions to their location from users on Google, and 35% more clicks through to their websites than businesses that don’t have photos.”

Make sure that you follow these guidelines for any images you upload to your Google My Business listing. All images should be a minimum of 720×720 pixels, no larger than 10MB and saved as either jpg or png file formats.

Remember that this is the first impression of your business, so always use good quality photographs and don’t use stock images as these will be flagged and removed.

Finally ensure that they do not contain any promotional or other additional text on your images.

With the current situation we are facing in the world with Covid-19, we would like to stress how important it is that your Google My Business page is fully optimised and displays the correct information. If you are needing to close your store or reduce the hours, make sure you alter these on your GMB listing. 

Keyword Research & Content Optimisation

Keyword research is key for local SEO, and it isn’t much different from other types of SEO, you just need to be a lot more location-based when doing your research. If you have a brick and mortar store then keywords including “near me” work very well for Local SEO. 

Once you have the relevant keywords as well as optimising your meta titles it is also important to filter these keywords within your content. Hone your focus and write about local or industry news to attract a local audience, questions and answers normally work well for local attraction. 

An example of a local keyword optimised in a meta title: 

Local Directory Listings 

It is recommended that you also focus on local directories for your business, building these out will help you increase your websites link authority for local searches. When you find relevant directory listings it is important to make sure you check the Domain Authority of that website. The higher the Domain Authority the better quality the website is, you can check it using this link – https://websiteseochecker.com/domain-authority-checker/ 

Ensure Your Website is User Friendly

I have tried to stay away from technical elements, but just a quick touch. You need to make sure your website is user friendly, this is vital as the majority of local searches are made via a mobile device. Some of the most common ways people will use your website via a mobile device are to look up reviews, find directions and search for contact information. Whenever you change anything on your website, be sure to check it out on mobile devices! 

Why Should You Optimise Your Local SEO?

With people using the internet more and more each day for directions, contact details and finding information in general, your local presence must be clear for everyone to see. I hope the tips above have helped, but if you would like help in hand with your local SEO then please get in touch with us. 

Call us on 01522 437 333 or email us on hello@seotrafficlab.com