Local SEO has become something of a buzzword over the last couple of years. And that’s not surprising. After all, there is little point in your local grocer ranking in first place in a national search – she needs locals to support her business after all.
SEO experts agree that it makes a lot more sense to focus on local SEO, especially as technology advances. Search engines are able to pinpoint a user’s location and show her relevant results in the same area. Technology is also changing the way we perform searches.
Voice search is already firmly establishing itself. Virtual assistants like Siri and Cortana are getting better at understanding what we say and are delivering more accurate results overall. This, of course, means that we have to change the way we run SEO campaigns.
Local SEO helps us to target efforts more efficiently and helps us to get the best value from our advertising.
How To Rank Higher Locally
Start by claiming your My Google Business Page. It’s simple, it’s free, and it is a great way to get Google to notice you. Spend some time on this page. Make sure that you fill in as much detail as you can. The more complete this listing is, the more credible it will look.
Once you have completed everything, you can take the next step and verify your details. Depending on where you stay, you could be sent the code telephonically, by email, or by snail mail. Once you have received the code, type it in and you are done.
That was easy, wasn’t it? Now for stage two.
You need to go through to your website and make sure that the business address and phone number appear on every page. If you like, you can put it in the footer of the page. Also, not too difficult, make sure it matches your Google Business page.
Now the harder work starts, you need to make sure that all listings for your business contain the same contact details and addresses. If there are different numbers listed in different online sources, that becomes a warning sign to Google that something is not quite right.
Once you have checked and corrected all the listings, it is time to consider the content on your site or blog. Look at the way it is written. Does that match the kind of language people would be using when searching?
Each town, and sometimes suburb, has its own little quirks. The locals might use nicknames instead of local place names.
Think about language that your target audience uses and consider matching the style. Why? Because if someone is conducting a voice search, she is likely to be less formal with the language that she uses. You want the best chance of your site matching the search.
The methods described above will help you to improve the ranking of your site locally. Of course, the normal SEO rules do still apply as well. Check the complete list of local ranking factors.
Keep the content fresh, interesting, and entertaining. Write so that people will enjoy it, not to please a search engine.
