Top 15 Killer Local SEO Tips for Your Local Business

Local SEO tips are something that every marketer should be aware of, as correctly implementing it ensures superb web presence across your local niche market.

Do you own a local business and want to make the most out of it? Then you should be knowing that your customers are pretty much everywhere – on different devises, in different locations and consuming various types of content.

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As you upgrade your SEO strategy with all the latest tactics, you cannot overlook the elephant in the room – your local search. But before you get to know all the top local SEO tips or some local business SEO tips, you should first understand what exactly is local SEO.

If you want to know how to do local SEO, local SEO marketing and understand best local SEO practices, then you are at the right place. Our top local SEO tips will help you to take the advantage of SEO local search.

Before we look into local SEO marketing tips or some SEO tips for local business, let us first see what is local SEO.

What is Local SEO?

Local search engine optimization is nothing but the practice of making your SEO local search better – that is ranking well on local search results. Almost half of the Google searches are predominantly for local services or products.

Today, over 50% of the businesses make use of the location data for targeting potential customers. Furthermore, 85%-95% of the consumer engagement occurs through the location assets, which include local pages and local listings.

Now, this only means that the local SEO marketing tips you follow should better be good.

15 Essential Local SEO Tips that Work

Today, 18% of all the local smartphone searches definitely lead to a purchase just within 24 hours. So, it is high time that you start fighting for your space in the SERP for local search for your products or solutions.

Following are some of the best local SEO tips that are worth evaluating.

1. Get on Google My Business

It all begins with your Google My Business (GMB) account. Yes, this is because local businesses are constantly on the search for the address and location of a business.

Google My Business is a free tool that lets local businesses like you to put across your Name, Address and Phone number (NAP) along with all the other necessary business information (like the hours and directions) on Maps and Google Searches.

So, it is important that here, you keep your profile complete and updated. As soon as you get verified by the Google (they either send you a letter or will call you), you will get access to all the basic data.

This data provides you information on “how exactly people find you” and “where are they coming from”. At this point, you can use the information to update your local SEO strategies.

2. Using Google Posts in Your GMB Profile

Google has successfully launched something called “Google Posts” in all the GMB accounts. So now, businesses can go ahead and post regular updates on their deals upcoming events or local offerings through their GMB account.

These posts will directly get displayed in the SERP, thereby presenting local businesses with a unique chance to initiate communication with their customers even before they navigate to your website.

This makes using Google posts in your GMB profile one of the most valuable local SEO tips.

3. Keep Your NAP updated and Consistent Across All Platforms

It is not enough to just stay at the top of your GMB listing. It is necessary to ensure that your location and contact information is also updated and is consistent with profiles across various social media pages, directory listings, on your website as well as on other review sites.

4. Leverage Schema Markup

Schema markup is nothing but some sort of code that you add to the HTML of your site to enhance the way in which your web page gets represented in the search results.

This code assists Google in recognizing specific elements of your web page and indicates what exactly your web content means. Having it will ultimately boost your website ranking, thereby improving your click through rates.

Isn’t it one of the coolest local SEO tips? Well, it is!

5. Optimizing Your Content, URL and Tags

Your content, URL, headers, title tags as well as meta descriptions should always include the details of your region or your city and should also precisely target the primary search term of the web page it describes.

This provides Google with a hint about which geographical location your web page is relevant to and also what content is present on the web page. Google will then index your web page accordingly.

6. Engaging in Local Link Building

Having a sound link profile is extremely important to perform well in the search. After all, the entire business is essentially built on securing links like these (some good and some not so good link building techniques.

Unfortunately, this method is like a marathon and not at all like sprint. So, you better be away from those who will tell you that they can quickly nab a bunch of back links for you.

Nevertheless, it is still an integral aspect of a strong local SEO strategy. You can actually build a good link profile all by yourself, making local link building one of the best local SEO tips.

7. Build Your Presence on Relevant Review Websites

Zendesk Survey showed that almost 90% of the people told that online reviews influenced their buying decisions. Next, according to Moz, online reviews influence Google decisions to rank your web page by 10%.

Considering all these numbers, it is better that you build your presence across all the major review websites. Some of the major review websites include the following:

• Urbanspoon
• TripAdvisor
• Yahoo Local
• Foursquare
• Angie’s List
• Yelp
• White Pages
• Yellow Pages
• Google+ Local

8. Track the Ranking for All Local Searches

You can turn to marketing technology to track any changes in the rankings for local searches. Here, you should be tracking the result type, device, search volume, ranking and also check whether the URL you prefer tops the search result in every geographic location, which is specific to your business.

In addition, you should also create keywords categories and page segments, as it allows you to sift through the data and separate any drop in ranking, spikes or performance.

This helps you to quickly identify opportunities, problems as well as seasonal changes. Also, keep an eye out for distance opportunities, which are the web pages that rank below the high or fold on page 2. This gives you chances for optimizing to make maximum impact.

9. Be Sure to Have a Physical Address in the Location that Your Are Targeting

One fundamental step that local search marketers should be aware of is that they should definitely have a physical address that is consistent for the location they wish to locally optimize.

In addition to this the particular address where the premises is located should be as close as possible or within the area that is being targeted.

10. Have a Map for Your Local Address on Your Website

Apart from having the contact information about your website, it is also very important to have the actual map on the website to show the exact location. The code for adding the map to your premises should be added on the contact us page.

Furthermore, it is also better to retain the following set of information on your website, particularly on the contact us page:
• Opening as well as closing hours of your store
• Driving direction to your store from all the renown landmarks
• Call links to facilitate direct calling on the mobile pages
• Sharing options along with social media links

11. Give Distinct Web Page for Every Product or Service

When you have multiple products and/or services, just make sure that each of these have a separate web page with all the specific and relevant details. These different pages can be easily linked from one single page, which summarizes everything that you offer.

12. Make the Most Out of Citations

Getting citation across all the major regional and global directories, along with the local directories, is crucial for your local SEO. This is because citations help you to build credibility and authority for your website.

Most importantly, citations drive quality traffic to your site. However, if you do not have a website, then local listings help you to get better visibility. When you consider citations, just make sure of the following:
• The citations are consistent
• You use citations from high quality websites
• Try to get mentioned in blogs, articles and newspapers
• Have multiple industry-relevant and locally relevant domains, which list your website in a positive light

13. Acquire Backlinks from Sponsors and Partners

The best way is to secure the low hanging fruit. Start by making a list of all the organizations and businesses that you either sponsor or are partners with. This might also include those which were a part of the fund-raising and charitable events.

These are the points of contact that you should be actively reaching out to. You can first just let them know how exactly you were involved or associated with them in the past and then request them to add a link back to your site.

14. Secure Reviews

Reviews are extremely important. Just consider them as your local pack ranking element, which enable your listings to stand out from the rest. If you manage to get your satisfied customers to leave a Google review, then it works much better than any other local SEO tactic.

Yes, such is the power of reviews. Just entice your happy customers to leave one as a token of appreciation and just see how far it can take you. Reviews will not only help you to rank better, it also lets you to grab more space on the results page.

15. Leverage Google AdWords Keyword Planner

This is one of the best free tools that you can turn to. It helps you to successfully establish all your local SEO keywords by assisting you to reach the right audience using the right keywords.

The best part is, it lets you to identify keywords with lowest competition, highest search volume and find identical terms that are searched by your local audience.

To Conclude

Most of local business owners and webmasters find local SEO challenging when it comes to implementation. This is mainly because of the deeply entrenched poor local SEO optimization habits.

However, a thorough understanding of the Google’s best practices and guidelines help you to appropriately implement local SEO tactics.