Website Design, SEO & Digital Marketing

Local SEO is defined as the online marketing activity that allows local businesses to promote their services to local customers at that exact point in time when they are searching for your type of business. Studies show that four out of five people use their smartphones to search the internet for local information. In order for Google and other search engines to serve those users with relevant information from the vast amount of data they have, local based results will become more and more relevant and prevalent.

Directory listings are an important feature of local SEO. They could be niche specific or general listings. They serve as an online telephone directory with NAP (name, address, phone) data along with a map (sometimes) and your URL. Some also allow photographs as well. Some are free, some are paid; some for life, some for eleven months only, there are many options and there are thousands of directory listings. It pays to be listed in at least a few of them. Yelp!, Google My Business, and Bing Maps are a few of popular ones in the USA.

Local SEO is a great tool for small businesses because there are only so many competitors. The better visibility you have on a SERP (search engine results page), the more likely that your customer will find you! Providing location based results is also a great way for search engines to serve the most relevant results to the search engine user.

In a Google search, local search results are served in what is called the local snack pack which shows the 3 highest ranked business listings for the given area as well as the topic or service the user searched for.

Why is local SEO becoming more important?

• Local customers are using the internet to find local business
• Local search is becoming more popular with the passing years.
• Local search is highly targeted and timely
• It gives better results than the traditional advertising options
• Mobile usage is highly prevalent. Local SEO covers both laptop as well as mobile phones
• Greatest return on investment. No wasted exposure
• If you claim your Google local listing, you will be way ahead of competition
• Local Search Engine Business Listings are still free. Readership of Newspapers has declined by a huge percentage – 40% to 80%
• Customer reviews which are very popular are a big part of local SEO.

How do you improve your company’s local SEO?

1. When creating your local page, pay special attention to how you categorize them in many subcategories provided.
2. Make sure your NAP (Name, Address and Phone number) is consistent across the web, in your local pages, directory listings
3. Use good quality directories. Use category and location searches to find out if there is an opportunity to be listed somewhere.
4. Work to get more reviews about your site. Reviews are showcased on SERP
5. Add lots of images to your local listing to make it look interesting. Make sure the key word appears often.
6. Try to earn inbound links from bloggers, newspapers and through social sharing, content development etc.
7. Hire a reputable local SEO company if you don’t have enough time, because this is an ongoing process with the search engine changes happening all the time.