Local SEO is essential for smaller and local business that operate locally instead of on a national level, SEO in general focuses on rankings across the country, but local SEO is more specific and focuses on a specific location and appearing on the SERPs of that area. Optimising your local SEO will generate organic traffic to the site, leads and most importantly conversions as the marketing strategy is now relevant and niche for your local customers. This will give you a competitive advantage as most brands especially the bigger brands will optimise nationally and target broader keywords and miss out on the niche keywords and specific locations.
Local SEO as a definition is the process of optimising your online presence to attract more traffic from relevant local searches, ranking within their local area is far more realistic and will open you up to customers who are more likely to convert on your site.
Google My Business Listing
Optimising your Google My Business listing is the easiest and most effective way to rank higher on Google maps and searches which increases visibility. Simple changes such as making sure your address and contact information are up to date is vital so that customers can easily contact and locate you. Adding as much information as you can to the listing is very important such as, opening hours, payment methods, short description of what you sell and images. Also, to optimise your listing even further you can add the variety of products or services you offer which link straight to that page on your site which generates a great user experience as they journey will be short and simple. Also, you can add your service locations, we recommend to add the locations which are closest and most relevant to you, this will boost your visibility in these particular areas.
Encourage your customers to review your business online
Trust is a huge part of building your local campaign, receiving happy customer reviews for your business optimises your listing but also encourages local customers to check you out and purchase from you. There has been many case studies which suggest 58% of customers believe online reviews as much as personal word of mouth. Ways to encourage reviews could be by politely asking the customer after the close of sale or even sending an automated email to get there feedback, the more reviews you generate the more trust you will create and that was you can start to build a loyal customer base.
On-page SEO
This is the optimisation taken place on each page of the site to drive organic traffic which boosts your local SEO relevance. Creating content which is location based will boost your SERP location, easy ways to do this is to add your town and city within the ‘about us’ page for example and also feature blogs which include the location. Adding your location in the meta descriptions, title tags and H1s is vital to gain visibility and target your location keywords
Voice Search
Voice search is becoming huge and will rapidly grow over the next few years. Therefore, it is essential that you optimise your site for how people search when they speak into their devices instead of how they type into Google. When using voice search customers tend to use longer tail keywords and conversational words for example most searches will start with ‘who, what, where and why’. Its also important to understand the users intent when they make this search whether they are wanting a quick easy answer or an in depth explanation about a service, this information should be readily available for the user.
Overall, SEO changes all the time and there is always new trends around the corner, so it is vital that you stay on top of the local SEO by implementing the tips above, this will give you a head start and set solid foundations for your Local SEO campaign. If you are a business in Suffolk looking to maximise your local SEO and get ahead of your competitors, MR SEO offer SEO agency services in Suffolk to help your business reach it’s full potential!
