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Online search is most often the starting point in a local consumer’s search for nearby products and services.
In fact, 78% use the Internet to find information about local businesses in their area more than once a week, and 21% do local searches every day, according to BrightLocal’s most recent local consumer survey.
You need to be visible in local organic search results and Map Pack if you want to be found. You then have the opportunity to convert those searchers into store traffic, booked appointments, or some other type of paying customer.
In this column, you’ll find 7 of the most impactful ways to build local visibility through SEO.
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Check for technical errors that may affect indexingCreate exceptional contentIncorporate local link building into your SEO strategyGet your Google Business Profile in orderMake sure local listings are accurateMonitor and respond to local reviewsUse a relevant local schemaPutting it all together
1. Check for technical errors that may affect indexing
This is benchmark SEO. You can’t be found if search engines can’t index your site.
First, learn the basics of how search engines crawl and index your website. These basics will help guide your SEO efforts going forward.
You may decide that technical SEO issues like indexing are too complex for you to handle in addition to running your business.
If that’s the case, at least you’ll understand what you’re hiring an SEO agency or consultant to do for you.
Alternatively, you may feel confident looking into indexing issues, in which case these resources may help:
2. Create exceptional content
Content is the vehicle by which all messages, offers and calls to action will be delivered to your audience.
But your small business isn’t just competing with other businesses like yours in search results.
You’re also up against media publications, news websites, big brands, local review sites, and all sorts of other sources that create content relevant to your products and services.
The bar is high, and that means your content has to be exceptional to stand out.
Before you jump in with both feet and start publishing blog posts, take the time to create a local content strategy that aligns with your business goals.
Make sure you incorporate different types of local content and optimize each piece for search using these proven local on-page SEO best practices.
3. Incorporate local link building into your SEO strategy
Links are the currency of the web. They are an important sign of trust for search engines like Google and suggest that others approve of your content.
John McAlpin explains: “Local links are done with the intention of showing that others relevant to the local area trust or endorse your business.”
His piece “What is a local link and how to find more local link opportunities”, part of our Local SEO Guide, is a great starting point for your local link building strategy.
From there, I highly recommend reading this column by Kevin Rowe, in which he shares 50 types of links and what you need to do to attract each one.
4. Get your Google Business Profile in order
No local search strategy is complete without a well-optimized Google Business Profile (GBP).
Although Google pulls local business information from a wide variety of sites, directories and networks across the web, it considers its own profiles to be the single source of truth about any local business.
Formerly known as the Google My Business program, these profiles have become richer and more interactive in recent years. And with these updates, they’ve also become more useful for local searchers.
Today, GBPs not only provide key business information, such as your location and contact information, but also allow you to:
Help searchers understand the experience they’ll have at your business with a variety of high-quality photos and videos. Show off deals, events, and more with Google Posts. Engage with customers through messaging, Q&A, and responding to reviews. Proactively share differentiating features, health and safety information, payment methods and more with Attributes.
Sherry Bonelli provides a great guide to GBP optimization here.
5. Make sure local listings are accurate
Google values the search experience above all else. Inaccurate and outdated information that negatively affects the searcher experience is therefore a liability and can significantly hinder your local visibility.
Whenever a searcher finds your business listing online, whether it’s on social media, in a local directory, in the Yellow Pages, on review sites like Yelp or Trip Advisor, the information they find there should allow them to convert – them without problems.
Having the phone number, address, business hours, or other key business information listed can lead a search engine to a closed store, for example.
Or be sent by your GPS system to your previous location.
Seeing multiple versions of key business data on the web makes it difficult for search engines to know what’s true.
Since Google wants to give each searcher the best possible answer to their query, you don’t want the algorithm to question whether your company’s information is reliable.
Manually tracking listings is time-consuming and incredibly difficult, as data aggregators and directories may be searching for business information and updating their listings.
This is how misinformation or outdated listings proliferate, and the wrong address, URL, or schedule can spread everywhere.
Small businesses can use a local SEO tool like Moz Local or Semrush to automate the process of scanning business listings and monitor their accuracy.
6. Monitor and respond to local reviews
Reviews are a high impact part of the local search experience and in 2021, 77% of local consumers said they always or regularly read reviews when searching for local businesses.
Google’s local ranking algorithms are less of a mystery than their organic counterparts. Google openly tells us that there are three main local classification factors: Relevance, Distance and Protagonism.
Reviews are part of the prominence factor and Google states:
“Google review count and review score factor into local search rankings. More positive reviews and ratings can improve your business’s local rankings.”
Jeff Riddall provides a comprehensive overview of how Google reviews affect organic and local search rankings here.
See “Where and How to Get the Right Reviews for Your Business” by Matt Southern for more information.
7. Use a relevant local scheme
while it is not a ranking factorschema tagging is a type of structured data that makes the job of web crawlers easier and helps the search engine better understand the content of your page.
Anything you can do to help Google match your page more effectively to a relevant query is a win.
Schema tagging can help trigger rich results that highlight additional information such as navigation metrics, reviews, FAQs, and sitelinks in search results.
Applying the scheme correctly, then testing and validating your markup, is essential, as mistakes can disqualify you from those rich results.
Chelsea Alves wrote a great guide on local branding and rich results that can serve as a starting point for adding this tactic to your local SEO strategy.
Putting it all together
Taking on local SEO as a small business can seem daunting. You may not have a dedicated marketing department, and it’s not uncommon for business owners to feel overwhelmed by the administrative and marketing tasks that come with being an entrepreneur.
I hope this guide gives you enough information and resources to determine what you can do in-house and what you need to outsource.
Using an agency or consultant to increase your in-house skills is fine, but it’s essential that you understand exactly what you’re asking these professionals to do for you.
Remember that local SEO is not a one time, “set it and forget it” tick list activity.
It’s an integral part of your marketing and often intersects with customer service as well.
To learn more, download Search Engine Journal’s e-book ‘Local SEO: The Definitive Guide to Improving Your Local Search Rankings’.
More resources:
Featured Image: Shutterstock/Deemka Studio
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