Written by In today’s digital landscape, small businesses face fierce competition not only from national and international brands but also from other local players vying for the attention of the same target audience. With more and more consumers turning to online searches to find products and services in their vicinity, it has become crucial for small businesses to establish a strong online presence – especially in local search results.
Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a powerful strategy that can help small businesses increase their visibility and attract more customers from their surrounding areas. By optimizing their online presence for local search queries, businesses can ensure that they appear at the top of the search results when potential customers search for relevant products or services near them. In this post, we’ll cover what local SEO is and how the average small business can leverage it for more visibility and customers.
Understanding Local SEO
Local SEO is the practice of optimizing your online presence to rank better in location-based searches. It’s all about making your business more visible to potential customers in your local Area.
There are four key components to local SEO:
Google My Business
Google My Business (GMB) is a free tool that lets you manage how your business appears on Google Maps and local search results. It’s essential for local SEO because it provides customers with all the key information about your business, like your address, business hours, website, reviews, and more. Having an optimized and up-to-date GMB listing can significantly improve your visibility in local search results.
Here’s an example of the Google My Business listing for The Email Marketers for reference:
You don’t have to complicate it, you can just add your business’ name, hours and contact information.
On-Page Optimization
On-page optimization refers to all the measures you take on your website to signal relevance to local searches. This include:
- Writing blog posts
- Using location-based keywords in your content
- Optimizing titles and meta descriptions for local searches
- Including your NAP (name, address, phone number) consistently across your website
- Adding local schema markup
Proper on-page optimization helps search engines understand your business is locally relevant. You can also use tools like Rankability to help improve your on page SEO to rank better.
Off-Page Optimization
Off-page optimization is all about building local citations and getting links from other locally relevant websites. This could include:
Listing your business on local directories and data aggregators
- Getting featured or mentioned on local blogs and publications
- Building backlinks from locally relevant websites
- Quality citations and backlinks from local sources help reinforce your connection to a specific geographic area.
For example, Hughes Landscape, a company specializing in transforming outdoor spaces into luxury outdoor areas in El Dorado County, CA, effectively utilizes local citations and backlinks. By being featured on local landscaping blogs and directories, they improve their search engine rankings and attract more local customers. Quality citations and backlinks from local sources help reinforce your connection to a specific geographic area.
Local Citations and Directories
Local citations are any online mentions of your business name, address, and phone number (NAP). These can be on directories like Yelp, Foursquare, local chamber websites, and more.
Consistent NAP data across the web acts as a trust signal to search engines, indicating your legitimacy as a local business. The key to successful local SEO is mastering each of these components and making sure they all work together cohesively.
Examples of Local SEO:
Split My Fare:
Split My Fare is a train ticketing service in the UK. It ranks well for a lot of local keywords for train services in a variety of cities in the UK. Their strategy involves optimizing individual city landing pages with relevant content, NAP details, and local link building. For example, their page targeting “London to Manchester Trains” is packed with informative content about that specific route, travel tips, schedules, and fare details. They’ve acquired links from local tourism sites, transit blogs, and city guides relevant to both London and Manchester. By segmenting their approach and creating localized experiences for each target city, Split My Fare demonstrates a mastery of on-page optimization, local link building, citation management, and GMB optimization – all key components of an effective local SEO strategy.
Couch.com:
Another good example is Couch.com. Couch.com is an online furniture review site that has implemented an effective local SEO strategy to increase visibility and sales in different geographic markets. Their approach involves creating city-specific landing pages that are optimized for relevant local keywords like “San Francisco sofa stores” or “Chicago affordable couches” On these localized pages, Couch.com includes details about their product offerings, delivery areas, customer testimonials from that city, and even localized inventory and pricing information.
Wrapping Up
Local SEO is crucial for small businesses that want to get found by customers in their area. By following the strategies outlined in this guide, you can improve your online visibility and outrank your local competitors.
The key takeaways are:
Optimize your Google My Business listing with complete and accurate information
- Use on-page optimization tactics like location-based keywords and schema markup
- Build local citations and backlinks from relevant local sources
- Create engaging, locally-focused content to attract nearby customers
- Consistently track and analyze your performance using search data
While getting to the top of local results takes consistent work, the payoff of more website traffic, leads, and revenue makes it well worth the effort. Start implementing these local SEO tactics today, and you’ll be on your way to dominating your local market. If you need any extra help along the way, check out more local SEO resources on the SEMrush blog.