Local SEO, in a nutshell
Local SEO is a subset of SEO that focuses on increasing the exposure of local businesses and increasing brand awareness within the target audience. Local SEO services are one of the search engine optimization (SEO) approaches that can help your company rank higher in local search results.
What is local SEO?
Local SEO is increasing the visibility of a locally run business on search engines. Providers of local SEO services’s key task is to identify the type of business, and its audiences, form relevant local keywords, improve a business’s Google My Business profile, and create NAP citations. It is one of the digital marketing tactics for generating localized traffic for the business, creating brand awareness, and generating more leads.
Local SEO aims to increase a website’s visibility in local search results. Local SEO services include link building, creating valuable content for the website, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, regular SEO audits, creating keywords, and several other services. Local SEO services enable you to prioritize searches that originate in a specific area or a specific location targeted for a specific audience.
Local SEO works like a regular Google search, which increases the chances of users seeing more of the business’s pages and eventually finding its website. In order to deliver the most relevant results for a user’s query, Google searches through the index it maintains.
Local SEO service will increase traffic to your website using the proper collection of keywords. In order to top-rank a business, one has to avail of an efficient local SEO service, which allows a business to gather a wide range of clientele over time.
Factors for top-rank local SEO searches
Local SEO uses distinct ranking features to put the business at the top of search engine rankings. It comprises several factors mentioned below:
NAP Citations
NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. A citation in local SEO is a reference to key elements of a business that make it easy for a potential customer to locate the business. Therefore, NAP citation is important to form two-way communication between the business and its target audience, along with the factor of improved visibility and some offline action for the business.
There are two types of citations: one is an NAP citation, and the other is a website citation that includes links, a business description, a photo, and valuable content. Local SEO citation is one of the keys to ranking a business in local search results.
Social Media
Social media plays an important role in ranking a business; the more shares a business has on social platforms, the more visibility it has on the internet. More views on the content, a high engagement rate on social media, followers, offers, and newsletters lead to more recognition, more conversion intent, and eventually more sales.
However, social media does not have a direct impact on the Google database and cannot have an effect on the ranking of the business. What social media does is make the business popular among the audience, as more and more people are on such platforms. Therefore, increasing its popularity among social media users can lead to the audience actually searching for the business’s website on the Google search engine and getting to know more about the products and services provided by the business.
Online Reviews
Reviews are one way of getting a perspective on how the business is working for its target audience and getting feedback in order to improve its efficiency. Online reviews are one of the essential strategies adopted by businesses to form a diverse, reliable, and broad reputation in order to increase their visibility and conversion intent. Local SEO services provide SEO audits that frequently check the website’s effectiveness and analyze traffic based on the online reviews submitted by the target audience.
Online reviews have a significant impact on local SEO. According to the Local Search Ranking Factors, 16% of search engine decision-making for local search results is based on reviews, so reviews do play an important role in ranking a business on Google search results.
Reviews are one of the factors that are highly trusted not only by customers but by Google as well, contributing to better SEO ranking.
Presence of a Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile is a user-friendly tool used for SEO strategies that helps your business stand out on Google from other businesses. It helps businesses maintain their online presence, show up on the search engines based on their popularity and keyword usage, and set their rank accordingly.
A Google business profile consists of several important pieces of information about a business for its potential customers for better decision-making. The list comprises a business’s name, description of services and products being offered, address, business hours, website link, reviews, statistics, and content.
Why do businesses need local SEO services?
Local SEO services enable businesses to reach their potential customers by improving their visibility on the internet. Bringing in more leads, creating brand awareness, and enabling business sustainability in a competitive market leads to slow and gradual business growth.
Local SEO services mainly target physical businesses such as restaurants, department stores, vet clinics, pharmacies, location-based clothing outlets, and businesses with similar characteristics. It is essential for such businesses to remain in the market; therefore, local SEO services are acquired by them for better exposure and high rates of onsite visits. And with a better ranking, a business can make it up to the map pack, also known as the local pack. It is the top-level list of businesses with their location pinned on the map for the user to locate them immediately using Google Maps.
For example, searching for Chinese food near me on the Google search engine will provide you with results of several Chinese restaurants nearby for you to select and opt for on the basis of the nearest location from the search point. The top three out of all the restaurants have a better ranking due to local SEO services, which is why they are being mentioned at the top.
In a similar way, this sort of business needs local SEO for more visibility and awareness of the business online.
Conclusion
Local SEO services are one of the great ways to make a business sustainable, and with the right set of strategies, local SEO services are proven to be an essential part of making a business successful online as well as offline. Along with other marketing strategies, SEO makes a business complete by generating more leads, increasing conversion intent, generating traffic, and giving a crystal clear business description to those who are not aware of the services and products provided by the business.
Our expert SEO services provide facilities like on-page SEO, off-page SEO, SEO audits, technical SEO, keyword research, e-commerce SEO, analysis, and link building. With all these services, local SEO service providers make a business stand out on the rankings of search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing, among other popular sites.
