In this era of digital transformation, digital marketing has become essential for businesses to promote their brands and provide real-time visibility of their products and services. This increases engagement levels with your target audience and ensures consistency in lead generation and increased conversions.
Ideally, as Internet penetration continues to increase globally and with approximately 5 billion digital users, the number of consumers using the Internet for online shopping and product research continues to grow. According to statistics, global e-retail sales amounted to approximately $5.2 trillion as of 2021. This number is expected to increase by 56% over the next few years, reaching $8.1 trillion by 2026.
Therefore, with this trend in consumer behavior, you will want to implement more efficient digital marketing strategies to position your brand at the forefront.
One of the most comprehensive marketing strategies that can help you increase your website's visibility to the top is search engine optimization (SEO). Remarkably, for marketers, her SEO has become a powerful tool to drive qualified traffic to websites and increase the chances of converting leads. According to Forbes, the first page of Google search results can attract more than 90% of your traffic.
Most customers perform organic searches for local purposes, so brands primarily focus on local SEO. In other words, you're looking for quality products or services near your current location. So you want to optimize your website for local search to drive potential customers near your store to your business.
Here's a detailed guide to local SEO in 2023.
Local SEO involves optimizing your website and its properties so that users can easily find your website when performing localized searches. Data shows that 46% of all Google searches are related to users looking for local information. Therefore, improving your ranking in Google local search increases the chances of your products and services being visible to nearby customers and generating additional sales.
In particular, search engines use signals such as relevant geographic keywords, profile pages, local content, and domain authority to determine whether a website provides valuable results to customers searching for local information. judge. Therefore, you need to implement local SEO best practices to rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) and improve connectivity.
Local SEO ranking factors
Google's local algorithm uses on-page, links, citations, behavioral, social, reviews, personalization, and Google My Business signals to determine your local SEO ranking in the SERPs. This ensures that we provide the most accurate and relevant results for users' queries.
Below are the three main categories of local ranking factors used by search engines.
- prominence: This is your business' online and offline popularity and reputation. Ideally, Google will recommend brands with good local SEO recognition to users. Search engines measure popularity by analyzing review ratings, content performance, social media presence, and overall organic search rankings.
- Relevance: Search engines analyze your website's content to determine if your business profile matches your search. This includes how well keywords are added to headings, title tags, and meta descriptions. So while it's important to add lots of details about your business, you also need to make sure your content is relevant to your customers' searches.
- distance: Search engines want to direct users to the nearest business, so they consider how far a business is from the customer's location or the specific location the customer is searching for. Therefore, certified brands that are closest to the user have an added advantage.
When a potential customer searches for a local product or service, your business will be given a local rank on the SERP based on the factors listed above.
Here are some local SEO tips to consider to get quality traffic and drive conversions.
1. Optimize your site for Google My Business
One way to enhance your local SEO strategy is to create a well-designed Google My Business page. It includes details such as business name, contact information, address, and business hours. Google and potential customers can access most details about your brand without visiting your website, increasing visibility for your business. This is the first thing searchers see when they perform a search.
Here are some tips for optimizing your Google My Business profile.
- Please enter your actual business name
- Add a local phone number to identify yourself as a legitimate local business owner
- Please include correct business hours
- Write an attractive description, but don't stuff it with keywords
- Upload high quality images and videos. However, the size should be small so as not to affect loading speed.
- Gather online reviews and respond effectively with local information.
If search engines determine that your Google My Business page is genuine, it can rank higher in local searches.
2. Build local government
Building local authority online is essential for local SEO and will help you stay on top of your local competition. Below are the important aspects that will help you build your local government.
- Local quotation: This is when your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) is mentioned on other online platforms. Therefore, to find the right local citations, look for local business directories that primarily appear in her SERPs when users search for keywords in your field. Also, keep in mind that search engines typically analyze whether the information provided is similar across all channels. Therefore, you need to ensure NAP consistency to improve your listings.
- Add local link. Relevant links must be added to the geographic area. These links can come from authoritative local blogs, organizations, guides, and business associations. This helps search engines understand that you are sharing information that is valuable to the local community.
Therefore, you need to build a strong local government to increase your local search presence.
Search engines believe that local content shared on social channels is essential to users. Therefore, you need to create engaging social media posts that are relevant to your local target audience. Below are social media tips to improve your local SEO rankings.
- Drive engagement by starting conversations and building relationships
- Always share fresh content to keep the attention of your target audience
- Leverage trending topics to ensure you provide the latest information your users may be searching for.
- Leverage relevant keywords that potential customers might use to search for your content or products.
- Create new link opportunities by posting highly shareable content. The more followers you have who share your content, the more people will link to your content if they find it relevant, increasing your linking opportunities and increasing your traffic.
Therefore, you'll want to leverage social media to generate more quality leads locally. Ideally, social media serves as a direct channel to increase correct citations on the internet, as this is one of the ranking factors for local SEO.
4. Perform a local SEO audit
Local SEO factors to audit include:
- Google My Business Audit: See how Google My Business appears in the SERPS and whether the information provided is relevant to local searches.
- Citation audit: Analyze whether all citations in online listings such as top business directories are accurate.
- Crawlability: A Google Search Console audit can determine if there are any crawl errors that can impact indexing, such as broken internal links, redirects, or duplicate content.
- On-page SEO audit: Determine if the SEO elements on your page are being used efficiently to increase rankings.
- Competitor analysis: See how well your website stacks up against your local competitors in terms of content strategy, link building, and other SEO strategies, and whether there is room for improvement.
If so, it's a good idea to perform a comprehensive local SEO audit from time to time to establish your current performance and what elements you need to adjust to increase visibility.
Create content that resonates with local audiences. For example, you can promote local industry events or share education news and other useful local content on your blog. Such content can contain relevant local SEO signals that can help you rank higher in the SERPs.
6. Optimize your website for mobile
Recent forecasts suggest that the number of smartphone users around the world will continue to grow in the coming years, reaching 6.2 billion users by 2028. Additionally, with the proliferation of mobile phones, most Google searches are now done on mobile devices. Potential customers near your business may also use their mobile phones to get directions to your business, read reviews, and find your contact information.
Therefore, you need to make your website mobile-friendly to improve the user experience for potential customers who access your site from their smartphones. This includes implementing responsive layouts to ensure that your website's content is readable and displays well on mobile screens.
Why local SEO is essential for your business
Here are the benefits of investing in local SEO.
- Increase local brand awareness. Optimizing your website for local searches will make your business better known to potential customers in your area.
- Helps avoid conflicts. While other companies focus on general SEO, you can differentiate yourself by implementing local optimization strategies and targeting qualified leads.
- This will help you get more positive reviews locally. Local SEO improves the user experience by serving relevant content to the right audience. Therefore, when customers are impressed, they are likely to leave positive reviews about your business and positively influence other customers' purchasing decisions. In fact, around 70% of online shoppers read up to 6 customer reviews before finalizing a purchase.
With that in mind, you will need to adopt local SEO best practices to be the best in your area.
Local SEO is one of the important SEO strategies that helps you gain a larger footprint based on your geographical location. Therefore, as a business owner, you would want to leverage it to attract more customers and gain a competitive edge. The above is a comprehensive guide to local SEO in 2023. All in all, be sure to track your campaign to determine if you are getting the desired results.