How to do Local SEO for Beginners
Local SEO, when done properly, can help you improve your website visibility in local search results, driving quality traffic to your website. Do you want to know how to do local SEO as a beginner? Let's get started.
Local SEO involves the optimisation of your website, along with off-page SEO to ensure your business improves your ranking in local search engine results pages (SERPs). Local searches tend to have a high purchase intent. Close to eighty percent of local searches using a mobile device lead to a conversion. That's a pretty impressive statistic. It's no surprise you are eager to implement local SEO into your online marketing strategy.
Do I Really Need to Implement Local SEO?
Local SEO strategies have proven to be beneficial to businesses that provide services in a specific geographical location. When you implement local SEO, you enjoy the following:
Identify your customer's habits
Drive quality traffic to your website
Less competitive
Local SEO is highly effective for businesses of all sizes. It helps you target your local audience, driving them to your website. Before we look at how to do local SEO, let's take a quick look at the statistics.
Now that you know local SEO is valuable, let's get started.
The first step to a successful local SEO strategy is to create a Google My Business listing. Remember that Google holds more than eighty percent of the search engine market share, so you want to ensure you appear in Google's local listings. To set up your Google My Business profile is quick and easy, as long as you ensure to complete all sections accurately, while adding high quality images. Remember to verify your business for the best results.
If you have a traditional SEO strategy, then you already know how important it is to choose the most relevant keywords. For local SEO you need to localise your keywords. This means, if you run a bakery, your keywords may have been “artisan breads.” In order to cater to your local audience, you will want to add your geographical location to your keywords, for example “artisan breads (city/town).”
There are excellent free SEO tools available to help you conduct thorough keyword research. When making your selection choose relevant keywords that get at least seventy or more matches each month. Don't try and choose the highly competitive keywords, as you will struggle to rank with them.
With your keywords chosen and your content locally optimised, it's time to focus on links and citations. Citations are when your businesses Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) are added to online directories, such as Yelp and Google. Ensure your NAP remains consistent across all your online marketing efforts.
Backlinks are harder to achieve and should be done manually. The best way to secure back links from reputable and authoritative websites relevant to yours, is by creating high quality content.
Great content will help you improve your ranking. When you write content for your web page or blog post, ensure you produce high quality, informative, and interesting content that provides value to your readers. Remember when creating your content to target your selected keywords, write your content for your users and not search engines, and share your content.
If you are ready to tackle local SEO, you now have the foundation to get going. You will want to also encourage happy customers to leave reviews about your business, helping you make a good impression on potential customers. By using local keywords, creating a Google My Business listing, and adding your business to local online directories, your website will become more visible to your local audience.
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