How to do local SEO —steps to improve your business ranking
If you're looking to perform local SEO, there are seven key strategies you should concentrate on. However, if you choose to use Soscify's local SEO services, we can take care of all these tasks for you.
Optimize your Google Business Profile listing
Google Business Profile listings are a crucial feature of local search, providing vital details about businesses that show up when people search for companies in their area.
For instance, when someone searches for the "best restaurant near me," Google's local SEO 3-pack shows the top listings, with their locations displayed on a map. By clicking on the results, searchers can access the restaurants' Google Business Profile listings, which contain essential information like their address, hours, website, phone number, and images.
To ensure your business appears in the top Google local SEO 3-pack results, you must optimize and claim your Google Business Profile listing.
Consistency in your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) across all online platforms is also vital to improve your chances of appearing in the top search results.
Build local citations
Apart from asserting ownership of your Google Business Profile listing, it is crucial to establish local citations.
These citations encompass details such as your business name, address, phone number, and website. By engaging in citation-building campaigns, you can obtain local listings on various platforms like Bing, Yelp, Foursquare, Facebook, Apple Maps, TripAdvisor, and several others.
You can commence the citation-building process with the aid of sites like BrightLocal, and companies like Soscify provide local business SEO services to guarantee that your citations are current and generating significant traffic to your website.
Target local keywords
To rank higher in local search results, it is essential to focus on using location-specific keywords on your website and within the content.
For instance, let's consider an example of a restaurant located in Ikeja, Lagos. They can optimize their page titles, meta descriptions, and site copy to include location-specific keywords such as "Best Ikeja Restaurant" or "Top-rated Restaurant in Ikeja".
Additionally, the restaurant can create location-specific pages on the website, like "Ikeja Specialties," to highlight popular dishes among the residents.
Using location-specific keywords can increase the chances of showing up in searches made by people in your vicinity and help them locate and contact you easily.
Review management
It's crucial for local businesses to monitor and respond to online feedback.
Reviews and ratings can appear on various platforms, including your website, Yelp, Google Business Profile, and social media. By replying to all reviews, whether positive or negative, you demonstrate to customers that you value their opinions.
Since people tend to check reviews before visiting local establishments, keeping up-to-date with reviews and responding to queries and feedback can encourage more people to visit your local business.
Build local links
Having links from well-known local companies can significantly improve your local search rankings. To acquire these links, you should create valuable content that highlights local keywords relevant to your business. If other websites find your content helpful, they may link back to your site within their own content.
When ranking sites, search engines like Google consider both the quantity and quality of backlinks. Thus, it's essential to have a strong backlink profile that includes links from authoritative local businesses.
UX analysis
It is crucial to ensure that your website offers an excellent user experience (UX) to attract more local visitors. If your site fails to deliver a positive UX, visitors will quickly leave, causing your bounce rate to increase. High bounce rates indicate a suboptimal user experience, and search engines will not rank your site highly.
To enhance your site's UX, you can make some quick fixes such as simplifying your navigation and internal linking, improving page loading speed with optimization services, and incorporating engaging visual and interactive elements. By doing so, you will increase the chances of visitors staying on your site longer and potentially converting into customers.
Implement mobile responsiveness
Investing in a mobile-friendly website is an important strategy for local SEO.
With almost 60% of online searches conducted on mobile devices, it's crucial to have a responsive design that works seamlessly on any device, including desktop computers, tablets, and mobile phones. This holds even more significance for local businesses, as people often need to find information while they're on the move.
If you're unsure about your website's mobile compatibility, you can use Google's mobile-friendliness tool to test it. If the test reveals that your site isn't optimized for mobile usage, you can rely on Soscify's solutions for mobile responsive design to enhance user experience and potentially improve your ranking in local search results.