Local SEO: Why is it so important for your business?

Local Search Engine Optimisation or SEO enables businesses to effectively market their business online to a local audience. By using a variety of techniques as well as strategies to get ranked in Google’s ‘Local Pack’ for a specific service, businesses can attract a huge number of local customers looking for that service in their area.

Here are some important statistics that will highlight the importance of local SEO for a business:

• 50 percent of people who consucted a local search on their phone visited a store within a day & 34 percent who searched on computer or tablet did the same.
• 18 percent of local mobile searches lead to a sale with 1 day.
• Over 87 percent of smartphone users use a search engine atleast once a day.
• Nearly 60 percent of adults in America use tablets as well as smartphones in order to search for local product & service information.
• Around 50 percent of local mobile searchers look for business information such as a local address.
• Around 78 percent of local-mobile searches result in offline purchases.
• Over 71 percent of people surveyed said that they look up as well as confirm the exact business location before visiting it for the first time.
• For local listings around 68 percent of searchers were found to have used ‘click to call’ or ‘get directions’ in a mobile ad.
• One out of thress smartphone searches were made right before visiting a store.
• Around 89 percent of people surveyed admitted that they search for a local business on their phone once a week or more and around 58 percent said that they search for a local business daily.
• 46 percent of all searches on Google are local.
• Around 86 percent of people look up the business location on Google Maps.
• Nearly 76 percent of local searches result in a call.

How can you get local-ready?

Implementing a localised strategy for your business is very easy. You just need to follow a set of steps as well as make sure that all aspects are covered, that can get your website ranking within Google’s Local Pack.

SET UP GOOGLE MY BUSINESS

This is an important step to make sure that correct local information is on Google. While setting up Google My Business, you need to do the following things:

• Add a unique description and include link to your website.
• Select the correct categories for your business.
• Add a phone number to your listing.
• Upload photos of your business or services that you provide.
• Add your business address.
• Upload a good quality profile image as well as cover photo.
• Add the opening and closing times of your business.
• Add customers’ reviews.

NAP (NUMBER, ADDRESS & PHONE NUMBER)

Making sure that your number, business address as well as phone number is consistent across all mediums is highly important.

• You need to make sure that your NAP is across the whole of your site.
• Always use the same details when mentioning on other websites, especially local websites.

LOCAL LINK BUILDING & CITATIONS

• It is imporatnt to get quality backlinks from relevant local website.
• For citation using high quality local directories like Yelp is very useful.
• Need to maintain the brand consistency while submitting NAP during local citations.

ON-PAGE OPTIMISATION

The last step is to take into consideration local on-page SEO factors which includes relevant keywords with city/region that will help your business rank higher on the Google local listing. Other on-page SEO factors include:

• Title Tags
• H1 Tags
• URL
• Landing page content
• Image ALT attributes

So if you are looking to attract customers in your service area, you should not ignore local SEO anymore. Millions of customers are using local search every day in order to find the best local businesses in their city or town. So by implementing local SEO, you can help increase your possibilities of getting found by these potential customers.