30% to 40% of searches today are all made with local intent and Local SEO is a great way to capture the local market.
To increase your ranks and visibility in local search results, such as Google’s Map Pack/Local Pack, you need to concentrate on local SEO. Any SEO plan aimed at clients in a particular area, city, or neighbourhood must include a local search.
Higher rankings in organic results do have a positive influence on your Local SEO rankings. When Google believes that a search query has local intent, organic results are another fantastic chance for your local business to show up in front of eager searchers. Despite this interconnection, Local SEO calls for a distinct approach that uses various optimization techniques.
But what is local search and how to optimize it?
What is Local search?
Local SEO search is the use of specialized Internet search engines that allow users to submit geographically constrained searches against a structured database of local business listings.
Local search is the logical extension of conventional offline advertising. In the past, customers depended on regional newspapers, regional TV channels, and regional radio stations to locate regional goods and services. Since the invention of the Web, customers have used search engines more frequently to locate these neighbourhood goods and services online. Online local searches have increased significantly over the past few years, whereas offline information searches, such as Yellow Pages or the Telephone Directory have slowly disappeared. Local product and service suppliers are gradually transferring their advertising spending from conventional offline media to local search engines as a natural result of this change in customer behaviour.
This change has led to the evolution of Local search marketing often known as Local SEO (local search engine optimization).
What is Local SEO?
It is a sort of digital marketing service used by businesses to target local markets by appearing in local search results when their targeted audience and potential customers conduct online searches. Being visible on maps in the local pack, on ordinary Google Maps, and in the localised standard organic results is the main goal of local SEO.
Why is local SEO important?
Unless you were born in the late 1900s aka you are a millennial, you will not know the pain of searching for a single listing from the Yellow Pages!
The goal of any search engine aka Google is to provide you with the best answer for your query. It can range from innocent ones like ‘where can I buy sourdough bread’ to slightly dubious ones like ‘where is OTC medicine available’.
Your purpose displays your intent to the search engine’s algorithms. In case it detects a local intent – that you are seeking something in the vicinity of you, the Map Pack results will be prominently shown on the first page of the search results.
Additionally, organic search results for establishments and services in your neighbourhood may supplement them.
When Google identifies your enquiry as urgent and nearby the local results may show up as the default view above all other organic material. After all, a basic blue link is less likely to satisfy your enquiry than the information provided in local search results. Local search results often include company name, address, phone number, website, images and videos, customer reviews and star ratings, among other things.
But how do search engines determine local ranking?
You can optimise for a variety of search engines, but let’s face it: Google dominates the industry with a market share of over 90%, so when we discuss local SEO, we generally refer to Google optimization. Google is far more transparent about what it takes to rank in local results. It lists the following as the top three local SEO ranking criteria –
- Relevance – the degree to which a local business profile matches a searcher’s query.
- Distance – between each potential search result and the location keyword entered during the search.
- Prominence – how well-known the company is as per Google.
What kind of businesses gain from Local SEO?
Franchises, retail chains, so-called Mom & Pop stores, financial services firms, service providers, enterprise brands, and SMBs all rely on local search as a crucial route to reach their target markets.
A local SEO strategy may be used by a variety of businesses kinds to connect with customers.
- Businesses that operate out of a physical location and provide services to clients nearby (like a plumbing company).
- businesses that don’t, in the traditional sense, have a physical presence but cater to the community.
- enterprises that operate as chains or franchises in several local marketplaces (multi-location businesses).
In a nutshell, any business that wants to gain a foothold in the local market needs a local SEO strategy.
So, how to improve the Local SEO?
If you want your website to appear in organic search results where Google has concluded that the query has a local intent, following Google’s Webmaster Guidelines is crucial. However, as MapPack results are heavily influenced by your Google Business Profile (GBP) profile, you can appear in the Map Pack even if you don’t have a website. They could incorporate data that Google has gathered from other websites as well as user ideas.
So, to improve the local SEO, Google has a separate set of guidelines.
Staying compliant with Google My Business Guidelines is essential not only for maximizing your visibility in the Map Pack but also to avoid getting your listing suspended.
Can you create your local SEO strategy?
It is not uncommon for business owners to cut costs by trying to manage their local SEO strategy. But after a certain point, it would be better to hire a company offering local search marketing services.
We think it’s important for business owners to understand SEO and how it functions. By doing this, a business owner may better comprehend and assess the task that a local SEO expert or SEO firm is hired to complete.
How can Sunnyday help you?
At Sunnyday we are a team of skilled media professionals with one goal – to create better media and marketing solutions for our clients. In the case of local SEO strategy, we offer you the following –
- Setup and optimize your Google My Business profile (and keep it compliant to avoid a suspension) so that it enhances your brand and provides your targeted customers with details of your business such as address location, contact number, etc.
- Identify and build citations on high-quality local directories which will help people to discover your local business and can also impact your local search engine rankings.
- Optimize the HTML heading structures of your pages (this is both helpful for SEO and people with accessibility issues). This will help search engines find and better understand the subject matter within your webpage ultimately leading to higher rankings.
- Effectively solicit reviews while also remaining compliant with Google’s guidelines (and the Securities and Exchange Commission). This is a good way to better understand what you are doing right and/or wrong as a business. Reviews help you see what areas are doing well and what needs improvement. Not all reviews are fair, but they always can provide information and insight on how your business can improve.
Executing a successful local SEO strategy takes a bit of time, but the returns are high. So, feel free to contact us at support@sunnydayconsulting.com or call us at (+91) 79777 31552
