As in real life, on the web we find numerous merchants like you operating and offering their goods in a specific geographical area..
Therefore, an appropriate positioning strategy with the goal that a user will find you (and your services or products) first as a local business.
For Blackbeard’s blindfold! When an adventurer is in your area and performs a search, wouldn’t you want to appear first in their map of the treasure?
So let’s see what it is and how to do local SEO to appear in the top organic results of Google.
What is Local SEO
The local SEO deals withsearch engine optimization of local businesses with the goal of giving them greater visibility.
Whether you’re a rum merchant or the owner of an inn, you won’t be able to do without this strategy.
By being found in searches at the right time, it allows you to get more website visits, new clients e sales: in other words, it’s a way to show where your treasure is to interested boaters!
Don’t go too fast with your ship! Before we start, you should know that there are three main criteria for which Google prefers to show your business over another, affecting the local SEO.
Therefore, each time a search is performed, Google’s local search algorithm returns results by sorting them according to its own incidence criterion related to these three main features.
- Relevance
- Distance
- The authority
Relevance
Your business must be relevant to users’ searches interested in certain services so the more precise information you provide, the more search engine algorithms can allow you to make your company known in a relevant way.
For example, if you’re looking for an inn to rest at, you definitely won’t find a candy and cocoa shop among the results!
The Distance
A user can search for a business by specifying or not specifying the area of interest: Google will still be able to locate the geographical target of interest.
For example, it will show you the inn closest to where the search is made.
Authoritativeness
To determine the authority of a company or brand, Google relies on information it gleans from the web such as user reviews, positive feedback, mentions, and brand mentions.
For example, Google will show you the most well-known inn in the Kingdom, i.e. the one that has gotten positive reviews and more.
In order for users to find you more easily, you need to keep these criteria in mind at all times and work on several factors, ranging from theoptimizing your Google My Business account using the Directory.
Tips for a successful Local SEO
The time has come to roll up our sleeves and put some tips into practice. Are you ready? Let’s set sail!
Optimizing Google My Business tab
The first step you need to take to start improving your local ranking is. create a Google My Business tab, an easy and free step.
This is a storefront that allows adventurers to show where your business is located, its name and more by viewing their map of the treasure: no longer will they have to search for you themselves or use their old, ruined compasses!
Then move on to the choosing the most appropriate categories and the inclusion of all References of your business such as name, phone, location, opening and closing times and website.
Le images of outdoor and indoor spaces, photos of your products and a description that best represents your business and its services will complete the form.
Find out how optimize a Google My Business tab best by following this route, I’ll be waiting for you here.
Finally, remember that you can control and manage reviews Google My Business: high quality comments in fact, according to Google, they can greatly improve your online visibility.
Optimize the content of your pages
Name, address and phone number in English are called NAP (Name, Address and Phone number) and are used by search engines to verify the legitimacy of a business.
So it’s critical that on your website, any directories you’re listed in, social profiles and any other web pages, your NAP information is always up-to-date and consistent.
In your site, don’t just put them on the contact page, but also on the home page and in the footer.
In the contact page you can embed your map from the Google My Business storefront, to help mobile searchers who could reach your location in no time.
Optimize your website’s metadata.
Every company has a totality of keywords for which they want to position themselves at the forefront of search engines: through keyword research you can always be ready to respond to hypothetical user requests.
Enter these keywords + the name of the location:
- in the title tag – the title of your page;
- in the meta description – the description text for each page on the site;
- in heading tags – to differentiate title (H1) and subtitles (H2, H3 etc.) also in the code;
- in images, text and urls.
Using structured data
The use of structured data will make it easier to describe your rich snippet on Google, i.e. the serp results that contain extra elements compared to the classic organization of meta description, URL and title tags.
To use structured data markup, it is possible to mention:
- multiple departments;
- opening and closing times;
- ADDRESS;
- website;
- PHONE NUMBER.
Optimizing your site for mobile
Google rewards key optimized websites. mobile because users tend to do more and more searches from their smartphones or tablets.
A surfer who travels with his phone has no time to waste, he prefers to have an immediate answer to his questions and therefore it is necessary to give him what he wants in the shortest possible time.
L’User Experience, which refers to the complex of sensations a person feels when using a site, is all that matters, both for users and for Google itself.
You need to consider some important factors for the usability of your site, such as:
- the responsiveness – the site must be able to adapt the text content so that it is excellently visible from any device used;
- loading speed – the heavier the content, the harder Google’s robots and users will struggle to read it and the sooner they will abandon the page;
- the bounce rate – if more than 50% of the surfers abandon your site it is possible that this depends on the not optimized mobile first version.
Subscribe to directories
Directories are portals in which you can enter the url of your own and information of your business for free. Being present in them can have a great impact on your ranking.
Some popular directories are:
- Apple Maps;
- Foursquare;
- Localworks;
- Google Places.
In addition to directories, it is useful to be listed on some sites where you can create a custom page for your business and users can leave reviews, such as:
- Yelp;
- Glassdoor;
- TripAdvisor;
- Hot Frog.
