Small Businesses (SMBs) generally face heavy competition from large businesses in the same field. You won’t be able to get a higher search ranking for your small business if there is a large-scale competitor in your field.
However, local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) service can help you drive more traffic to your web pages, directly uplifting your search engine ranking. You have to understand how local SEO service can help you increase your website’s visibility.
In this article, we have mentioned all the key components of local search optimization and how you can step-by-step implement them to boost the visibility of your small business.
Importance of Local SEO for SMBs
Large companies generally have a higher authority over the search engine. Thus, it is a little difficult to compete with large businesses in the Google search ranking. Here, local SEO comes into play, making your small business compete with large-scale companies.
In simple words, you can certainly rank your website higher in the searches using location-specific keywords, which will help you get more visibility and attract more customers.
We’ve mentioned some of the other reasons to implement the local SEO in your SMBs.
1. Higher Targeted Traffic
Small size businesses generally have their establishment in a local city. Thus, when you apply SEO to your local business, you will attract more relevant customers to your website. This tactic will help you get more leads and conversions from the local areas.
2. Boost Your Online Visibility
Local Search Optimization enhances the online visibility of a website and allows the local customers to easily reach the website. Local optimization, localized content, and local directory listing management can help your website get more visitors, which directly impacts the online visibility of your website.
3. 46% of Google Searches are of Local Intent
Google usually registers 3.5 Billion searches worldwide every day, among which 46% of the searches are of local intent. Thus, with the local SEO, you will also get higher traffic on your website, which will improve your overall ranking.
4. Competitive Edge For SMBs
Small businesses generally face higher competition from larger corporations, as they have higher authority on the search engine. Here, Local SEO makes the search engine opportunity equal for small and large businesses. This SEO will help you distinguish your business from your competitors, set up a solid online presence, and attract local loyal customers.
5. Higher Engagement
Among all the local searches on Google, 72% of users mostly visit the store within 5 miles of their distance. Therefore, local search engine optimization boosts the ranking of your website by driving more local traffic to increase engagement.
6. Cost-Effective Marketing Efforts
Local SEO is way cheaper than the varied traditional and modern marketing strategies for small business owners. Local search engine Optimization helps you drive higher traffic without spending a lot of money on expensive marketing campaigns. Local Search Optimization is generally used to reach the right customers at the right place, at the right time, and with the correct information. Therefore, you get far better results with this small business SEO.
Key Components of Local Search Optimization
1. Google My Business Account
Google My Business is one of the crucial components of local SEO strategies. Typically, it can be called as a Google directory that allows you to store and represent all the relevant information about your business. It includes your business’s contact number, business hours, etc. In simple words, Google My Business will help you showcase Google that your business is in real life. Moreover, your business will also be featured in Google Maps, which will help you bring more traffic to your website.
2. Local Content and Keywords
Optimizing your business website with local keywords and content will help you in the success of your small business SEO. Here, you need to create some local content based on the location-specific search term. You can mention these terms in your web pages, blog posts, and meta descriptions. As far as the content is concerned, you should ensure that it is purely valuable and helpful for the local customers. It will help you establish your authority in the market.
3. NAP Consistency
While doing local SEO, you should consistently maintain the Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) of your business across your website, social media profiles, local directories, and more. When you keep your relevant information consistent, Google’s search engine verifies your business as credible and reliable information and highly improves your local and overall search ranking.
4. Online Customer Reviews
Online customer reviews are one of the essential factors in establishing your business’s trustworthiness and credibility. In simple words, Google gives you star ratings based on your customer reviews and feedback that is properly highlighted by the Google search pages. These reviews play a crucial role in convincing your customers to buy your products. Therefore, you have to make specific strategies to get customer reviews.
5. Citations and Directories
Apart from Google My Business, there are other online directories where you can list your business and get local citations. For instance, you can utilize directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and other sector-specific directories to obtain valuable backlinks to establish your authority and relevance on the Google search engine. Make sure to fill in your business name, address, and phone number to create trustworthiness over these directories.
6. Local Pages For Your Services
If your business has multiple stores at different locations, you should create a dedicated service page for each locality. Many businesses make a similar mistake of representing different addresses on the contact page. It creates a mess. When you create a different page for each locality, you will use more specific keywords. Therefore, you will receive more targeted traffic.
7 Simple Step Strategy To Optimize Your Website For Local SEO
Step 1: List Your Business
First, you must list your SMB to local online directories, including Google My Business, Yelp, Bing Places, etc. It will help you represent your local business presence to your local customers. Here, you should also add your name, address, phone number, product categories, and all other information regarding your business.
Step 2: Implement Local Keywords
When you have listed your website presence over the local directories, you need to add local keywords widely used by your targeted customers. You can prominently use the Google Keyword Planner and Moz’s Keyword Explorer to find relevant keywords for your business.
Step 3: Add Reviews and Ratings
You should add reviews and ratings as local SEO strategies because it will make the search engine realize that your business also has various real customers. Therefore, it encourages your search ranking. You have to provide certain customer benefits in exchange for getting reviews and ratings, as no one quickly provides ratings and reviews.
Step 4: Strengthen Your Website With Local Backlinks
Small business SEO allows you to create local web pages linked to your main website. Since these local web pages get genuine traffic from the residents, it positively impacts your main business website and increases your credibility and trustworthiness. Moreover, you will receive the visibility and reputation for your website through valuable links.
Step 5: Mobile Friendly Website
Mobile devices are more often used by the users for the local searches. Thus, you must make your websites mobile-friendly under the local SEO. Mobile-friendly websites will help you attract more visitors and increase your conversion rate.
Step 6: Utilize Local Structured Data Markup
Structured Data Markup is referred to as a microdata that generally adds to your website’s code. It helps you add certain additional information about the services, customer reviews, and products of your business. Data Markup helps the search engine to better understand your content and provide you local ranking over the SERPs.
Step 7: Optimize Voice Search In Your Business
You would have seen the increasing buzz of voice command technologies such as Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. People generally prefer to search things over voice commands instead of manually writing all the searches. Therefore, you have to make your website optimized for voice search. You need to include conversational & natural language and long-tail keywords in your local web pages to get easily recognized by voice searches.
Wrap Up
Local SEO is a powerful tool to increase your site’s ranking and drive natural traffic. It can help you compete with large companies as well in terms of ranking and authority. Laconicworld provides valuable information to help businesses understand the power of local SEO service and how it can benefit them. We hope this article helps you find all the required information to understand the power of local SEO.
