5 tips to catapult your local SEO ranking

Posted June 3, 2019 by Lee

If you want to rank higher in your local area for SEO, chances are that you are a service-based business or that you have a physical location where local people can come to shop with you. This means you don’t want people finding you from far across the world, since they might not be able to create any sales. So, how do you focus on people in your local area?

Get on Google Maps

This is a big, important step, and a lot of smaller businesses aren’t taking it. Everyone has the right to suggest an edit to Google Maps, telling the service where to find the physical location of a particular business.

If you add yourself to Google Maps, you will take ownership of the listing and you can suggest new edits at any time. If someone else has already added you, you can also claim ownership of the business by proving who you are. This will really help, as you can keep all of the details up to date and fill in any fields which might have been missed.

When people search in your local area, a map can appear with the locations of their search results if they are physical businesses. This is why you want to be on that map!

Use location-based keywords

Make sure that your keywords include an indication of where you are based, so that you can gather local traffic from those who are deliberately searching in that area alone.

For example, using the keyword ‘hairdresser’ is fine, but it won’t help Google narrow down your place in search results. ‘Hairdresser London’ is a lot more precise, and means that you will show up when someone is looking for your service in the city. To go even better, you can use ‘hairdresser Hammersmith’ – narrowing in on your precise location so that you are not missed by nearby residents. Using a mixture of all three while you optimise your pages means you won’t be left out of any results, and will show up no matter what level is being searched.

Set up Google My Business

GMB, or Google My Business, is another sector of Google’s systems that you can set up to show it who and where you are. This gives much-needed details right in the search results, so that customers don’t even need to navigate to your website if you are in a hurry.

You will need to provide contact details, a description of your business, and your business hours. You can also ask for customer reviews with this service, helping you to build up a better reputation that will cause Google to boost you further.

Use text, not images

Make sure that your contact details are listed in actual text on your website, rather than being included as an image. This is particularly pertinent for websites that were designed before responsive sites became mainstream, as you may have wanted everything to display in a certain way. However, putting that information into an image means that Google can’t read it.

Putting it into text will instantly give you a local rankings boost, and also improve your level of trust as a business for Google. It shows that you are legitimate and do have real opening hours, and so on.

Check for duplicate profiles

Has more than one profile been set up for your business on GMB or Google Maps? If so, this can be confusing for customers. Get rid of all of them except for the one you control – you can talk to Google directly to get this fixed, or log in to whichever account created them to delete them yourself.

This can be especially detrimental if you have moved business address and still have the old one listed! Google won’t know where to send your potential customers.

Your local SEO ranking may be more important than your global or national ranking if you are a local-based business. Keep this in mind while you are optimising your site, as you will want to focus on the approach that works for you. Following these tips will give you a quick boost with little effort.

Categories: SEO