How to Use the Right Local SEO Services to Rank Your Local Business Website
Do you want your business to be found in local search results on Google? Read on to discover how you can use different local SEO services to rank your website.
Local SEO is important to businesses that have physical locations or serve geographical areas. If you search for any keyword that relates to your business and a map appears underneath your search results, then you can use local SEO to rank your local business website.
What are Local SEO Services?
Local SEO services refer to digital marketing services that help businesses to rank in local search results. For instance, local SEO can help a makeup artist studio to rank for the term “makeup artist near me” in searches that are done by nearby users.
Local SEO services are used by businesses that serve a particular geographical area. This includes local businesses such as grocery stores, bars, restaurants, and professionals such as lawyers, plumbers, makeup artists, electricians, real estate agents, and other professionals that serve a particular area. These businesses and professionals need to use local SEO services to rank their websites and generate new customers.
Local SEO Services and How They Help with Ranking
Although you may be aware of the importance of local SEO services for your business, you may still find it overwhelming. That is why it is important to use local SEO services that are suitable for your business needs and also fit your budget. Here are some local SEO services that both new and established services need to maximize the online presence of their businesses:
Local SEO Audit
Local SEO audit helps businesses to evaluate their current local SEO performance. It reflects the gaps in your local search strategy that you need to fill to increase your rankings. It can also help to drive targeted traffic, inspire more prospective customers to check out your business, and also get more sales. A local SEO audit is like a health check for a business’s SEO strategy.
You need to carry out a local SEO audit periodically. You should also remember to use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to measure the performance of your SEO strategies. An SEO API can also be used for the same purpose.
There are many factors that search engine algorithms use to rank a website in local searches. Some of the most important factors include:
- Google My Business
- On-page signals
- Review signals
- Behavioral signals
- Link signals
- Personalization, and
- Citation signals
Local Citations
Local citations are the information and references that pertain to a particular business. This includes the basic details about the nature of a business, the business’s location, and its contact details. The name, address, and phone number (or contact details) are the most information for a business. These are also referred to as the NAP details.
When building your local citation, you can incorporate the terms of payment of your business, business categories, images, and videos. The following are the most important directories that you need to have for your business citations:
- Microsoft Bing Maps
- Google My Business
- Yelp, and
Citations are important in helping search engines to confirm the existence, reliability, and legitimacy of a business. If the NAP details are relevant across several authority websites, then Google will be confident that the website exists and that the services you offer are reliable.
A survey carried out by Moz revealed that citations are the fifth most important factor that Google uses to rank local business websites. However, all SEOs do not believe that citations are still important. Even when the survey was carried out in 2018, some of the SEOs that participated in the survey revealed that citations were no longer important.
Although getting locations may not have a huge impact on your local business website rankings, citations from relevant and trusted sources can still help your business in some ways.
Local SEO Audit
Local SEO audit helps businesses to evaluate their current local SEO performance. It reflects the gaps in your local search strategy that you need to fill to increase your rankings. It can also help to drive targeted traffic, inspire more prospective customers to check out your business, and also get more sales. A local SEO audit is like a health check for a business’s SEO strategy.
You need to carry out a local SEO audit periodically. You should also remember to use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to measure the performance of your SEO strategies. An SEO API can also be used for the same purpose.
There are many factors that search engine algorithms use to rank a website in local searches. Some of the most important factors include:
- Google My Business
- On-page signals
- Review signals
- Behavioral signals
- Link signals
- Personalization, and
- Citation signals
On-Page Optimization
On-page search engine optimization is the optimization that you include on your site. It makes your website more valuable and usable to users, thereby improving your rankings in Google, Bing, and other search engine results.
Apart from increasing rankings, on-page SEO helps to generate more traffic to your website, and also increases conversions. Although it may take time to get results from on-page SEO, once it gets off the ground, it can skyrocket your rankings and sales.
There are many ranking factors when considering on-page SEO. It is important to optimize all the factors to improve your local business website’s ranking in search results and make your business more competitive.
The on-page optimization factors that you need to consider include:
- URL
- Meta description
- Title tag
- Heading tags
- Alt tags
- Keywords
- Website content
- Website speed
- Internal linking
- Images, and
- Mobile-friendliness of the website
Organic Links
Links are one of the most important factors for ranking websites. If you want to rank your local business’s website in Google, then you need to focus on getting high-quality backlinks.
Search engines, such as Google, use backlinks to rank businesses in local searches. Your business needs to be found in local searches since your consumers are already searching for your service. About 97% of consumers know more about a business on the internet. Also, 54% of Americans search for the local businesses they are interested in online.
Effective local link-building strategies require research, creativity, hard work, and perseverance. Here are some ways through which you can use local links to rank your local business website:
- Get relevant links from ranking websites
- Get the links that your competitors have
- Reclaim the links you’ve lost
- Build local citations
- Create content that is relevant to your locality
- Add internal links in your content
- Look for other opportunities to get local links
Content Creation
Local SEO is an effective strategy for small businesses that serve a specific geographic area. When you create content that focuses on local keywords and intent, you will be able to reduce the effect of competition and increase your likelihood of reaching your ideal audience. To optimize your website for local intent, your website must be mobile-friendly and you must also localize your schema markup.
According to a survey that was partly sponsored by Microsoft, just 17 percent of marketers used schema markup on their sites. Incorporating schema markup to your website portrays what your content is all about and the geographic area that your business serves. Although this doesn’t have a direct impact on rankings, it helps your website pages to be relevant to the local keywords that your web pages are targeting. This also helps your content to rank in local search results.
When you are creating content for local search intent, it is important to include local keywords into the title tag and meta description tag. This will enhance local ranking. Your content can also contain long-tail keywords to help your website rank geographically. For instance, overarching website pages may contain “Houston Makeup Artist Studio,” while you can have a blog post that includes “Best Makeup Artist Studios in Houston.”
Inserting Houston in both web pages, although important for the second page, will make Google index your website content for Houston and searches that have to do with makeup artist studio. It is also ideal to include geographic keywords close to the beginning of the tag to prevent them from being truncated in search engine results. This is important for businesses that serve different locations since they usually have the same location pages for different locations. Apart from updating your NAP information, you can also add other information like local landmarks that are nearby and reviews from local customers that you have offered your service to.
How to Find the Right Local SEO Service Provider
When looking for a local SEO company, it is important to consider a company that uses a blend of on-site and off-site strategies. In addition to this, here are other factors that you need to consider when you want to hire a local SEO service provider:
Referrals and previous relationships
Referrals and previous relationships are important factors that you need to consider because they help you to make decisions based on the experience your friends and colleagues had with the company.
The knowledge and processes of the company
The knowledge and process of the SEO company may include customer service, staff experience, transparency, reporting, and thought leadership. These attributes can help the company to deliver effective local SEO services for your company.
Online reviews, case studies, and references
Just like the knowledge and processes of the SEO company, the previous performance of the company includes case studies, online reviews, and client references. These portray the previous success of the company.
Consider your budget
Your SEO budget will determine the local SEO agencies that you will drop and the ones that you will consider for your service. Apart from making you comfortable once you start the local SEO process, it also keeps you from worrying about any financial issues while you are in the midst of the process. Feel free to explore all the payment options that the local SEO agencies you’re considering have to offer.
The expertise of the company
Although you may be enticed to hire the service of a local SEO company that offers all, your money will be best spent on a company that specializes in a specific service or industry. Trying to offer everything that relates to local SEO can be challenging and only a few agencies can effectively deliver such services. Check the agency you intend to hire to know if they are knowledgeable in your niche, problem areas, or industry.
Wrapping Up
Consumers are looking for efficient and quick ways to find local businesses that are in their geographic areas. If your business is not found in the local search results, you won’t make sales and won’t also record any growth in your business. According to Google, local searches are responsible for about 50 percent of mobile consumers that visit a store in a day. These people are in the mood to buy once they land in the store.
As discussed in this article, many factors work together in making your business rank in local search results. You need to consider those factors when you want to optimize your local business presence.
The right local SEO service provider will help your business to be found online when those in your geographic area search for the service you offer.
If you want to rank for the most important keywords in your industry, you should consider working with a reputable Local SEO Agency like Rank Fortress. They have consistently help local businesses dominate their SERPs, they can help you rank too.