You’ve most likely heard that search engine optimisation (SEO) is a key digital marketing strategy. Ranking higher in local search results is one of the best ways to attract more traffic to your website. By implementing a successful local SEO strategy around your target audience, keyword research, high-quality content, customer reviews and improving user experience, you will be able to boost your brand visibility and increase your sales.
This blog post will firstly explain what local SEO is, and local SEO best practices you should be using in 2023.
What Is Local SEO?
Local SEO involves taking steps to ensure that your website ranks higher on search engine results pages in your proximate geographical region. It primarily involves improving your website’s link popularity, content relevance, and technical configuration. Localised SEO services are unique in the sense that you don’t have to pay to be prioritised over other websites – a key difference that separates local SEO efforts from Google Ads management.
What are the best local search engine optimization tactics in 2023?
A fully optimised Google Business Profile (GBP)
Formerly Google My Business, a Google Business Profile is a free business listing where you provide details such as your business name, phone number, location, products, services, and photos of the business.
People can also write customer reviews on your GBP are one of the best ways a local business can build social proof . Positive reviews help bring customers to your website increase foot traffic. Negative reviews can offer invaluable feedback on how to improve customer service. You can, and should, respond to positive and negative reviews on your business listing.
Local Link Building
Local link building is a process of acquiring backlinks from local websites. You can get the links on local directory listings and crucially, get listed on high quality websites where your competitors are, too. It is also possible to get local citations, claim unlinked mentions, or reclaim lost links.
Accurate Local Citations
A local citation is essentially data on another website that lists your business Name, Address, Phone Number and Website (NAPW). It’s essential this data is accurate and it’s one of a number of local ranking factors you need to get right. If your business has moved, the last thing you need is for a customer to stumble across an old address and phone number. Building new local citations and cleaning up old ones is a must for any local business.
Location-Specific Landing Pages
Location-specific landing pages contain content that is specific to the geographical area of your business. If your business operates in several locations, you will need to create multiple local landing pages. These landing pages are crucial for local businesses that want to attract and convert clients who are in their geographic region.
Why Local SEO matters to every small business
Local SEO has been around for a while, so why should you use it in 2023? Here are the main reasons why earning organic traffic from local search rankings is a complement to your traditional SEO efforts.
Create a Better Visitor Experience
Your business needs to create a better customer experience so that customers can recommend it to their friends or buy more goods and services from you. One of the best ways to create a better visitor experience is by using multiple local SEO strategies.
You can start by posting relevant content. Relevant content provides answers to common customer questions. As a result, you are able to better fulfil the needs of potential customers.
Creating service pages for each of your services can help customers navigate your website easily. Not only does a service page provide more opportunities to use keywords, but it can also help you to offer thorough explanations about your products and your background.
It will also help if you increase site speed. Your website should be responsive and free of any unnecessary redirects. You can also use caching and frequently test your website’s responsiveness with the Google PageSpeed tool.
Additionally, the use of videos, infographics, images and other forms of rich media can grab users’ attention. It will also help if you use headers and subheaders to break down large blocks of text. Other ways to improve user experience include using external and internal links as well as metadata to help a website visitor find information quickly on your site.
Finally, ensure that your website is optimised for mobile. This is especially important since more than half of online visitors use smartphones to access websites.
Improve Trust and Credibility
A higher ranking on local search engine results can show potential clients that you are a credible resource. Your credibility will be boosted even further if people find the exact information they are searching for on your site. With time, they will begin to regard your website as an authority in your industry.
There are also other ways to use local SEO to gain the confidence of visitors. For instance, you can embed Google Maps to show your physical store or office. Furthermore, you can use schema markup on your site to provide Google with auxiliary information about your content.
Inbound recommendations and endorsements can also help your website’s reputation. Online reviews and testimonials can be showcased in the About Us section of your website, on product and category pages, and even on the home page. This tactic is a great way for local businesses to leverage the power of the herd. A popular local business is busy for a reason – they provide an outstanding product or service and customer advocate for the brand.
While we’re on the topic of trust, see our blog post on choosing an SEO company.
Boost Web Traffic
You can use local SEO to get a higher placement for your website in Google search. For instance, you can leverage long-tail keywords, guest blogging, and topic clusters to draw more people to your site. Other tactics include testing your meta titles to optimise CTR and removing pages with declining traffic. The resulting higher local Google search ranking can attract more visitors to your website and physical store.
When more people visit your website, you will increase the number of opportunities your business has. For instance, there will be more people interested in subscribing to your newsletters, signing a contract, getting a quote, and attending your events.
Search engine optimisation also ensures that bots do not account for a huge percentage of your website traffic. Instead, you are able to get qualified traffic that increases your conversion levels and greatly impacts your bottom line.
Enhance Search Visibility (Rankings)
Local SEO is one of the best ways to increase your products or services’ overall presence in the local market. It ensures that the people who find your business did it on their own. Additionally, local SEO increases the quality of new daily visitors by guaranteeing that new website visitors are people who are interested in your products and services.
Enhancing online visibility is also key to building a unique identity for any local business in the marketplace.
Understand Your Customers
You can use certain local SEO tactics to gain a better understanding of your target audience. For instance, you will know what local people are actively searching for when conducting keyword research. This will not only inform your marketing strategies but can also help you redesign your services or products to meet local market demands.
By understanding your customers, you will be able to meet their expectations while building an effective brand and PR strategy. Knowing your target audience can also lead to repeat business. Moreover, it’s easier to avoid the wrong messaging when you understand who makes up your target audience.
Increase Customer Engagement
Effective local SEO practices can help search engines to access and index your site content. This starts by understanding user intent and the type of personas that are more likely to search for specific keywords.
Did you know approx. 34% of desktop users do not leave the search results page because their questions are answered by the featured snippet. This means that your website may rank first in the search engine results, but it may still not attract web traffic. Consequently, your local SEO strategies shouldn’t concentrate on optimising for search engines only.
In 2023, local SEO must help you to increase the amount of time a user spends on your pages before going back to the search engine. If your website page provides relevant information, the user will be more engaged and spend more time on the page.
Increased user engagement allows you to know how your clients feel about your service or product. You’re also able to understand their needs and what you can improve to offer a better experience. Moreover, by enhancing user engagement, you will be able to uncover upsell opportunities, streamline your purchase cycles, and develop a customer-centric approach.
Reduce Marketing Cost
Search engine optimisation is cost-effective because it allows you to focus on local customers who have a high chance of purchasing your services or products online. For instance, your web traffic will generally be made of people who are actively searching for services or products like yours. This will eventually reduce your customer acquisition cost. Read our post about what proper SEO costs in Australia.
Another benefit of local SEO is that you will be able to get a better website architecture and improve navigation. This is because SEO emphasises the use of internal links.
Get Powerful Marketing Insights
Measuring the success of your marketing efforts is critical to success. Fortunately, it is possible to use local SEO metrics to overhaul, refine, or adjust your marketing strategies.
Overall keyword footprint and search volume are invaluable marketing metrics. You can use these metrics to determine the value of an SEO campaign. For instance, you will be able to know the keywords that bring in more conversions and those that should be abandoned.
Quantifying local SEO also helps you to understand the type of content that is bringing in the most web traffic. Are your podcasts doing better than your blogs? Does the article on starting a business perform better than the one with finance tips?
Learn of New Opportunities
Doing competitor research is a core part of local SEO. When you use SEO to conduct a competitor analysis, you will learn about new competitors in the neighbourhood and get a snapshot of how they are acquiring new customers. You’ll also get to know their favourite keywords as well as how they conduct link-building.
For example, you can review your competitors’ websites to see how they package their services or products. You can also check the type of content that they prefer to use. This research may even encourage you to introduce new products and services that work well in the local market.
Use Local SEO to Kick-Start Your Marketing Campaign
Local search engine optimisation is one of the best ways to increase your web traffic and convert more leads. In 2023, local SEO remains a critical part of any business’s marketing strategies. Book a free 30 minute phone or Zoom consult, or email us to learn how we can help improve your local search presence, today.
