BruceClay – 25 Local SEO Techniques for Increasing Your Google Local Search Visibility

Local search optimization means building your site so that it is visible for people searching for products and services within your geographical region.

First, let’s review the top local SEO ranking factors that influence search ranking performance.

• Relevance and proximity
• Prominence in local search
• Google Business Profile (GBP)

Relevance: This measure indicates the extent to which your company fits with what a user is looking for. To increase your company’s relevance in search results, ensure all online platforms (like Google Business Profile) accurately represent what services your business is offering.

Proximity: This refers to how close your business is located from those conducting online searches and is one of the primary local SEO factors.

What is Prominence? Prominence is essentially how recognizable your company is. It’s determined by the volume of information available about your business online — links, articles and directories included. Your Google Business Profile listing’s completeness and online customer reviews also influence your firm’s prominence.

Building Prominence: Frequently updating your Business Profile listing, getting quality backlinks and developing a robust presence in local directories can all contribute to your prominence.

Complete All Sections: Fill out every part of your Google Business Profile listing. You should enter not only the basics like the business’s name, location and contact phone number but also the categories, attributes, services and products.

Intentionally Utilize Keywords: Weave pertinent keywords throughout your company description and any posts. Using strategic keywords helps Google better understand your business, which can give you a boost in local search rankings. Be sure to avoid keyword stuffing.

NAP Consistency: Your business’s name, address and phone number (NAP) should be identical on all search engines and online properties. When they’re inconsistent, Google may not know which listing to display. Customers may also receive incorrect or incomplete information about your business. This leads to an undesirable user experience that could wreak havoc on your local SEO rankings.

Tracking Citations: Specialized tools like Moz Local or BrightLocal can synthesize and track your local citations. Through the consistent auditing of these citations, you can promote consistency, positively affecting your local SEO standing.

The Power of Reviews: Online reviews matter to both customers and Google. Customers view reviews as social proof that your business is worth frequenting, while Google uses the reviews to gauge user experiences. Urge happy customers to share their positive reviews; reply to them right away to show that you value customer feedback.

Managing Negative Reviews: It may be tempting to get upset by one-star reviews. However, it’s important to remember that you should handle negative feedback with plenty of care. When responding, tactfully address the problems brought up by the customer and then offer resolutions.

If you take this route, potential customers will see that you are responsive and concerned about their experience. This alone can dull the impact that not-so-good feedback can have on your SEO. You may also want to pay attention to the language your customers use in negative reviews, as this can give you essential clues for improving your business model.

4. Optimize Your Website for Local Search

Mobile-Friendly Design: Make sure that your site loads very quickly and is easy to navigate via mobile means. Mobile devices don’t display much text, so opt for simple buttons and links that are easy to click. Any site text should also be enlargeable. As for images, ensure they’re large enough for users to view without slowing the site down.

Local Keywords: Sprinkle local keywords in key areas on your site pages, from the title tags and meta descriptions to your headers and more. Taking the time to do so assists search engines in determining your website’s relevance to users’ local search queries.

Why Mobile Matters: Mobile web presence should sit at the top of every business’s priority list if they want to improve online visibility and spark growth. Optimization for mobile searches makes perfect sense, given that the majority of web traffic originates on smartphones and other mobile devices. Moreover, Google’s Mobile-First Indexing gives more weight to mobile website versions than desktop versions. To bolster user experience and search rankings, businesses should give mobile optimization all the attention it deserves.

Implementing Local Business Schema: Add local business-specific schema markup, such as LocalBusiness schema, to the code on the backend of your site. This can include your business’s name, location, contact number, operating hours and more.

Putting out content that appeals to your local audience is an important part of engaging prospective customers and skyrocketing your local search rankings.

Focus on Local Interests: Your content should resonate with your local audience. For example, if you run a restaurant, your content should focus on local food events, trends, culture, etc. You could include several types of content, including blog posts, news and community announcements related to the product that you offer.

Include Local Keywords: Incorporate local keywords into your pieces in a way that’s natural and fluid. Doing so helps search engines distinguish between your website and others with more generic or universal content.

Why Blogging Matters: Use a blog to provide fresh, location-specific content to your website visitors and searchers. Consistently updated blogs can increase your rankability for various local search terms and attract more traffic as a result.

Choosing Topics: Select localized topics when you write your blog. These topics may pertain to local events, advice on local services, or local business stories. Be sure to utilize geo-specific keywords so that the search engines can tell that your content is for a local audience.

Creating Location-Specific Pages: If your business has multiple locations, create a landing page for each location. Fine-tune each page using location-specific keywords and infuse relevant information into it. Directions, local reviews and contact information are all appropriate.

Improving User Experience: Make sure each landing page offers a simple user experience, with crystal clear calls to action, smooth navigation and tailored content that speaks directly to your local audience’s needs.

Joint Marketing Efforts: Jump into joint marketing efforts with businesses in the area. Along with these local businesses, you may co-host events, back local causes or partner on a promotional campaign. Collaborations like the examples previously listed frequently lead to valuable backlinks from local websites, boosting your local SEO efforts.

Press Releases and Local News: Local news outlets are backlinking goldmines. You can take advantage of this resource by distributing press releases about noteworthy events, new product launches or community involvement. Doing so will attract local journalists who may be inspired to write a feature about your business with a link to your site.

Getting Listed in Local Directories: Yelp, Yellow Pages and the Chamber of Commerce are the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to link acquisition. Don’t miss the opportunity to have your company showcased in these directories. For the purposes of local SEO, be consistent with your company’s name, address and phone number (NAP).

Optimizing Directory Listings: Getting your company listed is just part of the equation; you need to continually tweak every one of your listings. Include a complete business description, relevant keywords and the link to your website. Select directories will also show images and videos you provide. All of this works together to help your listing stand out. It can also boost engagement among searchers who stumble upon your listings.

Hosting Local Events: If you’re up for it, you can even host your own exclusive event. Create an event page on your website and ask local websites and bloggers to advertise. In doing so, you’ll have numerous backlinks and increased visibility in the SERPs.

Targeting Local Blogs: Scope out trendy local blogs in your business’s industry or niche or those that closely align with your firm’s ideologies. Then, reach out to the blogs’ creators and write guest posts that pique their readers’ interests. In exchange for your efforts, you’ll obtain a backlink pointing to your site, creating an increase in local traffic and improved SEO readiness.

Writing Relevant and Valuable Content: When drafting your guest blogs, the goal should always be to create content that delivers loads of value to the local audience. This not only improves the chances of the website owner accepting your guest post but also inspires readers to stop by your website via the backlink in your post.

Understanding your competitors’ strategic initiatives and potential moves is invaluable when executing local SEO updates. For a highly effective competitor analysis, you’ll do a comprehensive analysis of your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses to uncover areas where you can pull ahead of them.

Competitor Research: Start by figuring out who your top local competitors are. Then, use tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to study their SEO approaches, from keyword usage to backlink profile management to content strategy and more.

Benchmarking: Survey your website’s performance against that of your competitors. Look into any areas where they surpass you, and think about how you can close the gap in those specific areas. Optimizing your Business Profile, increasing your localized content and improving your website’s technical SEO might be in order.

Keyword Gap Analysis: Find out which keywords your competitors rank for that you do not. Tools like Ahrefs’ Keyword Gap and SEMrush’s Keyword Gap Analysis tool make this tremendously easy. If you can fill these gaps, you can rake in more traffic through local search.

Optimizing for New Keywords: After you’ve identified keyword gaps in the above step, revamp your web content to target those keyword terms and phrases. You could create landing pages, update existing content or write new blog posts from scratch.

SEO Tools: Use Google Analytics, Moz Local and BrightLocal to gather insight into your local SEO performance. All of these tools survey your keyword rankings, dissect your traffic sources and highlight weak areas in need of improvement.

Tracking your local SEO success is essential. Otherwise, you won’t know whether and to what extent your efforts are working. By consistently observing key metrics, you can modify your strategies for better results overall.

Google Analytics: Set up your Google Analytics account to keep an eye on local website traffic. The geographic location report tells companies where their website visitors are funneling in from and how they interact with different areas of your site.

Google Search Console: Utilize Google Search Console to take a deep look at your site’s search engine performance. The queries report points out which locally significant keywords are bringing search traffic to your site and how all of your site pages are ranking on the Google search platform.

Local Search Rankings: Habitually monitor your rankings for local keywords with tools like Moz Local or BrightLocal. They make it easier to track your pages’ positions in the local search results.

Traffic from Local Searches: Consider the volume of visitors finding your site through local searches. Search intently for trends and blips that occur around the same time as your SEO efforts.

Conversion Rates for Local Keywords: Track rates of conversion for local keywords. This will tell you how effectively your site can turn local searchers into customers.

Number of Positive Reviews: Observe over time how many positive reviews your business has. A surge in positive feedback typically correlates with improved rankings on local search.

Reviewing Analytics: Review the data you obtained from your analytics tools to judge your local SEO strategies’ effectiveness. If certain strategies are underperforming, consider making adjustments.

Continuous Improvement: Local SEO is very much a constant process. Continually examine your strategic initiatives, implement data-driven updates and stay abreast of the most current trends and algorithm shifts so you won’t fall behind your industry opponents.

If you want to cultivate and preserve a strong local SEO presence, you’ll need to avoid certain common mistakes. The mistakes we’ll examine below can negatively influence both your rankings and visibility. This is why you need to be aware of them and take measures ahead of time to evade them.

Why Duplicates are Bad: Duplicate listings throw off search engines as well as customers. They may also diminish your rankings and contribute to a less-than-ideal user experience. Make sure your business is listed only once on each platform.

Cleaning Up Duplicates: Moz Local, Yext and other software solutions can be used to find and remove duplicate listings. Consolidating your online presence puts you in a favorable spot from a local SEO standpoint.

Impact of Negative Reviews: Negative reviews can do a number on any company’s reputation and local search rankings. So, addressing them effectively is imperative. When you reply, use a formal yet empathetic tone, and be sure to respond to each of the reviewer’s issues.

Turning Negatives into Positives: In opposition to what some may believe, a properly managed negative review reflects favorably on your company’s perceived integrity. By proving that your business is responsive and happy to resolve clients’ problems, you can put potential customers’ minds at ease and win their trust.

Website Audits: Do site audits on a regular basis to uncover tech problems, including link issues, low page loading speeds or lacking mobile optimization. These are some of the main problems that can drastically affect your local SEO and user experience.

Fixing Issues: Tools and resources like Google PageSpeed Insights, Screaming Frog and Ahrefs can be instrumental in detecting and resolving technical problems. Focus intently on any issues that apply to mobile web visitors or hamper search engine indexing.

Local SEO is ever-evolving. Trends constantly shift and technological improvements impact how companies conduct local SEO strategies. Stay current on these evolving trends to remain a viable competitor in the marketplace.

Voice Search Optimization: Considering the growing popularity of voice-activated devices like Google Home and Amazon Alexa, enhancing your site for voice searches is ever-important. Favor long-tail SEO keywords and natural language queries to reel in more search traffic from voice searches.

Conversational Content: Voice search queries tend to be on the conversational side. Creating content that imitates ordinary speaking patterns can bring you more success with voice searches. This might include frequently asked questions, conversational blog posts or content that clearly answers common questions.

AI and SEO: Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in search engine rankings. Google’s RankBrain is a helpful AI-powered tool that displays even more pertinent results through their platform.

These expert-level strategies give companies the means to greatly boost their local search visibility, draw more customers in and ultimately enjoy more growth.

Utilizing advanced local SEO techniques is only partly about getting your business listed on Google Maps. It’s about putting together a wide-ranging strategy that encompasses Google Business Profile optimization, local citation building and management, online review oversight and trend-watching.

As the local SEO landscape continues to develop, firms that are pre-emptive and informed will flourish.

Need to improve your local search visibility? Our SEO experts can help!

Whether you want to elevate your Google Business Profile, manage your online customer reviews or build those vital local backlinks, we can help you unlock higher rankings in local search results and increase traffic flow to your business without the headache of dealing with SEO on your own.