Optimizing Your Website for Local Search – A Comprehensive Guide

Local search is a critical component of online marketing for brick-and-mortar businesses. It involves optimizing your website to ensure that your business’s NAP information is consistent across all directories and citations, as well as making sure your site is mobile-friendly.

Creating helpful and comprehensive guides is a great way to build trust with your audience. The most effective guides will meet your audience at their level of understanding, and walk them through a step-by-step process.

Keyword Research

Optimizing for local search requires a distinct set of skills that differs from traditional SEO. A successful strategy involves a number of best practices that can help businesses stand out online and in-person.

Start by researching local keywords that reflect your geographic area and the products or services you offer. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to discover relevant keywords and evaluate their search volume and competition.

Get Best Google Local Marketing for Your Business

 

Incorporate these keywords into your website’s content, title tags, meta descriptions, and other on-page elements. Keeping these keywords consistent across your site can help search engines understand your relevance to local searches.

Additionally, consider creating top-of-the-funnel content that targets the types of questions your target audience is searching for. This could include a listicle like ‘The top 10 plumbing services in Manhattan’ or an ultimate guide to hiking trails in Colorado. This can help you establish yourself as an authority in your industry and drive traffic to your site.

On-Page Optimization

As part of local search optimization, on-page optimization helps individual website pages rank higher in search engine results pages. This increases the number of visitors to your site and provides more opportunities to convert visitors into customers.

A page’s title is an important on-page element that informs both search engines and users of the topic of the page. A descriptive, relevant, and unique title can significantly impact your local SEO performance.

 

On-page optimization also includes adding geo-targeted content, including a unique and relevant meta description, business hours, parking/transportation information, promotions, and testimonials from happy customers. This content is essential to proving to Google that you are an authority in your vertical and a trusted source for local searches.

In addition, local on-page optimization requires creating and optimizing location pages for each of your brick-and-mortar locations. This ensures consistency in NAP (name, address, phone number) and increases the chances of your business showing up in search for queries that include a location or “near me”.

Google My Business (GMB) Optimization

Google Search and Maps are critical platforms for any local business to be found online. When users conduct searches on these platforms, they typically see three local search results called the local 3-pack. To have a chance at being listed in this 3-pack, it’s important for small businesses to optimize their Google Business Profile (GBP).

The GBP offers many opportunities to include key keywords and provide relevant information to Google’s search algorithm. For example, the GBP allows for the selection of a primary and up to 9 additional business categories that help Google match profiles to search intent and relevancy.

Additionally, the GBP provides for reviews and other content that can be indexed as a part of a business’s online presence. When used properly, these can be a powerful ranking factor for local search. Whitespark can provide guidance to help you identify the best local ranking factors, implement a plan to improve them, and monitor your progress over time.

Off-Page Optimization

Off-page optimization is any strategy you apply to improve your website’s ranking outside its own pages. This includes strategies like link building, content marketing, and social media.

Backlinks are one of the most important off-page SEO factors. Search engines view them as citations for your content, and both the number and quality of your backlinks are considered when ranking websites. It’s also important to note that not all links are created equal, and it’s best to focus on gaining high-quality, relevant backlinks that are likely to send positive off-page SEO signals.

 

Aside from link building, other off-page SEO tactics include guest blogging (curating unique content and promoting it on relevant sites), social media marketing (sharing your content on multiple platforms to generate engagement), and even user-generated content (UGC) such as forums and comment sections. While some of these off-page SEO tactics have less of an impact on search engine rankings, they all contribute to your overall ranking potential.