What Is Local SEO? A Simple How-To Guide for Small Businesses

Local SEO means optimizing your business’s website so that it ranks higher in maps listings on search engines like Google. This way, your local target audience is more likely to see your website when they use relevant search terms. This involves making sure your website includes your business address and city name in the right places, according to Yoast.

In this article, we’ll cover:

• What Is Local SEO?
• How Important Is Local SEO?
• How Can You Optimize for Getting Found in Local Searches?

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO means optimizing your business’s website to make sure people who live in your business’s area are able to find your website online when searching for related terms. SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization.”

Local SEO can be used by local businesses like shops or offices where there’s lots of foot traffic. Local SEO helps people find your business in person. Local SEO is also used by businesses that don’t have a walk-in shop or office but are selling to a local audience, such as a home cleaning business. In this case, local SEO helps these businesses appear higher in map listings.

How Important Is Local SEO?

Local SEO is very important if you’re looking to attract an audience in the same geographical region where your business is located. You need to optimize your website so your potential customers know where you’re located and can find you there, according to Yoast.

An e-commerce store wouldn’t need to worry about local SEO because their customers can come from anywhere in the world and they don’t have a physical shop.

But local SEO would be important to an independent pet shop, a personal trainer or a lawyer, for example. 

How Can You Optimize for Getting Found in Local Searches?

It’s easiest to be found in local searches if you already have a street address in the area of city you want to optimize for.

If you don’t have a street address, you can add content about your target area though this may result in unnecessary pages with content that doesn’t relate well to your business, according to Yoast.

Here are seven tips to optimize for getting found in local searches:

1. List your address correctly. You need to add certain tags to the code containing your address on your website. This Yoast plug-in will help you do this.
2. Add a Google My Business listing. Add your Google My Business listing, upload photos, get verified. You can get customer review this way, too. Make sure the name, address and phone number listed is the same one as on your website.
3. Make sure your Facebook page has your address. You can make it a page for a local business here.
4. Add your address to local directory websites. Add your Name, Address and Phone Number and contact details to your listing on sites like Yelp. You’ll also want to make sure you clean up any old address information that exists on the web as this bring down your rankings.
5. Network. Ask other local businesses that relate to your own to swap links on your respective websites.
6. Monitor social mentions. Check if your business is being mentioned on social media and engage with any mentions. Search engines monitor whether your business feedback is positive or negative and rank you accordingly.
7. Write about your location. Mention your city or region in your website copy, not just your address footer. Write about why you’re located in this place, why you’re the best in your region etc.

People also ask:

• What Is Local SEO Marketing?
• What Are Local SEO Citations?

What Is Local SEO Marketing?

Local SEO marketing is any marketing you do online to promote a location-based business that interacts with its customers in person. Local SEO marketing can be done by all types of businesses from small independent establishments to big box chain stores.

SEO is an acronym that stands for “search engine optimization. Local SEO marketing relies on a set on techniques to improve a business’s visibility on the internet to a local audience.

Having a Google My Business listing, links and mentions from social media and quality websites and having consistent name, address and phone number listings wherever your business information is listed are all ways to make your business more visible online.

What Are Local SEO Citations?

Local SEO citations are any mentions of your business information (name, address, phone number) on the internet. These citations can appear on social media, on local business directories like Yelp or on websites. More local SEO citations means more visibility for your business online and possibly better search engine rankings (local SEO or “search engine optimization”), according to Moz.

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