Grow Your Online Visibility Within Your Target Neighborhood and Locations
When you're looking for a local business that sells your favorite brand of shirt, will fix your bike, or has that new book a friend recommended - how do you find it?
Like everyone else, you pull out your smartphone and use your favorite search engine for a quick online search.
Your customers are no different. When they're looking for products and services, they go online to find them.
By the numbers, billions of people are doing local searches on Google daily. As of 2018 - 46% of all Google searches are looking for local information (Search Engine Roundtable). 97% admit to searching online to find a local business (Hubspot), and 88% of local searches result in either a call or a visit to the business within 24 hours (Nectafy).
Knowing this, it's imperative that you invest in making sure your business represents your products and services well and is fully optimized to capitalize on the customers that are in need and nearby. A robust local SEO strategy is the key to driving more people into your store, regardless of if you have one or five hundred locations.
Here at Landmark SEO, we focus on increasing conversions.
What is local search optimization?
Local SEO is the process of improving your online presence to get more business from customers in your area (local searchers). These searches are taking place on all forms of a search engine but tend to focus on Google since it captures +95% of mobile search traffic.
For Landmark, local is where it all started. Hell, that's where the name came from. SEO so good you stick out like a landmark in the SERP, a brand everyone recognizes because of how well you rank.
We develop local search strategies for single brick-and-mortar to multi-location brands with thousands of locations. It's not a detriment to have a physical footprint; most of the time, we find it to be a benefit when trying to build out a digital footprint. As the physical and digital worlds have continued to meld, with Buy-online and Pick-up instore (BOPUS) programs, we've continued to see search engines make more space for local businesses to operate with success. We are well-versed in every mobile platform and application that supports the growth of local businesses.
At Landmark, we tend to think about local SEO as The Local Domination Square (working title), with each of the following making one side of square, or rectangle rather:
Google Business Profile / GMB Optimization:
Fully built out products, services, hours, high quality + representative photos, along with leveraging Google Posts when relevant.
Review Acquisition / Reputation Management:
Not just on Google but other locally relevant profiles and platforms. It's imperative that you're focused on making the ask to your customers and getting a sense for how well you serve them and how they feel about the products and experience you provide... on any platform, they are most comfortable with.
Website & Content:
A well-optimized, well-structured site that fully informs users not only what you do but where you do it is a significant portion of the local landscape. You have to ensure that your site is built out and provides users with the details they need when deciding to visit or making a call for service.
Locally Relevant Backlinks:
The process of acquiring locally relevant / industry-specific backlinks is very different than the usual backlinking effort, but it's a differentiator for the businesses that take it seriously, and it's not as hard as you might think if you're active in the community you serve.
How does local SEO work?
There are two sides to the coin at this point. Google is continuously evolving its presentation of this, but at this point, we have "map pack" results and standard organic "blue link" results that you usually see in the SERP.
Map Pack:
The Map Pack (or Local Pack) is the portion of a search engine results page on Google that shows the top local businesses that are relevant, authoritative, highly rated, and nearby to your location or designated location.
Organic Search Results:
These organic results listed below the local pack are typical results relevant to the locations listed above and other results that pertain to your search. These are commonly called "10 blue links" and appear below the local pack.
Local SEO Performance Factors:
Numerous factors impact a business's ability to rank for locally relevant searches. Below we go over a few of the most important factors and how best to approach them.
Google Business Profile (aka, Google My Business):
This is a local business listing directly within the Google ecosystem. It's a free platform that enables your business to rank in the map pack and on Google Maps.
Generally speaking, this tends to be the most important factor when it comes to local SEO, both in the Map Pack and within regular organic searches as well.
Google states that 70% of customers are more likely to visit a business with a complete Google Business Profile. Additionally, customers perceive businesses with a complete GBP to be 2.7x more reputable than those without.
Some best practices directly from Google include:
- Set a specific business category
- Set your business hours
- Set holiday hours
- Add your address
- Set a service area (if you deliver to customers)
- Add products and services you offer
- Add photos of your business and the products you offer
- Ask your customers for reviews
Business Citations:
Business listings and citations, also known as NAP Citations, are typically very similar to the phone book but in digital format. Generally, these business listings are locally relevant or industry-specific and house information such as the Name of your business, address, and phone number.
These business directories are a standard practice when it comes to making sure you attract the right business.
Typically, these are leveraged by more trafficked platforms to check the validity of certain data fields as information changes over time. It's important that your listings stay consistent across the internet.
Best practices:
- Leverage listings at big data aggregators (U.S. includes, Data Axel, Neustar (localeze) and Forsquare)
- Submit to the big first party data sets (U.S. includes, Apple Maps (Places on Maps), Bing Places, Facebook, Yellow Pages, Yelp, etc.)
- Submit to other listings and directories specific to your industry and local area
- Keep your listings consistent (exactly the same: same name, address, phone number) everywhere you're listed
Reviews:
The quality and quantity of your reviews matter more now than ever before. Google has doubled down on customer experience online, and we can be sure that this takes into consideration the sentiment of how customers are treated once they walk into your store as well.
Reviews deal directly with two out of the three main local ranking factors: Relevance and Prominence.
Relevance: Meaning how well your business matches what a user is looking for. So if you make the best doughnuts in town and every review says so, that would make you very likely to rank for doughnut shop-related searches by customers nearby.
Prominence: If enough of your customers begin to spread the word and you get written up in your local news, that would lend to being well-known for how good your doughnuts are.
Some best practices from Google itself to ensure you're maximizing the impact of reviews:
- Verify your Business Profile
- Remind your customers to leave a review
- Respond to your reviews and build customer trust
- Do not offer incentives for reviews on GBP
Backlinks:
Backlinks to a website are very important and act like votes for your site. A backlink suggests some level of authority relating to a specific topic, industry, product, or service. It's no different for local SEO.
There has always been a strong correlation between a quality backlink and organic traffic. That hasn't changed. Increasing the number of referring domains to your site will improve both your map pack and your regular organic listings.
Local SEO Best practices:
- Get links from top-ranking domains
- Get links your competitors also have
- Get locally relevant links (the store nearby)
- Get local citations/listings
- Be sure to reclaim all old links and redirect to your new pages
Some Helpful Local SEO Tools:
Based on our experience here are a few tools that will be helpful (depending on your situation).
Google Business Manager
Previously known as Google My Business, this platform enables you to manage your Google Business Profile. This free tool gives your business the ability to rank in the Map Pack and on Google Maps.
Google Search Console
This tool enables you to monitor your websites google search performance and better understand how your site is being digested by search engines. Another free platform from Google that enables optimal search performance for a site. Some key insights: Traffic and a bit of keyword ranking data.
Google Keyword Planner
A free tool that enables you to better understand the search volume, cost per click, search intent, and related keywords. A simple yet powerful tool for keyword research.
Whitespark
An robust set of local SEO tools that enable you to track your local businesses performance in the SERPs, find new and relevant citations along with increase your review count. Truly a powerful tool for managing one or many locations.
A few more tools to take a look at: