Not Today, Neighbor – How to Boss Local SEO

Search engine optimization is just like solving a puzzle. Except every now and then, new pieces are added and others are taken away. An ever-changing puzzle if you will, that SEO strategists race to solve in order to make a beneficial impact for the businesses they assist.

When it comes to SEO, you never stop learning. Google and other search engines are constantly changing their algorithms and the ways in which they score and rank businesses organically, so you can consider SEO strategists as eternal students of the game. Someone who tells you they know everything there is to know about SEO hasn’t looked far enough.

Given the fact that search engine optimization is such a densely complex sector of the marketing world, it helps to isolate and break it down part by part. While there are several important aspects of SEO that one needs to consider, local SEO is definitely at the forefront.

But why is local SEO so important? And when it comes to your business, how much emphasis on local SEO should you exert?

Why and when is local SEO important?

Depending on what kind of business you own and whether it is a brick and mortar, strictly e-commerce, or somewhere in between, you may want to pay more or less attention to local SEO.

As a brick and mortar with minimal online sales, local SEO is obviously very important. In order to drive foot traffic to your store, you need to be able to get on people’s radars, specifically on Google and the various search engines being used by customers.

If you’re strictly an e-commerce business without a brick and mortar, local SEO becomes less important. However, optimizing your website for local purposes will most definitely help out your overall ranking and positioning on search engine results pages (SERPs). While the SEO strategies and methods for national and global optimization differ from those of local, there will still be points awarded for having a locally optimized site.

Depending on the complexity and diversity of your business or product, it should be relatively easy to determine how much muscle you need to put in for local SEO purposes. But sometimes, it might not be so obvious. This is when it becomes necessary to consult an SEO strategist or hire a growth marketing agency to guide you through these complicated matters.

Now that you know a little bit more about why and when local SEO is important, we can start getting into the nitty-gritty of how SEO strategists like us actually get the job done, starting with mobile optimization.

Mobile is a must

Today, nearly 60% of user searches are made through mobile devices. So you need to make sure your website is optimized for mobile and doesn’t present any problems for customers along their journey.

If your website is not optimized or designed for a seamless mobile experience, it doesn’t matter where you stand in the rankings as the work you put into it will be for nothing if you can’t convert them.

An SEO strategist will recommend that you pay attention to the apps where your business might appear, specifically on Apple Maps and Google My Business. Claiming your Google My Business should be the first step you take for any local SEO strategy, whether it’s for mobile or desktop purposes. Without a GMB presence, your local SEO will be virtually non-existent. Next, you need to register your business on Apple Maps or any other mobile apps where your business location may appear (for example, a bar showing up on a happy hour app).

A majority of the time, if your SEO tactics are executed on desktop, your mobile presence should be just as good. Just be sure to take into consideration the different ways you can take advantage of the mobile platforms available for customers. Consulting with an experienced SEO strategist always is a great way to find out about what other mobile platforms your business could thrive on.

How else can I improve my local SEO?

In addition to mobile efforts, there are several things an SEO strategist will recommend to enhance your local SEO presence, score, and rankings. While a majority of these methods should help your local and overall SEO score, some steps will differ. One of which is the keywords you target.

Location-based keywords are a critical component for local optimization. The ways in which our growth consulting agency develops these keywords lists include a variety of strategies, which includes everything from the tools we use to good old fashioned research, such as competitor analyses and landscape audits.

Keywords aside, on-page SEO, back end optimization, and content syndication and generation are all ways to boost your rankings on Google, both locally and globally. While we would love to go into the complexities of each of these facets, each one of them would need their own blog to completely cover.

Specialists by nature and nurture

As was mentioned, local SEO and SEO in general are densely complex sectors of marketing. Sectors that we’ve studied, explored and tested for the past several years. Given our continued experience with SEO, we’ve learned several tips, tricks and secrets to game the system.

Today, we continue to build this everchanging puzzle in an effort to amplify our clients’ SEO status and drive traffic to their stores and sites. Unfortunately, a single blog isn’t a big enough platform to explain the extent of local and general SEO, and if we gave away what we learn and experience for free, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Every single day, our SEO strategists tap into various resources and avenues to gain more knowledge about this complex puzzle. So if you’re interested in learning how to put the pieces together and get your website to the first page of Google, drop us a note.