Today, an estimated 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to find local news. The local SEO is becoming one of the major trends in terms of SEO. It represents a real growth driver for a company that has a physical address. Indeed, 78% of local searches made from a smartphone lead to an offline purchase. Thus, we will see what the local SEO really is and how to optimize it for your website so that your customers can find you easily and quickly on the web.
WHAT IS LOCAL SEO?
The local SEO is to optimize organic SEO a website or application that has a scope of action locally by exploiting geo research. Geolocated searches are searches related to a geographic position such as a city or country. For example, a restaurant in Montreal has an interest in optimizing its local SEO so that the queries on Google related to these services and this city lead to its website.
OPTIMIZE YOUR LOCAL SEO BY ADDING AND ALIGNING YOUR NAP ON YOUR WEBSITE PAGES.
NAP is an acronym that stands for “Name, Address, Phone”. Google scans each of your pages one by one, so it’s important that your business name, address, and phone number are listed multiple times. Attention, all the inscriptions of your coordinates must be identical, to the comma close. Here is an example that we often see at the end of the web page:
REGISTER IN LOCAL AND PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORIES.
Since your business has a local scope of action, it is also important to register your business in local online directories . Give preference to regional or even local directories rather than general ones. Google will understand that your business really exists and it can locate it geographically. Be attentive to the details and make sure your directory profiles are complete and consistent from one directory to the next.
In addition, to increase your chances of appearing in the first local search results, you can register your business in business directories such as Yellow Pages, Booking or TripAdvisor. These directories are well known and have significant authority over Google. In fact, for a localized search, most of the organic links below the Google My Business links are business directory pages. However, it is important that each description left in the directories is unique because Google does not like duplicate content. It is true that this task will be long and painful but it is the price to pay if you really want to optimize your local SEO.
CREATE YOUR GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PROFILE.
Google My Business is a tool implemented by Google in 2014 that aims to improve geolocated searches and provide more relevant results to users. It is an essential tool for any company on the web that seeks to gain visibility in their region. Creating a Google My Business Profile will attest to your existence in Google’s eyes and Google will place you in the local SERPs for your business. To register on this tool, it is necessary to create a page “Google Plus” in advance.
Once this is done, the process of signing up for Google My Business is relatively simple: you must fill in all the information about your business (NAP, opening hours, additional services, etc.) by strategically choosing the business sector. activities and keywords on which you want to position yourself locally. You can also add photos or videos up to 30 seconds long to showcase and promote your products or services. We strongly encourage you to do this to engage users for your business.
ENCOURAGE YOUR CLIENTS TO SUBMIT THEIR REVIEWS.
When a user performs a local search on Google, the search engine will focus on companies that are the best rated and whose opinions are numerous and positive to appear in the first results. These reviews show that you are providing quality service to your customers and Google will advise your address to its users. You can ask your old satisfied customers to leave a review on your Google My Business profile, or encourage subscribers to your social networks to also submit.
If you get some pejorative opinions, do not worry, it may, on the contrary, be beneficial for your credibility. Google will understand that reviews are true. It is important to take the time to respond to the opinions left by your customers, whether positive or negative. This means that you have a close relationship with your customers and that you are interested in what they think of you.
FEED YOUR LOCAL NETLINKING.
Netlinking is one of the very important criteria that influences your organic SEO on search engines. These include the quantity and quality of backlinks that you manage to acquire for your website. Backlinks are defined as links that point to your website and are external to your website. The acquisition of external links will really improve your local SEO by searching for local backlinks, that is to say by searching for external links on sites whose action is positioned in the same geographical region as yours. For example, you can focus on local news sites such as magazines or newspapers, local tourism office websites, or local association sites that are consistent with your business. We advise you to use domain authority as a selection criterion for the websites on which you choose to acquire backlinks, this will increase the quality of the external link.
DO NOT FORGET TO BE MOBILE-FRIENDLY!
Today, we can no longer deny it, the majority of searches on the internet are done on smartphones. Especially with regard to local searches , the mobile has quickly dethroned the desktop because this support is naturally linked to mobility. In order to evolve with its time, Google has updated its algorithm to favor websites that adapt to all navigation media. We talk about responsive web design. As a result, “mobile-friendly” websites are more likely to appear among the first search results, local or not. It is therefore essential for your website to have a responsive design, that is to say, that adapts to each navigation format. If your website is not suitable for mobile media, you can contact us for a free quote.
As you can see, local SEO is a must to increase your visibility on the web. You can optimize it by the techniques listed in this article. But be aware that your SEO efforts, in general, will also have a positive impact on your local SEO. Indeed, Google offers its users websites that are rich in quality content, trustworthy and relevant. It is a set that must be worked on daily to be first in the research results.
Comments are closed.