Local SEO is a form of Search Engine Optimisation that focuses on optimizing a website to be found in local search results.

Local searches include local queries such as ‘café near me’ or ‘doctors in wetherill park’. These local searches usually relate to a brick and mortar business or local service.

There are very strong arguments as to why you should focus on local search in your area.

• 50 percent of people who did a local search on their phone went to a physical store within one day.
• 78 percent of local-based searches on a mobile device end in purchases being made offline.
• 97 percent of consumers looked online for local businesses in 2017, with 12 percent looking for a local business online every day.

There are hundreds of local seo statistics displaying the importance of search to local customers.

Local Search Factors

There are a few main components in appearing in Local Search and improving your search rankings.

• Content

• On Page Optimisation

• GMB

• Links

The above components all need to be focused around a local searchers intent. A simple way to do this, is think of the searches you or your family would use to find a local service provider or store.

Once you have some general local search based queries you can get to optimising and adjusting your website and content to improve rankings.

Content

Creating great content is essential for local SEO, Content is the foundation of your SEO efforts.

This is becoming more and more important with all the updates that Google is making throughout the last couple of years. These updates are focusing less on rewarding Backlinking and more on rewarding greater Content and On Page optimisation. Basically, rewarding the sites that provide a greater user experience and solution to a query.

It is important to provide visitors and searchers to your site with unique and useful content. This content should be engaging and beneficial.

Ensure your content is over 300 words, well structured and easy to read.

If you are unsure on what type of content to create, think about questions your customers ask or areas of expertise that you and your staff have that could assist others.

A simple little search hack that wont require any software is, visiting Google and typing the beginning query of your niche, you will see other options pop up with similar search queries from others. This might inspire some content ideas.

On Page Optimisation

On Page Optimisation is a complex area of SEO. It is important to focus on this as much as you can.

What are some On Page Optimisation factors to consider?

Keywords- This is important! Do your research on keywords and the quantity of local searches this keyword has. If you are unsure where to start, put yourself in the place of your potential customer that would be looking for your service.

Title Tags

Interlinks

Site Speed

Image Compression

Readability

And of course, there is much more!

GMB

One of your greatest SEO tactics to improve rankings on search locally is GMB (Google My Business). GMB provides all the key details to your customer, including Name, Address, phone number, hours, services offered, areas of service, reviews and more!

GMB Listings take up larger space on the Google search page results locally, therefore, its important to keep the page updated and informative as possible. The more details and local relevance the Google My Business listing has, the higher you will appear in the local Search rankings.

Links

Off-page SEO refers to activities you can perform outside the boundaries of your website.

Off-page SEO assists in Search engines and potential customers to find you through your increased online visibility. Remember, off page SEO techniques are almost equally important to improve your website position in SERP.

There are numerous off page SEO techniques that can assist you in this task. The most crucial are:

Link Building- Networking with other bloggers, media sites and niche industry sites who are interested in advertising your services through sharing your content or service pages are invaluable. Not only will you gain more traffic through their visitors, you will also be seen as a more relevant web page to potential searchers by Google.Social Media Marketing- Use Social media to regularly post about your services and products, share your businesses successes along with any other relevant information to your customers. Social media can also be a great way to appear in front of new potential customers.Citations- This is very important! Find local directories that you can list your business and its services/products on. Ensure that these citations are all matching and all details are correct. Great places to look for citations include-Industry-related local sites, Local partners and local newspapers.

Do all businesses need Local SEO?

Definitely not! Online businesses such as ecommerce shops or businesses that don’t want to share their local information.

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