Local SEO (local search engine optimization) — that’s the subject of this lesson. What local SEO is, how it differs from organic SEO and how to do it. Which techniques, tactics and local SEO strategies work best, and which tools, software and plugins local SEO specialists and local SEO analysts use. So we’ll be covering Google My Business, Google Maps, the snack pack, and how to do local SEO link building.
As you can see, there’s plenty to get through!
As you’ll know, in our SEO Academy we cover every topic connected to ranking on search engines. If you’re new here, it’s worth looking at the earlier lessons — we’ve covered a number of things that will help you follow this article.
If this lesson interests you, it’s probably because you want to know how to do local SEO optimization and rank your pages and content for localised searches.
So let’s not waste any more time — here we go!
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Local SEO: what it is and why it matters
In this first part we’ll define local SEO and work out why it’s fundamental within an SEO strategy.
What local SEO is: definition and meaning
Local SEO is the branch of search engine optimization concerned with improving a site’s rankings for local searches. It uses the methods of “regular” SEO and adds others that are entirely different — not least to deal with the fact that local searches tend to change very quickly.
But what is local search? An informational search on a search engine such as Google or Bing can be run with a generic query or a localised one.
With a generic query, the result in the SERP is a list of links to content (blue links), sometimes preceded by one or more paid results. Sometimes the SERP includes a knowledge graph panel on the right: a box holding information in various formats (text, images, video, links) about the “entity” searched for.
Image from Google
For queries with commercial or purchase intent that include a place or the phrase “near me” — “restaurant in Milan”, say — we talk instead about local search. Generic queries such as “restaurant”, which implicitly carry a geographic reference and for which Google returns a geolocated result based on the user’s IP address, count as local searches too.
In both cases, and unlike the “regular” organic result, the local SERP is a box containing a map, three local results with their addresses, opening hours, ratings and photos. That box is called the snack pack, the Google 3-pack or the local pack.
Image from Google
All the information gathered in the local pack comes from the business’s Google My Business profile. To rank the local results it considers most relevant, the search engine’s algorithm weighs several signals, among them: local content, social profiles, links, citations and reputation on the web. Optimizing that information and those signals is the critical part of local SEO.
Why does local SEO matter?
Local search marketing, local marketing and hyperlocal marketing are all strategies that, to varying degrees, help physical stores and small businesses promote their products and services to local customers and prospects. Ranking for geolocated searches, alongside the organic results, can be extremely useful for these businesses.
Local SEO lets them raise their site’s ranking in the search results and in the local pack, but also their visibility, web traffic, leads and sales. A local SEO campaign also lets you target extremely small, tightly localised groups of people. Add to that a whole set of reasons highlighted by statistics published on the web:
- 46% of all Google searches are local
- 85% of consumers use the internet to find local businesses
- 28% of searches for something nearby end in a purchase
- Google “near me” searches have doubled over the past year
source: HubSpot (read here).
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How do you do local SEO?
What follows are some of the most effective tactics and strategies for optimizing on-site factors and off-site factors to rank a business’s website for local search terms in the organic results and the local pack.
Here’s a video summarising what we’ll explain in the sections below.
Google My Business (GMB)
Google My Business (GMB), previously known as Google Local or Google+ Local, is a free service from Google. GMB helps prospective customers discover the products and services you offer, how to contact you and how to find your business.
Launched in 2014 to replace Google Places, this tool is considered one of the main ranking signals for both organic results and the local pack.
Image from Moz
Here’s a survey of ranking factors produced by Moz: click here
So creating a GMB listing, claiming ownership of it and keeping it up to date is essential for your business. It will also help you appear in local search results and in Google Maps. To create your listing, go to the Google My Business site (click here), click “Start now” and follow these steps:
Step 1: enter your business name
First Google asks for your business name. As you type, the system searches and offers suggestions; if your business isn’t in Google’s database, choose “create a business with this name” and click “next”.
Step 2: enter your address
Enter your business’s full address. If it has no physical address, enter your home address and tick “I deliver goods and services to my customers”, then set your delivery area. Remember to tick “hide my address (it’s not a store)”, then click “next”.
Step 3: enter your exact location
Google shows you a map with a pin marking your business’s location. Normally the system gets the location exactly right; if not, drag the pin to the right spot.
Step 4: choose a category
GMB lets you pick a single category from the list on offer; then click “next”. Choose the one closest to your business — if you’re unsure, look up a competitor’s listing.
Step 5: enter your phone number and your website URL
This step is optional but crucial, particularly the URL.
You don’t have to give the site’s homepage here — another page works too. What matters is optimizing whichever page you link, filling it with all the local information (the same details you put on the Google My Business page).
Step 6: verify your GMB page
Before your Google My Business listing is activated and made visible, you’ll be asked to verify it. That lets Google confirm your business is legitimate and that you own it. The procedure, which can be done on desktop or mobile, involves a five-digit code sent or given by post, email, phone or Google Search Console.
Once logged into GMB, enter the code in the relevant field (for how to verify, click here) and click verify. Under the Google My Business terms of service, only the owner can verify a GMB page. To stop anyone else taking over your listing, claim ownership by following the procedure set out here (for how to add or claim a GMB listing, click here).
Step 7: optimize your page
Finally, remember to keep the profile up to date and optimize the descriptions and categories (adding new ones where appropriate). Upload photos and video of your business regularly, and use Google Posts at least once a week. Keep opening hours current, add extra phone numbers and list new services. For more on optimizing Google My Business, click here.
They carry less weight, but create and optimize a profile on Bing Places, Apple Maps and Nokia Here as well.
Link signals
Earning links is a key differentiator from competitors — the first among the factors influencing rankings in the organic results and the second in the local pack.
Quality geo-targeted links from sites used by a local audience raise your visibility both organically and in the local pack. They’re also very effective at growing web traffic, leads and customers from a precise target audience. Your SEO strategy therefore can’t do without local link building tactics.
But how, and which local links, do you go after? There are several ways to earn links to your site, among them:
- creating quality content that’s useful and optimized for local keywords (guides, local event calendars and so on);
- writing and publishing content on authoritative local blogs and online magazines (guest posts);
- sponsoring local events and doing digital PR.
For more on this, we recommend reading: Link building: what it is and how to do it
Not all links are equal; focus on these:
- Links from authoritative sites: links from sites with high Domain Authority, which indirectly raise the legitimacy, reputation and authority of whoever receives them
- Quality links: look at the quality of backlinks rather than the quantity. Links from local media, bloggers and chambers of commerce, along with citations, can improve visibility on search engines
- Link anchor text: the anchor text is the text of a link. In a link like this one — “web agency milan” — the anchor text is “web agency milan”. Google’s algorithm uses it as a hint about the page’s content. Repeat it too often, though, and you risk a penalty from Google Penguin, so tread carefully.
Image from Moz
On-page signals
On-page signals means all those on-page SEO factors whose optimization can affect where landing pages and localised content rank in the organic results and in the snack pack.
The local SEO best practices most commonly recommended are:
- Use local keywords: use Google Keyword Planner (GKP), Ahrefs, SEMrush and other tools to research localised keywords (keyword + city and its variants) with high search volume, and include them naturally in:
- metadata (title tag, H1, H2, H3 and so on, categories and meta description)
- the body text (keep keyword density between 1% and 3% to avoid keyword stuffing)
- the URL structure
- image alt text
- video titles and descriptions
- Site speed: load time is the main reason users abandon a page, so it needs watching closely. Tools such as Google PageSpeed Insights, Pingdom and GTmetrix measure speed and also offer advice on improving it.
- Schema markup: additional code that helps search engines understand your page’s content and serve users accurate results. Optimizing structured data for local businesses raises your click-through rate (CTR) and your rankings. Start by optimizing your NAP information (business name, address and phone number) in the footer. Google’s structured data markup helper (find out more) can help with this.
- Mobile optimization and AMP: almost a third of all mobile searches are local queries, and 50% of consumers who ran a local search on mobile visit the physical store within a day. Those are just some of the many statistics showing how important a mobile-friendly site is. To check yours, use Google’s mobile-friendly test (here).
Citations
These are mentions of your business found online in directories such as Yelp, Hotfrog, Yellow Pages, FourSquare and Rete Imprese, or on video platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. Add local sources to those: chambers of commerce, other associations, directories and community hubs. You can also search Google by hand using keywords such as “city name + directory”.
Listing your business in authoritative directories — along with the number and quality of the citations you receive — affects your rankings in both organic results and the local pack. So it’s important to earn new local citations while making sure NAP+W (the website URL) is current and identical across every profile. Before building new ones, update and clean up the citations you already have.
Here’s how to do it with Ahrefs (a tool we recommend):
- Search Google for “keyword + city”, e.g. “bookshops Milan”
- Open Ahrefs
- From the top bar click “More” and choose “Link intersect”
- Copy and paste the URLs of the main sites into the link intersect tool
- Copy and paste your own URL into the “but doesn’t link to” field
Image from Ahref
- Click “show link opportunities”
Image from Ahref
Follow those steps and you’ll get a list showing which sites link to one or more of your competitors.
Reviews and ratings
As with citations, the number and quality of customer reviews across different platforms — and the quality and authority of those platforms — are all important ranking factors for localised searches. Reviews and their ratings are treated as indicators of how useful and trustworthy your site, products and services are. There are two channels worth concentrating your effort on: Facebook (and the other major social networks) and Google My Business.
Good reviews from family, friends and customers on platforms such as Trustpilot and social media are viewed positively by Google and earn considerable visibility. Some social platforms, Hootsuite and Buffer among them, let you monitor reviews and get a notification whenever your brand is mentioned.
New technology
The evolution of search engines now lets users see unique search results that account for where they are. This is clearest with the arrival of voice search on mobile and home devices through virtual assistants such as Alexa, Siri, Cortana and Google Assistant.
Social signals
According to a recent study by We Are Social, there are 3.48 billion active social media users, 3.26 billion of whom access them from mobile devices.
Despite that, many small local businesses don’t appear to have grasped that their social profiles have an impact on local SEO results. When ranking localised results, Google uses three metrics among its various signals: relevance, distance and prominence.
Google calculates your business’s prominence relative to others from information drawn from links, web content (blog posts, pages, articles and so on), citations, reviews, directories and more.
Google has clarified that likes, shares and comments have no direct bearing on rankings — but they do build prominence, which does. Social profiles let you enter contact details, so make sure your NAP+W data is consistent, current and identical across every profile and on the site.
Conclusion
In this lesson of your favourite SEO Academy we’ve covered local SEO. You now have what you need to optimize content for local searches yourself, build local citations and “steal” local links from competitors. But that isn’t enough: local SEO, like regular SEO, keeps evolving and demanding new skills.
We’ll keep covering the new arrivals and how they change the way local search is done in the lessons ahead. Stay tuned and keep following us — in the next lessons of the SEO Academy we’ll get into plenty more interesting territory…
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