Local SEO – A Digital Marketing Strategy
You Need SEO For Your Website
Having an effective website is an essential element of a successful business, but it is only the first step. Once your website is built and up and running, prospects need to be able to find your website and see the range of services or products you offer that can help them. Getting found online means you need to ‘rank’ when people are searching on Google (or another search engine) for particular keywords or phrases.
To help your website rank higher than the competitors, you need to implement an ongoing Search Engine optimisation (SEO) strategy to ensure prospects find and visit your website to learn about your business and buy from you.
1. Why Is Local SEO Important?
Now you get why SEO is important. If your business operates in a specific geographic area/s, you need to make sure your business is found when people search locally. Here are some key stats about how important local search is.
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- 46% of all searches on Google include local intent
- 97% of users searched online to find a local business
- Every month, searchers visit 1.5 billion locations related to their Google searches
- “Near me” mobile searches grew by 136% last year
- 62% of customers will disregard a business they cant find online
2. The Three Main Types of Local Searches
When you search for a product or company on a search engine and enter a phrase or a keyword, this is called a search query. The search engine then shows you all the search results on what’s called search engine result pages, or a SERP. On a SERP are three main types of search results (there are also many others):
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- Google Ads, sometimes called PPC (pay per click) or SEM (search engine marketing). These will usually be at the top of the page and perhaps the bottom of the page.
- Local Pack, sometimes called “Map Pack” or “Three Pack”, or where you see a map with pins and a listing of three businesses sometimes with more than three or an Ad.
- Organic Listings, results of different websites that Google ranks based on the search query. These normally show up underneath the Local Pack.
3. Key Signals To Improve Your SEO Ranking
Every year an organisation called Bright Local interviews the top search engine experts around the world and asks them what is working for them with all of their clients and their own businesses to help websites rank higher in both the Local Pack and Organic Listings.
The latest survey identified seven factors, or as Google calls them signals, that you need to optimise to rank your website higher in the Local Pack and Organic Listings. These signals are Google Business profile, On-Page, Links, Reviews, Behavioural, Citation and Personalisation.
4. What SEO Signals Provide the Best Results
Optimising some signals will help you rank better on the Local Pack, while others help you rank better on the Organic Listings. But what if you could rank highly in both the Local Pack and Organic Listings? That would increase your credibility (with two listings), increase visits to your website (the more listings the more click-thoughts to your website) and more new leads and sales (depending how effective your website design is)
To achieve this, we took the Bright Local research report, further analysed it and weighted each factor depending on its importance. Then combined the scores for each factor to identify the priorities that would result in ranking highly for both Local Pack and Organic Listings. The Local Pack, Organic Listing and combined priorities are highlighted in the red circles below.
The Hybrid Local SEO Approach
So, if you want to increase your credibility and visits to your website to get more new leads and sales. based on our analysis, you need to take a Hybrid Local SEO approach with the following priorities in order. Optimising your:
- Google Business Profile – Particularly Business Name, Address, Phone (NAP), Location and Business Category.
- Website “On-Page” Signals – Particularly getting your Meta Tags right and NAP (Name Address, Phone) consistency with your Google Business Profile.
- Behavioural Signals – Particularly improving your click-through rate.
- “Review Signals” – Particularly get more reviews, especially 4 and 5-star reviews and make sure they are genuine.
- Citation Signals – Particularly increase your listings in reputable local and trade directories and make sure your NAP (Name Address, Phone)is consistent with both your Google Business Profile and your website in all the listings.
Once these are completed, you should then focus on optimising your link signals and then consider how to optimise your behavioural signals.
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Our team knows precisely how to combine today’s search engine optimisation strategies with our professional writers’ exemplary content so that your website draws in your target audience, your website’s pages rank higher in search engines and get more website traffic while ensuring that each visitor has a user-friendly, positive experience.
If your Business could do with some more sales or you’re unsure if your website is working properly, we’d love to help you.
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