How does local SEO work?
If you want to rank highly in local search results you need to keep three aspects in mind.
These are the criteria through which search engines decide if your website should feature highly in local search engine results.
They are:
- Proximity – search engines will determine the proximity of different sites, and they have a variety of means to enable them to do this. It may include addresses, postcodes and geo-coordinates.
- Prominence – this is about trying to find out how well-known your business is locally. To do this it will look at a variety of sources on the web, such as links, review sites and citations.
- Relevance – A search engine will look at how relevant your business website is to the particular search. This is a standard search engine check, so once your business has been shown to be geographically close and prominent, its relevance will be the next key factor. To score highly for relevance you have to take care of your SEO in general.
Taken together, these three factors will determine where your business appears in local search results.
How do you improve your local SEO?
If you want to improve your local SEO there are several technical aspects you can use. Some of these include:
- Add location pages to your website.
- Optimise your site for Google My Business.
- Improve your internal URL structure.
- Optimise your URL, title tags, headers, meta description, and content.
- Use schema to markup your website and content
- Ensure that your contact details and address are consistent everywhere they appear online.
- Optimise your online directories and citations.
- Engage consistently on social media and local forums.
- Get inbound links with authority.
- Create local content.
- Link local offline activity with online content
Why local content is key?
The key to securing a place at the top of local Google rankings is local content. This has a range of advantages and benefits for your business. It not only makes it more likely that Google will feature you highly in local search results, it also encourages people to visit your website.
When allied with active social media channels, the results can be amazing.
Create regular, compelling and local content for your website and then promote it through your social media.
It can bring more visitors to your website, familiarise people locally with your business and, over time, foster a sense of brand loyalty.
Regularly updated websites are preferred by search engines to ones which haven’t been touched since they went live.
Keyword research
It goes without saying that your local content should be rich in relevant keywords.
These should be both specific to your industry or service, as well as tailored to your local area.
You need to know what keywords are being searched for about your business and then ensure your site features them.
This needs to be done skilfully, however.
The days of stuffing content with meaningless keywords are gone, and search engines now use powerful algorithms to separate the quality content from the keyword puffed filler.
Get professional help
SEO can seem like a complicated and confusing process to understand and do well.
If you’re running a business with hundreds of competing demands, you might feel you have neither the time nor expertise to do the job as well as you would like.
Professional SEO support can turbo-charge your search engine rankings.
At Aqueous Digital we develop sustainable, long-term SEO strategies that help you achieve your goals.
For advice and support with any aspect of your business’ SEO contact us today, 0800 285 1424
Further reading on SEO
Aqueous Digital’s Guide to the Top 501 SEO and Digital Marketing Terms
Aqueous Digital’s Ultimate Guide to the cost of SEO in the UK
How long does SEO take to work?
What is Technical SEO?
SEO vs PPC
Link building and outreach
What are the most important SEO ranking factors?