Local SEO (search engine optimization) is a type of SEO that optimizes the online presence of a website to attract more and more potential audiences from local searches.

To amass information for local search, search engines look for signals such as local content, links, social profile pages, and profile listings.

Google is the most widely used platform to search for local businesses.

Local SEO assists businesses in boosting up their products and services to local customers who are actively searching for them.

Local search acts as a powerful tool for all kinds of businesses.

To attract potential customers, every business must optimize their local search.

Once you have created a website that serves your potential customers, the next step would be to invite people to visit your site.

The Steps That You Must Work Through To Build A Strong Local SEO Strategy

Here are the steps that you must work through to build a strong local SEO strategy.

1. Google My Business

The first most important step to improve your local SEO is Google My Business (GMB).

Google My Business is a key tool to help your business meet the needs required by Google.

If Google upholds your business as authentic, the search engine would reward your business with a coveted sidebar space in Google’s local search.

Your Google My Business profile showcases the information including your business details, contact details, services you offer, and your opening and closing time.

To optimize your Google My Business page, you must use Google posts in your account, invite your customers to share their reviews online, and ensure responding to their reviews authentically.

2. Optimize your content

A new blog post acts as a fresh indexed page on your site. An optimized content opens up the opportunity to make you found in the search engine results pages (SERPs). To optimize the content, one must use high-volume keywords in the URL, title, header, meta description, and body.

3. Build a strong local content

To build a strong and powerful local content, one must try to be the local authority of their industry and should lay their focus on promoting local industry gatherings, news, employees, and other related content provided on the site.

While creating the content, one must hone their focus and write about local or industry news to attract a local audience.

4. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly

Local search and mobile search are closely related to each other.

Creating a mobile-friendly website can help you build credibility with your customers and clients.

A mobile-friendly website encourages visitors to see your site as a credible resource for information, products, and services. It makes searching easy for your prospects and customers and enables you to reach a wider audience.                                  

People often use a mobile-friendly website to:

• Lookup for the reviews
• Find directions to your location and
• Search for contact information.

In case your website is not mobile-friendly, you might lose a huge number of customers.

5. Optimize your citations

Citation involves an online mention of your business. A citation in most cases entails the business name, address, and phone number (NAP). This information is generally provided in your business listing.

Citations are essential in local SEO, as it makes your business visible by helping the search engines verify that your business exists.

If your business has been brought up from credible sources with reliable, unerring, and consistent information, it signals the search engines that your business is legitimate.

By obtaining a citation on credible business sites or local business directories, you can improve your businesses ranking in local search results.

Citations are of two types, Structured and Unstructured.

Structured Citations

A structured citation is a mention of your business information (NAP) that holds a position in a business listing. Structured citations essentially involve any business listing directory where you can potentially submit your business details and get a citation. Directory citations can contain your website link, hours of operation, services description, logos, pictures, videos, reviews, and more.

Examples for structured citations are:

•             Google My Business

•             Apple Maps

•             Bing

•             Facebook

•             Yahoo! Local

•             Foursquare

Unstructured Citations

An unstructured citation is a mention of your business information (NAP) that holds a position as a result of the press, social media, and blogs. Any citation where your NAP is displayed but is not formulated in a structured format gives results to unstructured citations.

Optimizing local citations is the key to your local SEO strategy. However, one thing that must be kept in mind is to regularly update and clean up your citations which can further lead a positive impact on your local SEO.

6. Building links

Inbound links act as a powerful tool to boost your local SEO. A great website with great content is of no use if one is not able to find you. To outstand your competitors, you must be seen as an expert in your field. As a result, you need to set up authority in the eyes of the search engines by earning links from other authoritative websites. Every inbound link informs Google that you’re a legitimate company, and can also raise your domain authority.

Backlines, which are known as external links, are hyperlinks that connect from one website to another. Links found between the websites are how search engines go through the websites and discover new content. Links between websites account for one of the most important factors to improve your ranking.

Reasons that the search engines use links are:

• To come upon new web pages
• To help ascertain how well a page should rank in its results

Here are the tactics to get inbound links:

• Quality blog content
• Local press
• Sponsorships or Partnerships
• Guest Blog Posting
• Develop local resources
• Unique research
• Scholarships

An optimized local SEO will help you understand how to hone your business to reach potential consumers who use local search to choose which products or services they’re going to buy.

To put it briefly, Local SEO is essential to make your business stay pertinent.