Is Local SEO Important?

Local SEO is the process of optimising your website or online presence in order to increase your business’s visibility in local searches. This helps to get your products and services in front of potential customers in your local area who are actively searching for what you offer.

What are the benefits of Local SEO?

Local SEO is highly beneficial if your business has physical premises, such as a shop, restaurant or showroom, for example, as it converts online visitors to in-person customers.

Local SEO can:

  • Draw in more customers from your local area
  • Drive more traffic to your premises and increase your footfall
  • Make potential customers feel that your business is genuine and trustworthy
  • Provide local searchers with the information they need about your business, such as location, parking and opening hours

Local SEO has a high conversion rate because local searchers are already specifically looking for the products or services you offer in your local area. This means they’re far more likely to then pay you a visit after seeing your business listed in local search results and make a purchase or engage your services.

What is the difference between SEO and Local SEO?

Search engines such as Google want to produce the best possible results for searchers on their platform. To rank highly in a search result, your website needs to be seen by a search engine as high quality. This is true whether the search is global, national or local.

Local SEO, however, is more specific. Rather than competing on a global level with other businesses in your field, you are aiming to stand out amongst local results. This means that your business is more likely to feature prominently in a local search performed by someone looking for products or services like yours, within your local area. In this way, Local SEO connects you with potential customers and clients nearby.

There is some overlap between SEO and Local SEO but with the latter, your focus should be on improving your online presence specifically for local searchers and ensuring that your location is key within your content and strategy.

How do you perform Local SEO?

Local search results have unique features not seen in other searches. For example, when searching for a local service provider, Google users will be shown not only a business name and website link but also additional information, which could include location information, opening hours, ratings, prices and images of your premises.

Google uses Google Business Profile to get this information so if you’re a business with a physical presence in your local area, it’s vital that you claim your Google My Business profile and fill it with all the relevant information. For tips on how to get started with Google Business Profile, check out our handy blog post about it.

Other strategies to improve Local SEO include:

  • Encouraging your customers to share their experiences on review sites.
  • Using local keywords in your website copy and as part of your ongoing content strategy.
  • Including your physical location in your website copy.
  • Ensuring that your website or online presence includes all the relevant information that a potential customer may need, such as your address, contact information and opening hours.
  • Making use of local backlinks.
  • Optimising your content for voice search results, which are generally more conversational than typed searches due to the way we naturally speak.
  • Optimise your website for mobile.
  • Posting local content to your blog and on social media, such as sharing news stories and local events or raising awareness of local organisations you may be involved in or other businesses that you work with.

Using Google My Business and employing these strategies alongside your existing SEO strategy will help your business to feature more highly in local search results.

We can help

Here at Shine On Digital, Rossendale, we understand the importance of Local SEO and how valuable it can be for businesses small and large. If you’d like to enhance your online presence for local searches and get more footfall as a result, we can help. Shine on Digital offers Local SEO services including Google Business Profile Management Packages to ensure your business information is always relevant and up to date.

Give us a call on 01706 482017 or get in touch to find out more.