What Is Local SEO and How It Helps Small Businesses Grow?

 Local SEO is a practice that is used to help a business rank well in local searches and attract local audiences. This means that whether you run a neighbourhood cafe or a local service-based business, using local SEO can significantly improve the visibility, which can result in the growth of your business. However, the benefits of local SEO can only be availed with a proper understanding of the practice. Therefore, in this article, we will discuss what is local SEO along with its core benefits as well as its best practices to grow small businesses.

Understanding What Is Local SEO & Its Impact

Local SEO focuses on optimizing a business’s online presence so that it can rank well on local searches. This practice is especially essential for geo-specific searches, such as the best SEO company in Gurgaon. In order to rank well on local searches, multiple factors, such as Google My Business (GMB) optimization, local keywords targeting, customer reviews and ratings, and local citations, are involved.

Below, we have mentioned the key areas where local SEO can impact a business.

  1. Increased Foot Traffic: Ranking high in local Google searches (mainly in the top three results) can boost the amount of walk-in customers for physical stores.

  2. Higher Conversion Rates: Local searches usually have a higher intent to purchase. This means that a business can attract potential customers and can improve its conversion rates, making it among the top benefits of local SEO for small businesses.

  3. Builds Trust & Credibility: Positive reviews on local searches signal that the business is trustworthy and reputable.

What Is The Difference Between SEO and Local SEO?

SEO (Search engine optimization) is among the core practices of digital marketing and is used to improve a business’s visibility across search engines. Local SEO, on the other hand, focuses especially on the geographical areas. Below, we have discussed the key difference between SEO and local SEO.


Feature

SEO

Local SEO

Targeted audience

National / Global

Regional / Local

Keyword types

Broad

City-specific or “near me”

GMB profile

Not essential

Highly essential for rankings

Tactics

Backlinks, technical SEO, etc.

Local citations, reviews, etc.

Ideal for

Local shops or service providers

SaaS or nationwide services

How To Improve Local SEO Ranking?

Optimizing your business for local SEO can provide significant benefits. However, attaining a position on the top local searches is a task much easier said than done. Due to the competition for top local rankings, many businesses look for solutions on how to improve local SEO ranking. Below, we have discussed five strategies that can help you rank higher on local searches.

1. Optimize Google Business Profile

While many businesses successfully claim their Google Business Profile, they either leave it under or not optimized at all. This is one of the most common mistakes noted in many small-scale businesses. The entirety of local SEO revolves around Google Business Profile, as the latter factor is essential for improving visibility and attracting customers.

 

In order to optimize the Google Business Profile, you will need to ensure that you have entered correct details in areas such as NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number), set correct working hours, and selected the right categories. Furthermore, small businesses with photos in their Google Business Profile are 35% more likely to get clicked by the audience.

2. Target Local Keywords

Local keywords are search terms that include area-specific location, such as a city, neighbourhood, or even phrases like “Best Social marketing company in Gurgaon” to find products or services in that specific area. By targeting these keywords, you will be able to ensure that your business is visible to the right group of audience. These keywords can be placed in blog posts, location pages, or products / services pages. Utilizing these keywords can result in improving the visibility and attracting highly targeted traffic that is likely to convert.

3. Manage Reviews

Positive reviews can encourage other customers to engage with your business, whereas negative reviews can suggest otherwise. Despite the stars on the reviews, you will need to respond to all of them in a timely and professional manner while offering a solution to negative feedback, such as a refund. Managing reviews can display that you care for your customers, all the while mitigating the damage from negative reviews. 

4. Add Local Business Schema

Schema markup is structured data that is specially designed to help search engines understand what the page is actually about. Although there are multiple types of schema, such as FAQ markup, not all of them are essential for small businesses. The only ones that you need to consider are Local Businesses Schema and Review Schema. Adding these can result in elevating the visibility as well as increasing the click-through rate (CTR).

5. Optimize For Mobile Devices

According to recent stats, over 76% of people use smartphones to access local websites daily. Due to this, it is essential to ensure that your website is optimized for mobile results. Optimizing the website for mobile can not only improve the overall user experience but can also assist in elevating the rank in local searches. This is because search engines tend to feature the best results for the user.

Local SEO For Your Business Growth

We hope that with this blog post, we were able to help you understand what is local SEO. Although local SEO can help your business rank higher on local search results and attract more audience, the practice is not among the easiest to perform. This is because there are a plethora of factors in it, and even a slight mistake in any of them can result in major loss. Therefore, it is recommended to look for a trusted SEO company and let them handle the burdens of local SEO.


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