Every local business should have a local search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to ensure that local customers can find them online. Being found in local searches will help you bring in new customers, and having a solid online presence improves their chances of choosing you over your competition.
Without a solid local SEO strategy, you probably won’t show up in local search results and potential customers may end up going to competitors. But with a solid strategy and the following tips for local SEO, you will attract customers and set your business up for success.
What Is Local SEO?
Before we get into the local SEO tips, let’s first establish what it means. This type of SEO focuses locally. With regular SEO, your goal is to appear for specific keywords no matter where the person searching is. With local SEO, your goal is to appear when someone local to you is searching for your products and services.
Local SEO allows you to drive website and in-store traffic, as well as name recognition from local customers.
7 Local SEO Tips for Small Businesses
Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. Here are some tips and tricks to keep in mind while working on your local SEO strategy.
Optimize Your Google Business Profile
Because most searches are done on Google, your Google Business Profile is crucial to your success. At the very least, you need to claim and verify your page, making sure that you fill out the basic information.
Ideally, you should go the extra mile by optimizing your profile. This is done by verifying your page and filling out every part of the profile accurately. Maximize additional helpful features like Google Posts and adding images. Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your Google profile, and make sure to respond to those reviews.
When filling out your Google Business Profile, make sure all of your contact information is accurate. While you’re at it, you can do the same with your name, address, and phone number everywhere online, including in online directories.
Perform a Local SEO Audit
Whether you’ve already started local SEO efforts or are about to start from scratch, an audit will help you know where you stand. A comprehensive SEO audit will enable you to figure out what you are already doing well and what you can improve in your strategy.
The best audit will check the following at the very least:
- Accuracy of Google My Business information
- Whether your site is crawlable
- On-page SEO
- Citations in business directories
- Competitor analysis
- Website audit
Don’t Overlook Link Building
Link building has always been crucial, even with local SEO. Several years ago, you just wanted as many links back to your website as possible. These days, you need each link to be relevant. Focus on relevant inbound links because non-relevant ones won’t help and may even hurt your SEO. It’s even better if you can get links from authority sites.
There are plenty of great ways to generate links. Start by making sure you are in all the relevant local and industry directories, ensuring all your information is accurate and updated. Then, look for other natural connections. Consider:
- The Chamber of Commerce
- Licensing bureaus
- Business improvement districts
- Resellers
- Manufacturers
- Vendors
- Affiliates
You can also try some of the following strategies:
- Sponsor an event, team, or organization
- Partner with another business or organization
- Write guest blog posts
- Create a scholarship program
- Host an in-person or online event
- Participate in the local community
Create Local Content
When you write about local topics, you will be better able to attract a local audience. You want to solidify your involvement in the community and your position as someone who knows the local news. If people see that you have local knowledge, they are more likely to turn to you in the future.
You can get creative with this local content, ensuring that it appeals to your audience. As a business, you can actually increase your client base by bringing in more businesses to the city. You can do this by providing resources that would introduce those new businesses to the community, such as a calendar of city-wide events or a map of service providers.
Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Making sure your website is mobile-friendly is not just part of local SEO; it’s a standard SEO best practice. Remember that over 60% of Google searches are done on mobile. With a mobile-friendly website, you are sure to enhance your customers’ experience.
In particular, local searches are primarily done on smartphones. After all, people are usually on the go when they search for “[type of store] near me.” They also search Google for driving directions using Google Maps or your phone number if they want to contact you.
Remember that you will have a high bounce rate if your website isn’t mobile-friendly. Not only will people leave your website before you convert them (or even gather their information as a lead), but your higher bounce rate will also affect your search engine rankings.
Evaluate Your Online Reputation
Your online reputation is a crucial part of your local SEO strategy. Browse and study customer reviews, mentions in articles, social behavior, and more. A positive reputation creates trust and drives potential customers to your business.
To evaluate your online reputation, look at your:
- Reviews and ratings
- Performance for a branded search (a search including your business name)
- Social media profiles (including reviews and engagement)
- Site traffic
- Conversion metrics
Once you evaluate your reputation, you will know where to focus improvement efforts on your local business.
Prioritize Collecting Reviews
As mentioned, your Google Business Profile is very important to your local SEO. Reviews about you show up in your profile, and it’s worth noting that reviews influence 88% of consumers in discovering a local business. In other words, reviews significantly influence your online reputation and ability to attract people to your website or business.
You can prioritize gathering reviews by simply asking your customers. Luckily, most people will leave reviews if you ask and make it easy for them to do so. Consider texting a link directly to the review page for added convenience. You can also incentivize reviews by offering a discount or freebie. Just remember that you need to reward not only positive reviews but also negative ones.
By responding to each review, especially negative comments, you further encourage your customers to give you feedback. This shows that you take reviews to heart and value their opinion. As mentioned, it also helps you manage your online reputation.
Bonus: Additional Local SEO Tips
While the above local SEO tips are an excellent starting point, the following suggestions may also help you rank high on search engines.
- Be active on social media platforms, especially by engaging with your audience
- Optimize your website, including URLs, meta descriptions, title tags, headers, and more
- Create location pages to incorporate local keywords and improve local search results easily
- Target local keywords in a blog post
- Don’t forget about voice search
Take Full Advantage of Local SEO
Smart local businesses take full advantage of local SEO to ensure that they appear on local search results. With the above local SEO tips, you should be on your way to attracting more customers to your local business.
For the best results, use and maximize tools like Podium. Podium makes it easy to gather reviews by automating the process and taking advantage of the high open rate of text messages.
