Over the last few years, searches related to the terms “near me” or “close to me” have dominated Google searches, generating up to a nearly 900% increase over past years. This is due to the current trend of digitizing all possible traditional businesses, such as restaurants, clothing stores, or even hardware stores; appearing all these in the search engines. Today, all these local companies must take into account SEO development in order to improve their web positioning, thus increasing visibility and visits; and this makes more sense when talking about local Sacramento SEO Agency, whose main idea is to offer products and services to users depending on their geographical location when searching.
Location takes on a special meaning in this discipline of SEO, therefore, when designing the marketing strategy, the company’s scope of action must be taken into account, since in the case of local Bay Area SEO Services, the strategy will be directed to the local public.
To help these businesses, Google developed the Google My Business (GMB) application, which was launched to the public in the summer. Today, there are 56% of local businesses that have not yet registered on this platform, but even so, GMB means a great starting point for all these local companies.
What is local SEO?
The main goal of local SEO is to bring people closer to local businesses near them. This is done through different applications and tools that optimize and position these businesses in order to appear in the top positions according to the needs of users.
Local SEO
This is an upward trend, due to the inference of the smartphone in our daily use, since we use it frequently to find where to satisfy our needs. According to a statistical study by Google itself, 46% of all searches carried out on this platform are for a local or nearby purpose. In addition, another statistic that supports local SEO is that 50% of smartphone users, when conducting a search, end up visiting a local store.
Aspects to consider
As essential aspects in this specialty of SEO we find:
- The name of the business is key when it comes to optimizing a local business. It must appear at all times in all types of content that is generated and in a very visual way.
- Likewise, constant use must be made of the specific name of the location where the business is located, and know how users can access our location. When designing a page or any other web content, it is essential to put the name of both the city and the business in places such as the title, the description, in the URL, or even in all the multimedia elements that are used as labels. Of an image or description of a video.
- In relation to the keywords, a natural use of them must be made, trying not to abuse them by using them on the website.
- The load time is vital, users try to perform fast searches, so the speed of the website must be optimized so that this does not lead to loss of customers. There is a Google tool called Page Speed Insights where, by entering the URL of a website, you can obtain an analysis and assessment of the loading speed.
- The main aspect to keep in mind is that the website must be optimized for mobile devices, since these are increasingly important and valuable in user searches. Also, most of the searches related to local SEO are done from the street so they will use mobile devices.
Google My Business (GMB)
Google My Business is a tool developed by the American company to solve the visibility problems that small businesses had.
Among the main advantages of using Google My Business are:
Expand online presence
GMB grants the possibility of carrying out intelligent marketing campaigns, thus obtaining data that will help improve the local SEO strategy. That is, thanks to these data, we can obtain a better position in the Google ranking.
Information management
It is a tool through which users obtain information on local businesses, so GMB allows you to edit this information in order to be as attractive to the end user as possible.
Interaction with users
It gives us the opportunity to interact with our customers. They can upload images of the online business so that they are visible to everyone, or they can even write public reviews about the quality of the service.
Mobile management
It is a free application intended for use on smartphones, so any user can access this type of information.
If a local business is interested in being part of this community and using this tool, they must register in it by adding necessary information such as the business name, location, business category, logo or additional information such as products or services offered like as XUM Digital. They sell or the ways to contact the company.
It is essential that the information that appears about the local business on the website or other directories is the same that appears in Google My Business. Thus, the user can always access the same data with the same name, address, telephone and contact.
Ratings and Opinions in GMB
The evaluations that other users have made about a business are of vital importance. When a potential client performs a local search to cover a need, he will seek to obtain the best possible deal, so he will carry out an investigation of the opinions of the users in all the businesses where he is interested.
Local SEO Guide
For this reason, in local SEO it is also important to register on social networks, since this generates trust and serves as another tool for the user to contact the business.
In the case of positive opinions, not only will it be reflected in other users feeling confidence in a local business, but Google will also position it above the competition. On the other hand, if Google, when analyzing a search, finds negative evaluations in a specific business, this will have a counterproductive effect on its positioning.
Therefore, these positive evaluations must arise organically, always seeking the quality of the business and establishing a positive relationship with each of the customers who access the premises. Thus, Google will interpret this as a business that is relevant and a reference in the sector and in a certain geographical area.
Local content creation
As mentioned before, most of these searches will be done through a smartphone screen, so businesses should focus their efforts on creating content adapted to this screen size.
In addition, these searches are carried out quickly, many times users do not have the time to analyze the different options or read all the comments, so temporary optimization must be sought, that is, they must go to the critical points directly, those that are of relevant importance to the user, that is, a process of prioritizing some content over others must be carried out.
SEO takes into account the existence of a blog by a page, and that this section has weekly updates. So it would be correct for a local business to add this type of content to its website and, in this way, as you add links on the blog, you will also get links on the main page of the business.
How to use keywords in local SEO?
As mentioned in previous articles, there are 3 kinds of keywords:
Head:
These are specific words, used for very broad searches such as: hairdresser, shop, market… They usually have a high search volume and a lot of competition, so it is very difficult to position them correctly.
Middle Tail:
They are more specific than the Head keywords but even so they do not seek to specify something in particular, for example: clothing store, market in San Francisco…
Long Tail:
They are very specific searches and do not usually have much competition. They have fewer visits, so a correct positioning is more affordable.
In relation to local SEO, the use of Middle or Long Tail Keywords that are directly related to the products or services of a business is strongly recommended. In addition, they must contain the location of the same, such as:
- Men’s clothing store in Santa Clara
- Web Design Agency san Francisco
- SEO Company in Santa Clara
