How Local SEO Works and Why It Matters
In general, the SEO process can be done for two different purposes.
One is organic SEO which helps you improve your blog/website keyword rankings in search results, gain traffic, and get leads from your website. Another one is local SEO, the process is usually followed by people to let their business appear on local search results.
To be a successful business model in your industry, we would recommend both organic and local SEO are important.
Both SEO process requires different optimization strategies. In this blog post, we will explain how local SEO works and what it matters for your business.
A Simple Definition of Local SEO
Local SEO is one of the search engine optimization strategies that are to be followed to get your business keywords visible on the local search results.
SEO is not only for websites and blogs, even a business with physical location targets SEO to gain business benefits. So, when you optimize your physical location for search engines, probably, you will probably be seen on top of the local searches in the map pack.
A map pack is nothing but a map with up to 3 results displayed on Google search results when someone makes local search queries. In order to get your physical business location to appear on the map pack, you should do local SEO.
In order to grow your business via local search results, first, you must understand how local SEO works. Here it is.
How Local SEO Works?
Before understanding how local SEO works, let’s take a look at how Google ranks search results in general.
When you type something on Google, the search engine usually generates a bunch of web results according to several factors.
A website that follows Google ranking factors in the best possible ways can get top of the positions in Google search results.
Every time a new page/post gets published on the internet, Google with the help of ‘spiders’ is used to crawl every now and then, and the spider bots give positions to websites according to various Google algorithms. This is how Google ranks search results.
But, when it comes to local SEO, the ranking pattern might slightly differ from the usual organic results pattern.
After doing a lot of research, Google has found that local searches’ popularity is increasing frequently in numbers and so, Google decided to help out local businesses in their search results.
For example, if you are in a hurry to purchase a dress and cannot wait for online websites to get delivered in 2 to 3 days, you can search like ‘dress stores near me’. So, google will get you a result with an address of the best dress stores nearby your location, you can rush to one and make your purchase offline.
Like web, videos, images, maps, and shopping results, the local SEO results are usually in the name of places. Yes, Google shows you places (businesses) very near to you according to your search query.
Whenever and whatever Google finds your query as a local search, you will get local SEO results. The results that appear on the local searches are what matters a lot to growing your local business.
Why Local SEO Matters?
Everything turned almost online after the evolution of smartphones. Even people with less internet knowledge used to search on Google on their mobile to find something they want.
A simple real-time scenario is that, if someone’s laptop gets repaired, what he/she does first is, the people never rush to stores to get it repaired, instead, they used to take their mobile, opens Google, and searches for the ‘best laptop service centers’ along with their name of the location or even people often use the term ‘near me’.
They will get some local results for the best laptop service centers and the people contact the laptop service centers and get the repair works done.
If you own a laptop service center in some particular area and failed to be visible on local search results, it’s hard to survive in your business for the long term just only expecting direct walk-in customers to your store.
That’s why local SEO highly matters in 2023 and in the coming years as well.
How to Get your Business Visible on Local Search Results?
Having a website for any business is a better idea in 2023 and beyond.
But, in order to achieve rankings in local searches, you do not need any website for your local business, instead, you need to add your business to your Google business profile.
You can easily do it yourself or even with the help of someone you know who has the knowledge of adding business to Google business profiles.
To simply add your business profile to Google, visit https://business.google.com/ and sign in using your Gmail account.
Create your business profile there and add the details like the name of the business, working hours, contact details, your business address, your business description, services you are doing, and some photos of your business place.
While writing business descriptions, ensure to target keywords that are possibly getting searched by your local audiences. So that your business profiles get visible on local searches and people visit your business.
After the business profile is successfully created, there are some local SEO strategies that should be followed within your Google business profile which can get done with the help of SEO agencies you know or in your location.
Conclusion
After thoroughly reading the whole blog post, now you will have a better understanding of local SEO and why it matters actually.
So, never miss a single opportunity to grow your business as every business nowadays is getting great competition. In order to stay strong in your local business and attract local customers, local SEO is one of the best solutions that you must try.