How To Improve Local SEO Results

It doesn’t matter if you are a single location or a nationwide brand; you need to know how to improve local SEO results to increase your foot traffic and sales. When you improve and optimize certain components of your website you are increasing the likelihood that your website is displayed in the local search results when a consumer searches for the products or services that your business sells.

Google and the other search engines use links, website content, local listing pages, local citations and business listings to return the most relevant results to their users. Look at the local result image below and you will see that one auto group dominates the local results. They have the very first organic listing as well as 2 out of 3 map listings and then the very next organic listing. That is 4 out of 5 of the top spots! If someone is looking for a dealership to purchase a new Land Rover in Miami there is a good chance this dealership group is receiving a major percentage of that business. If you want to learn how to improve local SEO results so your business can dominate the local search results then follow these three steps below.

1. Link Building & Citation

Link building is always going to remain an important component of local SEO, so there will always need to be a focus on earning inbound links. Citations are occurrences of your NAP (business name, address and phone number) on other websites. A citation listing doesn’t necessarily contain a link. You should always be focused on increasing both your links and citations to improve and strengthen your local search results.

Earn Local Links

It is important that your business is blogging, as it gives you a great opportunity to create content that targets specific local keywords. If your content is high quality and proves to be useful to your website visitors it increases the chance that other websites will link to your content, creating inbound links to your website.

Now, link building to improve local SEO results is going to be a little different that a national SEO campaign. You are going to want to build relationships with local community groups, organizations, and even the local school system. For example, many schools have a donation or sponsorship page within their website. Not only can a small donation help to get you some exposure within your local community, but also that earned link will help to improve your local SEO results.

Perform a NAP Audit

It is important that your NAP is consistent across all of your listings online. The only way you are going to know for sure is to perform a NAP audit. This will take some time, but the end result is well worth it, especially if you are serious about your local SEO. Even the slightest NAP variation can have a negative impact on your search results.

For example, if your business address is 100 Commercial Lane, Suite 500 then you need to make sure that is appears exactly like that on your contact page and all NAP occurrences. Abbreviating Lane as ‘Ln’ or Suite as ‘Ste’ can cause problems. There are several local listing programs that will find all of your listings and then allow you to edit them directly from their dashboard. Spend the time to do this correctly, and continue to monitor your listings, performing an audit every few months.

Submit to Local Directories

The same program you use to audit your NAP can be used to help identify and submit your listing to other relevant business directories. Along with the top national directories you will want to identify local as well as industry specific directories that will give you a high quality listing. Avoid spammy and low quality directories that are created solely for SEO purposes. You want to make sure you only include your listing on directories that actually receive visitors.

2. Local Listing Pages

It is important that you create your local pages for Google+, Yahoo Local, and Bing Places for Business. These are commonly referred to as the ‘Big 3’ — so make sure you create and verify them, and if you have multiple locations make sure to set them up correctly so each location is represented.

Delete Duplicate Listings

A large percentage of businesses will have duplicate local pages, so it is important to delete duplicates by using a service such as Moz local or yext to identify and remove any duplicates. Duplicate listing can occur when a company is not organized and there are several employees working on the marketing. Once you have removed any duplicate listing it is important that you continue to monitor your listings to ensure that any additional listings are created. The services mentioned above can handle that for you.

Attract Local Reviews

Reviews play a large role in local SEO and they also help to increase click through rate, as consumers will naturally be attracted to listings with a lot of review activity. Now, you have to approach this the correct way, and not directly tell your customers to leave reviews. It is a good practice to let them know that you would appreciate their feedback, and point them to the several places where they can leave feedback. For example, it is against Yelp’s terms of service to tell your customers to leave a review, but you can let them know that they can find your business on Yelp. This is where creativity plays a major role.

Optimize Local Pages

It is amazing that businesses will create their local listing pages on Google, Yahoo, and Bing but only partially complete them. You have to complete every section and use all of the real estate space available. Fill your local pages with as many videos, images, and text as the listing will allow.

3. Get Your On-Page Optimization Correct

It is important that your on-page optimization is done correctly if you want to achieve the highest possible local search rankings. For a complete overview, make sure to check out our definitive on-page optimization guide. Many business owners are terrified when they think about optimizing their website, but when you look into what it entails it isn’t that scary. Follow our guide linked above and use the tips below to improve your website on-page optimization.

Include Your NAP

We discussed the importance of your NAP (business name, address and phone number) above. You will need to make sure that this is included as crawlable text on your website. Some businesses will only include one occurrence of their NAP on the contact page, while others will include it on every single page through the header or footer.

Include All Locations

If you have multiple business locations then you will want to create a page on your website dedicated to listing all of the information for each location. This should include the location address, phone numbers, location hours, and a brief description. Now, if you have just one location you can include this on your contact page.

Publish Regular Content

Use your blog to your advantage and create useful information about your business and industry that your website visitors will enjoy reading. We explained how blogging could help to target local search terms above, but it also gives you an outlet and a voice for your business. You can announce special events, promotions, and even exclusive offers through your blog.

The information above is perfect for business owners who have been wondering how to improve local SEO results and increase their in-store foot traffic as well as website traffic. Follow the steps outlined above to drastically improve your local SEO.

How To Improve Local SEO Results