Local SEO Guide 2023

Local SEO is the process of increasing the visibility of local companies in search engines. Do you want your local business to appear on Google Maps, Apple Maps, and other local search engines? If so, then  follow our local SEO best practices  to optimise your site, enhance your keyword ranking, and improve your overall local SEO performance.  

Local search is an essential component of any SEO strategy because it is the first step in targeting clients in a certain county, city, or neighborhood. Whether you’re a small-business owner or an eCommerce marketer, one of the most practical applications of local SEO is as a type of customer service. It can assist local online searchers find, like, engage with, and choose your local business. 

The three pillars of local search are proximity, prominence, and relevance. The term “local search marketing” refers to all online and offline activities to advertise business locations so that they are recogniszed by the communities they serve. Local SEO involves a wide range of technical, strategic, and creative efforts to persuade search engines that a business should be prominent in its results as a relevant answer to internet searchers within a short distance of each business location. 

Organic SEO is how you increase webpage rankings, and where your website ranks in organic search results can have a favorable impact on your Local Pack rankings. Local search is a strong tool for small businesses, and if your company isn’t optimiszed for local search, you could be losing out on potential clients who are looking to purchase in your region.  

When Google determines that a query has local intent, organic and local results are another wonderful opportunity for your local business to appear in front of eager searchers. While local and organic SEO are intertwined in many ways, each requires a distinct strategy with distinct optimisation tactics. 

76% of people who conduct a local search on their smartphone visit a business within 24 hours, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase. – Think with Google 

Why Is Local Search Important?  

What do you do when you visit a new town or city and want to do some shopping? Pull out your phone, open Google, and type “clothing stores around me” into the search bar. The top results aren’t always the biggest designer stores in the world or the best rated by locals. These are frequently locally-owned restaurants in your city that are near to where you are. That is the strength of local SEO.  

Localizsing your SEO and marketing activities not only improves your exposure, but it also keeps you in Google’s good graces. The Google rules for representing your business are an essential resource for every local business marketer. The most important requirements to learn at the start of your online journey are those describing eligibility for inclusion in Google My Business (GMB). This is a criteria that must be met by every location. 

“In order to qualify for a Business Profile on Google, a business must make in-person contact with customers during its stated hours.” 

You can read more about this from the Google Support Page.  

Simply put, if a business location does not serve consumers face-to-face during its open hours, it is ineligible for a GMB listing and cannot run a full local search marketing campaign. Google began giving more results for geographically-related queries based on (you guessed it) Proximity, Relevance, and Prominence in an effort to better satisfy the demands of its searchers. 

That is, if your business is close to where someone is searching, offers services or items they may be looking for, and has optimised local business listings, you are more likely to be found online by potential clients, regardless of how “big” your company is. 

Local SEO tips for 2023 

Local SEO is a vital marketing strategy for businesses trying to attract new clients, with 90% of consumers searching for local businesses online. You can bridge the gap between yourself and larger brands that frequently optimise for broader keywords and rely on brand recognition by focusing on specific local-SEO to-dos. You need a strategy for targeting localised searches and users in your area whether you have a physical site or an online business that services a specific geography. Here is how you outperform your competitors and get more clients by ranking better in Google search. 

Create a Google My Business Profile 

Setting up a GMB) page is one of the first stages to ranking in local searches and is one of the most effective strategies to rank higher on Google Maps as well as obtain visibility in local Google Search results. 

GMB is the modern-day counterpart of being listed in the phone book. Fill out all of the fields to ensure that this metric is at 100%. 

Optimise your site with local keywords  

Keyword research is critical to any SEO and content strategy. Once you’ve identified a list of local keywords for which you want to rank, the following step is to optimisze your site for them. Site optimisation is the foundation of every SEO plan, and making sure your keywords are relevant to local clients is important. 

Google’s Keyword Planner allows you to filter keyword searches by area to get an overview of the most popular search phrases in a certain region. You can use this to get a list of locally relevant keywords to target. Once you have them, include them in your site’s meta text, copy, and URLs.  

First off, you want to make sure that your homepage and any service pages contain your ranked local keywords in: 

• Headings 
• Title tags 
• Meta description
• Body
• Footer 

When incorporating keywords, make sure that you use them naturally and do not keyword stuff. In content optimisation, think quality over quantity. 

Optimise your website for mobile. 

Making your website mobile-friendly is critical for both general and local SEO.  

Potential clients will be put off if your site does not display well on mobile devices or if there are navigation challenges. They will most likely leave your site and go to a competitor with a more professional web presence. 

If your current site is optimised for mobile and you need to figure out a way that you’d optimise this in future read our What’s Responsive Design article.  

Local SEO Experts in UK   

SEO evolves at a rapid pace. You never know when Google may add new features to its SERPs for local queries, but these changes are inevitable. STAXO’s SEO experts have a wealth of expertise and experience, having lived through all of the environmental changes that the SEO business has faced. We will collaborate with you to optimise your site, enhance your keyword ranking, and improve your overall local SEO performance. For additional information, Book a Free Consultation to start your journey to a better  brand presence .