How To Boost Your Local SEO Rankings

Businesses make $2 for every $1 invested in local search marketing.

A local search engine optimization (SEO) strategy will help your website appear in front of more local customers. Boosting your brand visibility will help you attract more people to your site.

Then, you can use your local-inspired content to turn those visitors into sales.

Local SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy that can put your business on the map (literally)! How do you boost your local SEO rankings and stand out from the crowd, you ask?

Keep reading to find out!

Claim Those Local Listings

The first step to improving your local SEO is to head online and determine where you’re listed. Start with your Google My Business listing.

Your Google My Business (GMB) listing will take up prominent space on a Google search engine results page (SERP). You can use that space to attract a customer’s gaze. This listing appears at the top of a SERP, meaning consumers will spend less time looking for you.

Your GMB, as well as other online listings, will display your name, address, phone number, and other relevant information.

As you update your local listings, make sure your contact information is accurate, up-to-date, and consistent. You don’t want to confuse customers (or Google) by displaying different phone numbers or locations.

Finding all of your online listings can feel a little daunting. Thankfully, there are many tools available online to help you find those listings. For example, consider using Moz Local to hunt your listings down.

Make sure your business name is written the same way on each listing, too. That includes capitalization, abbreviations, and spacing. Consistency is key!

Love Your Location

72% of consumers who search for local businesses end up visiting a store nearby. Meanwhile, almost 80% of local mobile searches lead to in-store purchases.

To appear in these local searches, you need location-based content.

Start by adding location pages to your website.

Search engines like Google crawl and index your website, searching for the keywords you’ve used within your content. Then, Google displays your website on SERPs when consumers search for those keywords. In order to appear for location-relevant searches, add location-based keywords to your SEO strategy.

To start, add a specific landing page for each of your business locations.

Google will locate each of these pages and display them when someone searches for your product/service along with the location. For example, if you have a bakery in New York, you’ll appear for a search that includes “bakery New York.”

Show love for your location by creating blog posts relevant to your area, too. This content will help you boost your local SEO rankings and attract locals to your business.

Step Up Your Site

To boost any SEO rankings, you need to improve your website.

Consider using user experience (UX) design trends. UX design trends focus on providing users with a fast, easy experience. Google wants to provide its users with this experience.

To make sure your website visitors are happy, Google looks at your clickthrough rate, bounce rate, and dwell time.

The clickthrough rate indicates people are exploring your website content. The bounce rate, however, indicates people are leaving without clicking around. Higher dwell time, on the other hand, means people are staying on your site.

Google uses these metrics to determine your ranking. To improve your clickthrough rate and well time, while reducing your bounce rate:

• Add white space to give your content space to breathe
• Check font styles, colors, and sizes to improve readability
• Make sure links stand out on the page
• Check the navigation to make sure it’s easy for people to explore your site

Make sure your website is mobile-friendly and loads quickly, too. Google now uses mobile-first indexing when determining SEO rankings. If you’re not optimized for smaller screens, you’re losing customers.

People also want to find the information they need quickly. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to determine what’s slowing your site down. For example, you might need to change a plugin or compress your images.

Hiring a solid SEO agency to help with small business SEO services will also help a ton.

Give Your GMB a Boost

Your Google My Business listing shows more than your name, address, and phone number. Log into your GMB account to make sure it’s optimized.

For example, you can:

• Update your business hours
• Add photos and videos of your products, services, or location
• Gather customer reviews
• Include categories
• Link to your website
• Post articles

Making these improvements will bulk up your GMB listing and help you rise into the 3 pack. The 3 pack displays at the top of a SERP and shows three local businesses relevant to the user’s search.

Ramp Up Reviews

Reviews are a great way to improve your local SEO rankings and your brand reputation.

Ask happy customers to post their reviews on your GMB listing or your website. These reviews will help customers who aren’t sure about your business learn more about who you are and what you do.

Don’t forget to respond to negative and positive reviews. Responding to your customers will show them you’re listening and willing to improve.

Consider Your Customers

What do your customers care about? What keywords are they searching that relate back to your business?

The more you know about your customers, the more likely you’ll create location-based content that appeals to their interests.

To improve your local SEO rankings, you need to create content people want to read. Provide insight into your industry or helpful tips for your customers. Then, they’ll click and explore your content more, which will improve your ranking.

Bring on the Backlinks

Link building is another important component of a strong SEO strategy. Work with other local businesses in the area. You can guest blog on their website, then link back to your site.

This will help you attract more site traffic and boost your online authority.

Don’t forget to include internal links, which will encourage readers to explore more of your content. External links, on the other hand, can help you link to high-authority websites to further boost your rankings.

Stay Social

As you create your location-based content, don’t forget to share it on social media.

As people share your content, you can gather more visitors to your site. As your visits, clickthrough rate, and dwell time all improve, so will your ranking!

Love Locally: Use These 8 Tips to Give Your Local SEO Rankings a Boost

Give your business location plenty of love! Whether you’re looking for West Palm Beach SEO agency, a Boca Raton SEO company, or a national SEO agency, we can help.

With these tips, you can boost your local SEO rankings and reach more local customers. Then, you can build your business and improve your ROI.

Ready to get started?

Contact us today to boost your rankings.