Have you ever traveled to a new city for a vacation and wanted to find the best restaurants in the vicinity? Chances are, you’ve done a local search for your restaurant quest. Whether you own a brick-and-mortar store or a firm that provides home improvement services in different cities, being on top of local search rankings will give your business a boost.
Wondering how your business can dominate local search results? You’re in the right place! In this blog post, we’ll cover all things.
What is Local Search Ranking?
Local search ranking refers to a website’s spot on the local search engine results page (SERP). If you have done some local searches, you’ve probably noticed that local SERPs look slightly different from non-local SERPs.
The local 3-pack is placed above the local search results and right below the ads if there are any. These results were only generated because you searched for local restaurants places in Canada. This local 3-pack serves as a way to help searchers find relevant places fast, so they can visit them.
How do You Improve Your Local Search Rankings?
- Claim and optimize your GMB listing
GMB or Google My Business is essentially the most critical part of your local SEO strategy. This tool from Google allows you to create free business listings. And according to Moz, it’s one of the top factors that Google will consider when ranking businesses in organic local search and snack pack results.
- Get Inbound Links from Local Websites
Inbound links from other websites to yours are always important for improving your search visibility, but links from local businesses can improve your chances for better local search results as well.
Getting inbound links is often a tough slog. It requires research, outreach, and tedious follow-up. I like to put my efforts into guest blogging opportunities with local blogs and links from local organizations and news sites.
- Build Local Citations
Claim your business’s local citation in directories like Yellow Pages, Trip Advisor, and Apple Maps. Having your business listed on these directories helps your local search rankings because these citations tell search engines that your business is legitimate.
Make sure your business name, address, and phone number are consistent across the directories and your Google Business Profile. Tools like LocalFX can help you manage your local citations and keep information across all directories consistent and updated.
- Monitor your Business’s Ratings and Reviews
As the best digital marketing company in Toronto, Be the brand that engages with your customers. Doing so allows your customers and prospects to know that you care about them. Google has revealed that business owners’ replies to reviews are important because they build customer trust.
Respond to positive reviews by thanking your customer. There will be negative reviews, and you can show them that you care by acknowledging their comment and addressing their concerns.
- Make the most of Social Listening
Social listening may have primarily served as a source for marketing insights, but it has many benefits beyond that. It could even help fuel your local SEO strategy if you know which insights to look out for and how to make the most of them.
- Make Your Website Mobile-friendly
Google does mobile-first indexing, which means Google’s crawlers index your mobile site first. Making your website mobile-friendly is also important for your human audience because people spend 70% of their Internet time on mobile.
These are the essentials on how to take your local SEO efforts to the next level. Keep in mind that your local SEO efforts can span various locations. And you can even apply these ideas in your SEO for multiple locations if you’re targeting more than one area. So make the most of them to enhance your online visibility in local searches and grow your business. Wondering how you can use these trends for your business? Reach us now. Our team of experts will guide you with the end-to-end process.