GMB or Google My Business is the most important part of your local SEO strategy. It's essential to always be aware of local SEO and its changes, so you can take advantage of lucrative local searches and have a solid foundation when new SEO features are introduced. Local SEO is very different from an average SEO campaign, and local search results are changing more rapidly than any other. The graph above shows a breakdown of the weighting of various ranking factors within local SEO campaigns.
Links and on-page SEO factors continue to play an important role, but the type of links you want to focus on will be very different. To get results from your local SEO campaigns, you need to focus on getting links from local websites that talk about things similar to what you do. Not all companies need local SEO, only those that provide services in a specific geographic location or several should rank in the local search for the key terms that potential customers are looking for in their area. When you type 'Best Pizza Sacramento' on Google, you'll notice that The Flying Goat, a pizza place based in Spokane, WA, doesn't appear in local search results.
Instead, Google will direct you to a restaurant like Roma 2 Pizzeria, located in Sacramento, CA.This is known as a local search result because the Roma 2 Pizzeria website is optimized for Sacramento-based Google searches. On the other hand, The Flying Goat website is optimized for Spokane-based Google searches. This kind of online visibility will work wonders for your business and 28% of these searches result in purchases.We've had a lot of run-ins with Google My Business (GMB), so if you hit your head against a brick wall, you're not alone. However, claiming your company listing and completing the content for it is essential for your local SEO listing, especially for your Google Local Pack and SERP results.
Don't be discouraged if your company's category isn't on the list, although there are more than 2000 categories, they have some weird ones, so do your best to find the one that best suits your business.Use top keywords and LSI whenever you can as you fill in your content, as this represents almost 20% of your chances of getting into the local package. This post explains why you should update your Google business listing, when to make these updates, and the steps to make common edits and changes such as hours, phone number, categories and attributes.If Google can verify that your business is authentic, the search engine could reward your company with a coveted sidebar space in Google's local search. Link building within local SEO campaigns is incredibly important and is also something that is often overlooked. Compared to standard SEO campaigns, local SEO depends much more on links from other local websites that are truly relevant to your business.It's less about getting links from high-authority websites (although obviously that helps) and more about getting links from local websites that talk about things similar to what you do.
To help you optimize your business for local SEO, we've created a comprehensive guide which will cover local SEO tips and tools. If you are a company with no different products or services but you have multiple locations simply use a location-based copy for each page.In total 36% of SEOs believe that their Google Business profile is the most important ranking factor for the map package. Google takes into account many different local search ranking signals when determining how to rank a website in the MapPack. In this case it is important that your company's name address phone number and website URL (NAPW) are consistent across all directories.Make sure to listen to the world's most downloaded B2B sales podcast and use tools (if you're willing to pay for them) that can help make this process less overwhelming.
If you don't have the bandwidth to make these adjustments try a local SEO audit or find a small business SEO service provider.By implementing these 10 actionable elements you'll ensure that your business not only takes advantage of lucrative local searches but also has a solid foundation when new SEO features are introduced.
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