What is Local SEO?
Local SEO is a strategy aimed at increasing your online findability. There are millions of searches every day in which people are looking for a local specialist in their region. By applying Local SEO you increase the chance that your company will be visible in the right searches and that people from your region will want to do business with you.
How important is Local SEO?
Online searches are becoming increasingly popular because you hardly see the old familiar Yellow Pages and phone book anywhere anymore.
Google commissioned a study regarding local search terms that revealed that of the billions of searches processed daily, nearly half are locally targeted searches. An additional interesting point is that local searches via mobile devices resulted in an offline purchase in 78% of cases.
It can be concluded is that consumers have a greater willingness to buy in local searches.
The best local SEO strategy
When you want to establish a good Local SEO strategy for your business, the following five steps are essential:
- Create your Google My Business page
- Collect online reviews and actively engage with them
- Make sure your website is well found
- Make sure your company information is listed in online directories
- Make sure you are and remain active on social media such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
Further on in this article, I elaborate on the above five components.
1. Create your Google My Business page
As a first step, it is important that you create a page at "Google My Business." Google has created a Google listing based on all the data they themselves collect from almost all businesses in the Netherlands. Claim your page as a business and thereby increase your chances of showing up on the first page in Google.
Claiming your business listing in "Google My Business" is free. After you have created your page you will receive a verification code by mail at the address provided. Once you have received this you can proceed and fill in all fields completely and correctly. Google will indicate when you have filled in all the required data because the indicator is at 100%.
2. Collect online reviews and actively engage with them
Reviews are increasingly important, people give their opinions online about a service, a product or service from a company. These reviews are expressed in stars. Obtaining the highest possible rating for your company has a positive effect on your bottom line. The chance that you yourself choose a company with at least 4 stars is of course much higher than choosing a similar company with only 2 stars.
A business that has no reviews often quickly loses out to similar businesses that people online do rave about. Structurally working on getting reviews should be an integral part of your Local SEO strategy. This can already be done by using Google's free reviews. If you want to send out review requests in larger volumes, you could use Trustpilot.
3. Make sure your website is well found
Make sure your website is well optimized in terms of SEO. This will make your site better understood by Google and allow more relevant traffic to be directed to your website. Google has already made several major updates in recent years that ensure Google's algorithm can not only search your website for specific words. Google can now search and understand the context of the content as well. Google knows the difference between a bus you want to ride on and a bus you want to store something in.
Google's algorithm can safely be considered an example of artificial intelligence. To make your website Local SEO friendly, it is wise to clearly mention all your products or services on your website. In addition, you can apply Local SEO to ensure that you also attract local or regional search terms.
4. Make sure your business information is listed in online directories
It is very important to Google that your company is listed everywhere with the same company name, address, phone number and website name. If you list one phone number on one website and another completely different number on Google Maps, it can cause confusion. Google can't appreciate that. So make sure you are consistent with sharing information.
5. Make sure you are and stay active on social media such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn
With the help of Local SEO, your business will be found more easily online. On Facebook alone, more than 6 million people in the Netherlands are active daily. This undoubtedly includes potential customers for your business.
The fact that you can display your star rating on Facebook in your business listing in Google should be reason enough to create a business page on Facebook.
Applying local SEO within your business?
Are you interested in a good Local SEO marketing strategy for your business? Of course we would be happy to help you and invite you for a no-obligation introductory meeting.
