Why is Local SEO Important Today and Beyond?

Hello this is Monica Thomas the  SEO & Search Marketing Manager for medresponsive.com

 This week’s podcast will cover “why is local seo important today and beyond?”.

 Apart from a few new trends, local SEO is not going to be that different today or in 2020. Local SEO is geographic and enables local businesses to promote their products and services to local customers. Local SEO strategies includes tasks such as the social profile maintenance of sites like Google Business & Yelp, backlink building, content creation, social media marketing, citation building, on-page and off-page optimization and more.

 As the use of local review forums are becoming more commonplace then trend, businesses need to quickly get in the game by adopting local search strategies and best practices in order to level the playing field.

 Here are some tips on improving your local SEO:

 You may already know that customer reviews can have a dramatic effect on your business in a positive or negative direction. But did you know that customer feedback and reviews can impact your site’s local ranking?

 Search engine giant Google has shown many times that it gives businesses with a high number of reviews and ratings more prominent status in their search engine rankings. A recent study at Bright Local found that:

• 86 percent of potential customers now read reviews
• Nearly 60 percent of consumers will only consider merchants with ratings of 4-stars or more and 57% of consumers will only use a business if it has 4 or more stars
• 40 percent of them will only look at reviews that have been written within the past two weeks
• 91% of 18 to 34-year-olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations

 So, my first tip is to create a strategy to get more reviews. Make sure you encourage your customers to rate your products and services. Keywords used in your customer reviews can also help in your local SEO rankings. It is noted that 85% of consumers disregard local reviews more than 3 months old, making it important to get consistently good reviews. Some digital marketing agencies have active email and review management programs in place to attract your targeted audience. Steer away from black hat, fake reviews as it will negatively affect your business and may get you banned from the search engines.

 Another important component of Local SEO is the creation of local citations. The creation and maintenance of local citations is critical for Local SEO.

 A local citation is any online mention of the name, address, and phone number of a local business.This helps users discover your local business more easily. Citations can be included in the four formats as follows:

• Company name and phone number
• Company name, by itself
• Company name, address and phone number
• Company name, address, phone number and link

 A citation may also incorporate other elements including hours of operation, driving directions, business description, payment forms accepted, alternate phone numbers, links to social and other forms of media and more. Factors such as the number of citations a business adds, accuracy of the data featured as well as the quality of the platforms they exist on all influence rankings. Incorrect citations can misdirect customers, leading to loss of reputation and revenue.

 Other factors that influence rankings via Local SEO.

• In the coming years, user experience (UX) will be a crucial factor in determining the success of local SEO campaigns. The content you provide must be informative and accurate enough to engage the reader.
• More and more people are searching for local options on mobile devices and thus Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is getting more relevant. Mobile pages built with AMP are likely to outperform existing mobile pages in terms of speed. Mobile sites with AMP implemented could soon see a boost in rankings and traffic.
• Brief but attractive content that is to the point works. The average time people spend on every website is typically 2 minutes. Consider including content and design materials that would attract and engage the users in that short period. Add suitable, less competitive long-tail keywords that include your business location to help customers reach you much faster.
• Video content will be used at a massive volume in the days to come. Videos help to reveal the scope and dimensions of your business more vividly. Small businesses can post their videos on YouTube and use the link of the video on their website. Videos allow users to get information about a business in less than a minute. Keep in mind, when you create a video you should always include a transcript with targeted, geographic specific keywords. This is important for helping your page rank well locally.
• Social media marketing is a critical factor to help businesses boost their local SEO. By adequately designing and optimizing your Facebook, Twillter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube pages, you can ensure Google and potential customers can find you. Make sure you also consider Snapchat and Quora which are also commonly used for local search.
• Create local FAQ page optimized with geographic, local based keywords and incorporate the proper schema tags which will help get you featured as a informative snippet on Google search.

 It is also predicted that link building will be integrated into local SEO and cited links will be one among the most influential local pack factors. Make sure to work on speeding your site up, as users will get frustrated if your pages load slowly on mobile devices and PC based.

 Researching and understanding how to optimize your on and off site pages for Local SEO can  be a daunting and time-consuming task. The Tech, Web Design and Search Marketing team here at MedResponsive can help you with any of your main and local SEO, web design or internet marketing needs. Please contact us via phone or email with any questions. Have a great day or evening! Thank you for listening!