Why local SEO is important for your website

Optimising a website for local SEO practices emphasises it on the top rankings in local search results. If you want your business or brand to take over the highest positions on local SERPs, you will need to pay attention to some aspects.

What does a local search look like? For example, if you are looking for a specific service, you will type something like:

• Dentists near me 
• coffee shops near me 
• Pizza places in London

Perhaps you’re thinking, why is local SEO is so relevant for my business? Thus, here we’ve put together some insights to help you understand why you should optimise for local searches.

Why local search is important in an SEO strategy

Local searches are a key element for SEO

As we mentioned previously, local SEO continued to be a key SEO strategy in 2021 and is even more important now. Here are some local search figures that prove it:

• A huge 50% of people who performed a local search on their mobile phone visited a store the next day.
• About 34% of users who performed this search on a computer or a tablet also visited a physical store the following day.
• 50% of those searches on a phone are looking for a business address.
• Overall, one in every three searches on a smartphone was directed just before visiting the store.

Local keywords rank better in Google

Online customers are more able to search for business information or services within a particular area. Therefore, it would be easier for your business to rank locally for your selected keywords than it would nationally. Redirecting your efforts to local keywords will boost your SEO by reaching a specific geographical audience.

Local citations will help you improve your business’s visibility and local rankings

Put simply, this will drive more traffic to your website. A good way to leverage your local visibility is to create local citations. An online local citation consists of a mention of your business (your company name, complete address, contact details, and so on) on a relevant online directory. These sites might be Foursquare or Yelp, for example.

Local SEO can convert online searches into more leads

As mentioned above, most of the times a potential customer visits a physical store, they perform a local search on their phones. Therefore, the biggest percentage of this traffic will go to those websites that appear on top of the SERPs. Those are the local business that will benefit from local searches. Making the most of local SEO practices you can leverage your business and make it more attractive to those online users who search for a product or service in your industry. This will lead to more sales for your company.

On-site optimisations will boost your traffic for relevant searches

Optimising your landings for local SEO will result in huge benefits for your business. If you wish to boost your rankings, you need to make sure that you constantly optimise your site when needed. 

As mobile searches have proven to be key for local search purposes, keeping your site optimised for mobile appears to be necessary, too. Moreover, due to Google’s mobile-first index update, both desktop and mobile versions need to have the same content. 

All this means that your site needs to fill some requirements when optimising for local searches:

• Your website needs to have a bespoke mobile-friendly design.
• Perform keyword searches regularly to make sure that the content you offer is up to date.
• Use the right keywords through your content (H1, H2s, and so on).
• Monitor your local keywords to see if you need to make any changes.

Focusing on local content will make you stand out amongst the local competition

One of the things that will benefit you the most on local rankings is creating content that is specific to a certain geographical area. For example, if you create different landing pages for specific boroughs or cities, which contain relevant keywords, it will improve your website’s position locally.  

Consider local SEO to stay ahead of the competition

In summary, it is clear that creating a strong and solid SEO strategy will be necessary to put you in front of your customers’ eyes. Don’t think of local SEO just as a matter for small business, as big companies can also benefit from optimising locally. And if you’re interested in our SEO services, do get in touch. We’d love to find out how we can help you grow your visibility online.