One of the most overlooked areas of SEO is local search. It might seem strange that such a thing could even be overlooked in any way. However, it is…often by companies who have set their sights on marketing nationally. Nothing wrong with a bit of ambition, but a strong house must be built on strong foundations and so this blog will give some tips for business owners to think about before reaching for the stars.

Google Business Profile

Formerly: Google My Business

Optimize your Google My Business profile: Make sure that your business’s name, address, phone number, and website are accurate and consistent across all online platforms, including your Google My Business profile.

Of course, there are many articles on the web telling you how to optimise your Google my business profile.  Beware, many of these guides are misleading and encourage you to spam.  If you focus only on the “quick wins” you could end up being penalised by google for breaking their guidelines.  We advocate the slow and steady approach.

• Company Name: Make sure that your company profile matches the name of your company. don’t try to fill the name chock full of keywords, that will just earn you a Google Slap.
• Address: Check this and check it’s correct. If you don’t serve clients from your location you don’t have to list it. So if you run your business from home and customers don’t visit you there. Use the registered address, which might be an accountant or mail-rented address. * Try not to change this too often, it can lead to Google requiring re-verification and the temporary suspension of your profile.
• Phone number: Whilst you can list your mobile number, is it your only business number?  We recommend listing a landline.  Landline numbers reflect your geographical area and are more likely to appeal to the local customer.  eg: in the Buxton area. An 01298 number will help you more than a mobile.  Similarly 01629 for Matlock or 01246 for Chesterfield.  Remember many customers actively want to try a local company first.
• Web Address: Not listing your web address or variations of it is a wasted opportunity.  I see many examples of businesses making posts online where they miss the opportunity to drop a link back to their lead page.
• Use Posts: Make use of Google Posts, a feature of Google My Business, to share updates, events, products, and offers with potential customers.

Encourage reviews:

Positive reviews can help to increase your visibility in local search results.  The biggest excuse businesses make is that they “forget to ask”, but again, this is just another wasted opportunity.

• Encourage customers to leave reviews for your business on Google, Yelp, and other review websites.
• Make reviews part of your work process. It’s like saying hello when a customer walks into your store and saying goodbye when they leave. /By integrating the review into your sales and after-sales process, you will soon gather lots of useful reviews from satisfied customers.
• Ask for a review, especially when you know they are happy with the product or service you’ve provided.

Think Local For Keywords and Images

This should be super obvious but again, it’s often overlooked so often.

• Use relevant local keywords in your website’s title tags, meta descriptions, and content to help search engines understand the relevance of your website to local customers.
• Mention the town or area you work or provide service in, and mention other towns and villages or city boroughs that border the area.  this makes your content super relevant to people close by.
• Use relevant images that represent the place you are talking about optimise images by adding alt tags, captions, and file names that include relevant local keywords.

Build Local Backlinks

• Build backlinks from reputable local websites, such as local newspapers, and parish councils
• Try to obtain links for local businesses such as your suppliers, or satisfied clients.
• Try to connect with localised influencers in social media, their endorsement could mean a flood of business
  to help establish your website as a credible and relevant source of information for local customers.

Structured Data

Use structured data, such as schema markup, to provide search engines with additional information about your business, such as:

• Your business’s hours of operation,
• Contact information particularly phone numbers
• Even reviews can be embedded into a site.

Use Social Media

Utilize social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to increase your visibility in local search results by sharing relevant and interesting content and engaging with your followers.  Don’t forget to ensure your profiles have a link to your website

• Facebook Pages are a great place to reach the 30+ generations. Don’t forget this audience has the most money to spend. Make sure your FB page has plenty of links back to your website.
• Twitter – Definitely not a place to spam out your goods and services but certainly a place to raise awareness of your brand. This is where you can promote local causes. By mentioning your local area in your Twitter posts you can attract local customers.
• Instagram Account: – Offers opportunities to mention your products /services occasionally goods and services but again not a place to over-spam. Instagram can be a good place to show your products or recent work.
• Linkedin: is perfect for conversations with other business owners. Great for learning about local networks and other localised aspects that might help your business.
• TikTok: A great place to target a younger audience and present the fun side of your business.
• The next big thing – Something will always be along.

Optimize For Both Mobile And Desktop

Optimize for mobile first though as google uses a mobile-first index to review and rank websites.
Whilst it’s still mostly true that more e-commerce customers check out on a laptop, mobile searches and research dominate the search stats nowadays,  so you need to ensure that your website is optimised for mobile devices.

• Does it load fast on a mobile?
• Does the menu work properly on mobile?
• Are your images optimised to work well on a mobile?

And finally

Monitor your progress: Monitor your progress by tracking your local search rankings, website traffic, and customer engagement to understand how to improve your visibility in local search results.   if you add all the facets listed in this article you will see your results begin to dramatically improve.

If there’s anything listed in this article that you feel you need more information on, please get in touch we’d be happy to assist.

You may  also like

• Quality Over Quantity – How We Handle Leads
• OpenCart SEO For Cosmetics Company – Case Study
• Why Woo Commerce Might Make More Sense Than Magento
• Choosing an SEO Company

Peak District SEO

I’m Phil Gregory, the MD and founder of Peak District SEO.

I’m an SEO & Google Ads Consultant with 28+ years of experience in I.T and helping UK Businesses improve website performance.
I built my first website in 1998, then I discovered the joys of website optimisation and never looked back.

If you want a no-nonsense, no-hard-sell approach and to actually get your website fixed with a solid, affordable, long-term approach, hit the contact button today.

Peak District SEO  is a UK-based Digital Marketing Company.
We help businesses make more money, using traditional Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) , Ai Search / GEO and paid advertising (PPC).

Why Peak District SEO?

27+ years of experience.
80+ 5* reviews on Google
Our customers have hundreds of page one and position 1 rankings, and we can prove it.
We’ve helped hundreds of SMEs in the UK
We have numerous articles published across the web discussing SEO.
We regularly publish case studies about the work we’ve done
Customers trust our service  – See our reviews on Google, Trustpilot and Facebook
Our customers have hundreds of page one and position 1 rankings and we can prove it.