What is Local Search Engine Optimization(SEO)? How to do Local SEO on your own?
If you type “restaurants in new york” on Google search, and you see a list of businesses in the type of cards, I am not talking about regular organic search results.
Now, that is done with the help of local search engine optimization.
Google will show you a few business listings based on its algorithm. These results could be shown based on the relevancy and reviews the business listing has, it could be because of the kilometer radius, how far is the address? Also because of citations.
Yes, we will learn about citations and how to do it on your own in this article.
Reviews, kilometer radius & citations all this combined together, is optimized to highlight your business in the Google business listing search result which is nothing but to optimize your business on the local search engine results.
Well, yes this is applicable to all other search engine companies like Yahoo, bing, but I am always focused on Google since that has the most number of searchers and traffic volume compared to any other search engines.
How does Google Business Listing work for Local SEO?
If you are looking forward to ranking your website/business on Google within the search results locally, Google Business Listing is the key for you. Google Business Listing gives your business a provision to add information about it like, name, description, address and phone numbers. Yes, besides all this information you can also add images, videos and recently it started its own postings and a website too.
Hurray!!
For all those, you are desperate to create a free website plus rank it on Google, this is your chance to do so. Make use of the website, keep sharing articles on it and start link building. This will surely help you to boost your local search engine optimization(SEO). Plus, the website is completely free of cost, you don’t have to pay for its domain or hosting. It is actually a subdomain and not a domain, but small businesses can always use this to highlight their business if they don’t need a full website, and simply need an online presence to showcase its gallery or portfolio or maybe a few articles.
With all this information collectively which you upload on Google business listing, helps Google to understand what your business is about. With its own algorithm, it ranks your business based on the keywords the searcher’s type on Google.
If you want to learn how to create a website on Google Business Listing, contact us.
What type of content is effective for Local Search Engine Optimization?
I have seen some SEO experts building multiple pages on their website like “laundry services in ‘location name’” where the location name is the area where they want to rank for. But this being a technique works at times.
Creating multiple pages with different location names in titles like laundry services in new york, laundry services in Pittsburg, laundry services in Ohio, laundry services in Nevada, is ok, but from where will you get the actual address of the area, where your business is listed.
Google might rank your website initially, because of these multiple pages which have been created with different locations. But don’t you think you are confusing Google’s algorithm here. Exactly! You cannot fool Google, by calling yourself an expert. But this could be one of the methods to rank on the organic search results in a specific location.
The effective way to do local search engine optimization is to create pages with the same Business Name, Address and Phone number(NAP) with your website link and keyword if possible. If Google keeps seeing this consistency on the webpages it would understand that people have been talking about the business and start ranking your business listing and website both on the local search results. This method of creating webpages with NAP consistency is called as citations.
What are Citations? How can I do it for my business?
Citations are nothing but webpages that allows you to submit your business name. Address and phone number, maybe asking for the website. But the website is still a maybe. So anywhere on the internet, where you can enter your business NAP that could be a citation for your business.
Citations could be web directories, classified listings, B2B portals, and those websites that allow you to enter your business name, address, and phone number.
Citations help Google to understand your business and lets Google know how popular your business is on the internet. In this way, Google ranks your business listing on its search results.
Few citation websites are Yelp, Yellow Pages, Facebook, Zomato, etc.
How to search for a citation website where you can list your business?
Simply go to Google search, enter keywords in double quotes like:
“List my business”, “add a business listing”, you can make your own keywords to this similar and do a search for different websites.
Now how do you search for country specific citations?
Search for keywords like “List my business”, “add a business listing”. Then click on tools, check the below screenshot. Go to advance search and select the region where you want to target your business. You will get a list of all the business listing websites where you can add citations.
NAP consistency
Make sure the name, address, and place match all the websites, everywhere you create the citations. Consistency is very important for these three factors. If not done properly, then you might confuse Google and your rankings could drop on the search results.
Building backlinks for citations and Google business listings
Note: Also check Do Directory Backlinks Hurt Your SEO? to learn more about backlinks.
Now here comes the most important factor and the tricky part, for which you need expert guidance. Once you create citations, your work cannot stop there. You need to build backlinks for these citations as well as your Google business listing for them to rank higher.
The SEO expert needs to create a number of quality backlinks for your citations and business listings. Based on the type of backlinks you build you will get to see the improvements in the rankings on Google SERP.
You get can get more details about the directory submission sites you can find on Linkio.
Now, this requires a proper strategy and execution for your business listings to rank on Google. For this, I would recommend you get in touch with an SEO link building expert or you may contact us for a free consultation.