As we are living in a world where each one of us is seeking solutions near us, local SEO has become the most important aspect for every business. Whether you’re finding a restaurant, a craftsman, or a specialized store, users primarily rely on geo-targeted searches to get what they immediately require.
This kind of shift in search behaviour makes this strategy essential for new-age marketing campaigns.
Given the technological and AI-driven advancements that are showing up in the present and the future, this strategy comes as a breath of fresh air that allows marketers to develop campaigns to attract customers in a more effective way.
In this blog post, we will shed light on various local search marketing strategies that will help you drive more local customers to your business in its physical and online locations.
But before that, you need to know what exactly this terminology is and why it is important for your marketing campaign. By understanding all these aspects, you will be able to strategize your marketing efforts in a better way.
What is Local Search Marketing?
As compared to general SEO, which only aims for national or local rankings, local search marketing focuses on visibility in a certain area. Even if you don’t own a physical storefront, this tactic will allow you to attract local customers by optimizing for location-based searches.
Local search marketing is actually pretty effective for every niche, even businesses without traditional brick-and-mortar locations. If you’re meeting customers face to face, at a store, or even in their residences, you may end up benefiting from this strategy.
Its biggest plus point is that you get featured in the local pack. Let’s say you’re running a restaurant offering Italian delicacies. When a customer is searching for “best Italian restaurant in Ontario” online, Google will show restaurants at the top of the search results.
If your restaurant is in that top section, complete with a map and business information, you’ll be winning the game in terms of visibility. However, here’s a catch: Google keeps changing its algorithms, which makes this game go beyond ranking in the map pack.
You can just take the recent updates to the search engine result pages as an example. Almost half of every Google search now features AI-powered overviews or summaries. These summaries provide quick answers to customers without needing to click on a website.
Google generates these results according to the information taken from customer reviews, location, preferences, search behaviour, and various other things. This makes Google Business Profile Optimization important for your business.
AI overviews show precise and relevant information at the top of the SERPs. In fact, it is the first thing seen by a user. With local search marketing, you will be able to increase your chances of appearing on them.
Why is Local Search Marketing Important?
This strategy goes beyond just being visible online. In fact, it is all about staying ahead of the curve and capturing the attention of your audience where they are already searching.
For local businesses and service providers, this generally implies that Google Maps, the most popular navigational app for the majority of users. According to research by Statista, 58% of users use Google Maps to find local companies. This is why you need to emphasize more on NAP consistency(Name, Address, and Phone Number).
You should also keep in mind that if people aren’t able to find you on Google quickly and conveniently, you won’t be able to drive them to your website. Even if you try paid local search ads to tackle that, the first thing they will do is ignore the ad and jump to the first organic search results.
This makes it important to optimize for local search. This will help you ensure that your business appears near the top, where people potentially click.
The best thing you can do is rank for certain questions or long-tail keywords.
Local SEO Vs Local Search Marketing: What Sets Them Apart?
Both terms are used without any changes. However, both local SEO and Local Search Marketing are different from one another. You can also consider local SEO as a part of local search marketing. Its primary focus is on generating online traffic via strategies like optimizing web copies, on-page SEO, meta tags, and mobile and voice search optimizations.
On the other hand, local search marketing comprehensively covers strategies like organic and paid tactics, such as running ads, optimizing local citations and listings, and reputation management.
Essential Local Search Marketing Strategies to be Considered
Ensure Compliance:
Adhering to Google’s guidelines and the best SEO practices can help you ensure an accurate representation of your business on search results prominently. When you play by the rules, you will be able to build trust with both Google and your potential customers.
To stay compliant, you need to:
Follow GBP Guidelines: Offer accurate and true information about your business that stays aligned with Google’s business profile guidelines. These guidelines cover everything from how you present your business details to the types of content you are able to post.
Maintaining Accuracy With Your Business Details: Your GBP should showcase the accurate name, address, and phone number across all listings. Consistency is extremely important.
Saying No to Keyword Stuffing: Stuffing relevant keywords throughout your business details is a big no! Instead, place your keywords naturally within your content and focus on relevance. By doing so, you’ll be able to provide a better user experience.
When you stick to rules, you will be able to avoid penalties. It further helps you build trust with Google and your customers, resulting in better rankings, enhanced local visibility, and an improved brand presence.
Enhance the User Experience:
User experience is extremely important when it comes to visibility and engagement. A smooth and intuitive website will always keep its users engaged. It also witnesses low bounce rates, enhanced trust, and a rise in conversion rates.
Google also considers UX factors like page speed and site structure when it ranks websites. It always aims to offer the best possible results. To ensure that, follow these steps:
- Make site navigation simple
- Optimize load times
- Ensure mobile-friendliness
- Offer quality content that offers value to your readers.
- Provide a clear CTA to help users decide what to do next.
Pay More Attention to Core Web Vitals:
Core Web Vitals are the most important aspect of local search marketing. They may not be the direct ranking factor, but enhancing these core metrics will take the user experience to the next level.
You can further ensure lowered bounce rates and enhance mobile-friendliness while focusing on CWV. It will definitely have an overall impact on the performance of your site.
With optimized CWVs, Google will get a signal showing that a site is performing well with the help of the following metrics:
Largest Contentful Paint: LCP tracks the time taken by your site’s main content to load on screen. You should always aim for less than 2.5 seconds. Slow load times can be frustrating for users and hurtful to your rankings, even if you’re paying to be at the top.
Interaction to Next Paint: This is the actual way preferred by Google to track the responsiveness of your site based on the time taken by the browser to respond to user interactions like clicks or taps. A good INP score is considered to be 200milliseconds or less. Higher scores can hamper user engagement.
Cumulative Shift Layout(CLS): CLS tracks the stability levels of your website. If you’ve clicked on something, and suddenly the entire page shifts around, and now you’ve clicked something else, that’s CLS on the move. If your CLS score is above 0.1, it implies that your website is user-friendly.
Utilize Local Email Campaigns:
Another great way to improve your local search marketing campaign is to integrate email marketing within it. But before blasting off emails to everyone, you need to segment your email list according to location. Consider using tools like Klaviyo and Mailchimp for this purpose.
Additional suggestions from our team at SEO Toronto Experts include:
- Localize your subject lines and personalize your emails. This will help you ensure that your subscribers feel valued.
- Utilize dynamic content blocks to swap out parts of the email according to the location. This will help you showcase multiple products and services to different audience types without the need to create a ton of emails.
- Schedule the time for sending emails like a local, which will ensure that they hit customers’ inboxes when they are most likely to open them.
- Add a little social proof. There’s nothing that builds quicker than witnessing your neighbours showering praises on a specific product.
In addition to that, consider implementing location-specific strategies and languages, which will further help you connect deeply with the local audience. Also, work on your local review profile, which will further help you build trust with customers and improve your online visibility.
To Summarize
Local search marketing has huge potential, which will help your website rank higher on search engines. Beyond that, it will help you connect deeply with the target local audience, turn them into customers, and boost your revenue and visibility to a greater extent.
All you need is the right strategy that will help you strike the right balance between local visibility and trust. This will further help you achieve better online rankings and boost your localized SEO campaign in the best possible way.
At SEO Toronto Experts, we offer a comprehensive range of local search marketing services. Our team of seasoned SEO professionals are experts in digital marketing, encompassing a vast experience in handling different types of SEO campaigns and achieving the best outcomes. Consult us now!
FAQs
Q1. What Differentiates Local SEO and Local Search Marketing?
A1. Both local SEO and local search marketing are subtly different from one another. The former is a subset of the latter. Local SEO focuses on generating online traffic, whereas local search marketing handles a wider spectrum of digital marketing strategies.
Q2. Why is NAP Important for Local SEO?
A2. Name, address, and phone number(NAP) are the most important aspects of your Google Business Profile, citations, and listings on other platforms. When your NAP stays accurate across all platforms, it will help customers reach out to you easily, thus increasing your conversion rates.
Q3. What is the Best Way to Optimize Your Google Business Profile?
A3. Here’s how you optimize your Google Business Profile for local SEO:
- Use local keywords naturally
- Write accurate name, address, and phone number across every description.
- Add the products and services you sell without going overboard.
