Why invest in Local SEO?

Focusing on local SEO improves chances of getting more traffic to your business website. Local SEO is therefore essential for every type of business.

Local SEO search stats reveal that;

1. 71% of people look for a business location online before visiting its premise.
2. Over 76% of all local searches result in phone calls.
3. Local searchers search for the business address.
4. 88% of consumers trust online reviews.
5. 86%of people look up the location of a business on Google Maps.
6.  46% of all searches on Google are local.
7.  78% of local mobile searches result in offline searches.
8. Local searches lead about 50% of mobile visitors to visit stores within one day.
9.  More than 50% of ‘near me’ searches result in a store visit.

10.  70% of customers visit a store based on information found online.

As a business owner if your SEO campaign does not include local SEO, you are losing out on relevant extra traffic. SEO campaigns must be strategic, adaptive and holistic to ensure long term success.

So, what is a local pack?

If you search for a specific service or business in a location. A local pack result is displayed, it provides a list of relevant businesses within the local area.

What are the main types of local packs?

1.      Local Teaser (or Local Snack Pack) Results have a photo and telephone number without links websites. Clicking on any result, will show you a map that features more businesses and an extended card showing selected business, with links to their websites.

2.      Local Pack (Local Finder) shows names of businesses, addresses, phone numbers. business hours and reviews.

How to get your business into the local pack?

In order to get your business into the Local Packs. Follow the listed steps below,

1. Create your Google My Business page Claim your Google My Business listing Verify your listing

2. Optimize your listing - Fill in business info - Select correct category - Add pictures Manage citations

3. Perform site audit Optimize for local - Integrate NAP into the website - Obtain locally relevant back links - Add structured data mark-up 

4. Create a rank tracking campaign Track for keywords with local modifiers Add local areas and different devices Track locally for keywords with no local modifiers

SEO pros that to get into the Local Pack you should be ranked within the top 10 results for your local search query, which implies a good share of website optimization.

Challenges that you might face and how to solve them?

A common challenge that you are bound to face is claiming your Business listing as the original owner, if other websites or competitors have claimed it already. A challenge that I faced head on in the automotive niche as most car dealers had claimed most business listing under locations for the dealer client that I was dealing with.

The solution is to prove to Google that you are the original owner of the business. This will require you to go through their verification process.

You can also deal with a Google My Business representative or product specialist for your region directly, if you are faced with problems that you cannot quickly solve.

If you are dealing with multiple locations, you can implement a bulk upload rather than manually adding or claiming all the listings that you must manage.

You can also contact the Google My Business team on twitter, their response rate is quite fair however they can take a day or two to get back to you.

Is your SEO strategy local street smart?

Local SEO has rapidly grown over the years and is more significant now more than ever before. Local search engine optimization provides results based on your current location.

Location-based data, IP addresses and Geo locations are used by Google to give you the most relevant, proximate and accurate results.

As an SEO specialist if you do not have local SEO in your strategy in 2019. (comment reserved) However, if have claimed all your clients Google My Business profiles and you have optimized them and continuously ensure that every detail is up to date. If you are tracking local keywords, bravo!

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