Today I want to show you how I’ve been able to rank my own sites and client sites and make money from doing both.

The process I will share with you is a system that I've been using and perfecting over the last four years to rank for terms like web design, computer repair, iPhone repair, roof repair, moving, acupuncture, realtors, nursery, SEO, fishing lodge, and more.

Below this list, I will also be including an expert round-up I did of 50 SEO experts who left their favorite local SEO tip for 2022.

Enjoy!

PS: Before we get started, make sure you save your seat for a live presentation I'm going to be doing on “The Simple 3-Step Process I Use to Work Less and Charge More For Local SEO Services” ==> (Click Here to Register Now)

Table of Contents

The Biggest Mistakes I Made as a Beginner
How Much Should You Invest to Get Started?
Local SEO vs National SEO
SEO May Not Be For You
Figure Out Your Niche
Map Out Your Website Structure
Choose Your Domain Name For Local Search
Decide on Your Websites CMS
Find a Website Designer
Utilize Video Targeting Your Keywords Then Transcribe
Outsource Your Written Content
Rank in Local Search With Blog posts
Verify Your Google Business Profile Listings
Optimize Your Google Business Profile Listings
Build a Local Review Funnel
Optimize Your Websites On Page SEO
Optimize Your Websites Title Tags
Optimize Your Pages For Content Relevancy
Optimize Your Pages For User Engagement
How To Get The Highest CTR Possible
Increase Your Visitors Average Dwell time
Build User Generated Content For Rankings
Social and Offsite Signal Optimization
Setup Your Websites Internal Linking Strategy
Use Embeds to Rank Locally
Selling your business
Creating partnerships
Getting Clients

1. The Biggest Mistakes I Made as a Beginner

5 years ago when I built my first website, I tried to outrank everyone locally for, “computer repair” in Santa Barbara, California.

It wasn't until a few months in that I realized how competitive the keyword actually was.

After all, I was competing against well-established websites with real businesses and Google Business Profiles that holstered over 300 five-star reviews.

I wound up spending over 3 months trying to rank and I barely made it to the first page organically.

While I know I could have eventually outranked my competitors, I realized that I like SEO much more than computer repair.

So I gave up on the computer repair keywords and began going for “SEO” in Santa Barbara, California.

Unfortunately, after spending an additional three months ranking, I did achieve the #1 result but had no leads coming in.

I soon figured out that the searches were coming from other SEO’s who wanted to check their local rankings.

So lesson 1, don’t try to rank for SEO in your town unless you’re doing it for vanity metrics.

2. How Much Should You Invest to Get Started?

One perk about local SEO is that you don’t need a large investment to get started.

Generally, you can rank locally with only a few hundred dollars.

Here’s what I spend:

Hosting ($88 dollars a year on-site ground
Domain ($12 a year on Godaddy)
Citations ($60)

Everything else such as content and media is optional.

I will try to show you how to do a lot of this stuff for free without a ton of effort.

3. Local SEO vs National SEO

I’ve found there’s no easier way to improve your overall SEO skills than to start by outranking other local businesses on Google.

Here's why.

Local SEO is a lot competitive since you aren’t usually up against thousands of other businesses around the world, rather a handful of businesses in your local area.

On top of that, one of the big problems with getting into SEO is that most people lack the confidence to sell services because they haven’t had any results of their own to show.

The best part about local SEO is that once you do succeed, you get both a way to start making money from your incoming leads but you also get a case study that will enable you to sell to business owners or even make courses on how you got to be number 1 in your area.

4. SEO May Not Be For You

SEO isn’t for everyone, and SEO is getting a lot more competitive every day.

As more websites get created, the higher the competition gets, and the harder it is to rank.

Google is constantly releasing updates to combat tactics that may have worked yesterday but no longer work today.

The truth is, if you learn something that seems sketchy, then it probably is.

Your best bet is to always remember one thing when you’re in doubt.

Remember, “if what you’re doing isn’t helping your website visitor, then it probably isn’t worth your time.”

This is the exact reason I stay away from things like building PBN’s, or buying signals that don’t ultimately help my end user.

Ranking is great but having a phenomenal overall marketing strategy will always prevail.

Even when I began doing SEO, I tried doing the things I didn’t necessarily believe in like link building.

To me, it always felt like a waste of time.

Emailing business owners and begging them to link to something they probably don’t care about, especially since they had no idea who I was.

I’ve always leaned more towards building an audience naturally with content marketing and social media and having them engage and recommended my brand without really asking.

I truly believe the next new backlink is having an audience who follows you on whatever platform you’re on.

5. Figure Out Your Niche

OK, you’ve heard the disclaimers, now let’s get into how to actually rank locally and make some money.

When it comes to choosing a niche, I always say, pick the topic you know the most about.

I find it’s easier to rank for something you know a lot about then something you don’t.

The reason for this is that SEO is nothing without content.

You can’t optimize a website for a search engine if there’s nothing on that website in the first place.

Therfore, it’s easier to rank something that you know what the lingo means that you’re optimizing.

One of my first ever SEO projects that I received at the SEO agency I was hired by was a website I knew virtually nothing about.

I kept trying to use terms that I found had searches but according to the owner of the website, none of what I was adding made any sense.

On top of that, the pictures I was adding and videos didn’t match what the page was actually about because I really didn’t know what the correct product was.

Long story short, it was a total mess, and I did end up ranking their site, but I wish I would have known more about what the industry was about before hand.

With that said, once you choose what you want to target, you can start plugging your topics into the Shine Ranker keyword research tool and see the search rates on your keywords.

If the searches are under 10, the keyword probably isn’t worth going for.

Note: make sure you try different variations of your main keyword to see if there is a higher search rate for one variation than the other.

For instance: “iPhone Repair Santa Barbara vs Santa Barbara iPhone Repair”

6. Map Out Your Website Structure

This is something that a lot of people actually get really stuck on but it’s more simple than you’d think.

Here’s what your website should have on it and the URL’s associated with the website.

Home page Url: / - Title: (main keyword + “highest rated or most affordable”)

Services - Url: /services - Title: (Main service + “quick delivery”)

Service 1 - Url: /services/service-1-town-name - Title: (Service 1 + “some qualifier”)

Reviews - Url: /reviews Title: (Reviews for “keyword + brand” + “some qualifier”)

About us - Url: /about Title: (About “keyword + brand” + “some qualifier”)

Contact us - Url: /contact Title: (Contact “keyword + brand” + “some qualifier”)

Location photos - Url: /location Title: (location “keyword + brand name” + “some qualifier”)

In other words, you have a home page, a service page that lists all of the services you offer, your individual services that you offer (or don’t - more on this in a second), about, contact, location pictures, and reviews.

You can add more pages than this but this should suffice.

Now, the question is, what if you only offer one service and the other services related to your main service you don’t offer but are still relevant.

I end up adding these services anyways.

For instance, the iPhone repair site I rank ranked, I added services to the website like android repair and ipad repair, even though I had no idea how to repair androids or Ipads.

But, when someone would call about these items, I would either say I’m out of stock on the parts or refer these leads out to other businesses and make affiliate sales.

The reason I added these services to the site is that it made the site more relevant for the main topic and I was able to get more internal links to the main service I did want to rank for, “iphone repair”

I recommend that when you start your site to create a google sheet and create a few columns that you can use to map out your website.

Column 1: Page type

Column 2: URL

Column 3: Title tag

Column 4: Keyword target

7. Choose Your Domain Name For Local Search

It’s preferable to go with an EMD (exact match domain) and a .com

If you can’t find a domain that exactly matches your keyword you can go with something that contains abbreviations like wdsantabarbara.com instead of webdesignsantabarbara.com

I also like to add words at the front of my domains if their first name is taken like prolandscapingsantabarbara.com instead of landscapingsantabarbara.com if that name is taken.

You can use a tool called, https://instantdomainsearch.com/ which will help you find different variations of domain names that you can use.

This isn’t to say that you can’t go with a non-EMD and rank.

In one of my oldest local SEO courses I did I ranked a website called Authoritynuke.com

The secret is that you ignore the domain name and just call the brand whatever your keywords are.

For instance, in the home page title tag for authoritynuke.com, I put, “SEO Santa Barbara | Authority Nuke”

And my page body text referred to authoritynuke.com like this, “here at SEO Santa Barbara - authority nuke is your place to go for awesome SEO services”

Sounds a little weird, but for the most part, I found that it works.

And obviously, if you’re going to want to rank this website in other areas besides just your town, you would want to call it something that doesn’t have to do with just your one location.

This approach is a bit harder, however, but still doable.

I actually tried doing this approach with the computer repair site I mentioned. I wanted to rank in a ton of different areas locally for computer repair and I started creating local landing pages for each area.

I started putting ads out on Craigslist looking to hire computer repair professionals and when someone would respond I would mention the website I was creating and that I’d like to get their profile on it as well as send them a verification letter to their house to get a GMB in their area.

I wound up getting a ton of areas with #1 rankings but I had a hard time figuring out how to manage all the work so I shut the project down.

8. Decide on Your Websites CMS

I’ve ranked a ton of sites mainly between two platforms:

WordPress and Squarespace

I actually did a poll with my groups and saw that WordPress was preferred when it came to rank on Google but I’ve found when you build sites locally that you want to rank, as long as your using my methods you can use virtually any platform.

The first site that I tried to rank was on WordPress and I had a really hard time learning how to design the pages. My website looked terrible and even though it ranked #1 I couldn’t be proud of the design by any means.

The second site that I ranked for iPhone repair was on Squarespace and is still ranking to this day four days later, and looks great.

I had a way easier time learning how to edit and design pages on Squarespace.

But Squarespace is extremely hard to edit code like Schema and other technical elements which can be annoying but definitely not a game-changer on a local level.

I actually did a full Squarespace SEO tutorial on Youtube if you’d like to check that out as well.

The truth is, whatever platform you use, just make sure you can edit the pages yourself.

The worst thing is having to rely on other people to edit pages and have to wait for them to implement the quick changes you need done.

9. Find a Website Designer

If you’re anything like me, you know that it’s easier to hire a designer to build pages that you can make edits on than having to design all of the pages yourself.

For this, I will generally hire someone on Fiverr to build me a simple page and if I like the design, I will hire them to design the rest of the site.

It’s that simple.

10. Utilize Video Targeting Your Keywords Then Transcribe

This is probably my favorite method for creating content.

The idea is that instead of writing content, you just talk about topics that have to do with your main subject and then transcribe those videos into content that seems to rank very well.

I actually did this with my SEO site a while back and ranked it #1 in just a month with all transcribed content.

I also added the videos to the site and it seems like having videos actually helps you rank higher as well.

11. Outsource Your Written Content

I said it before, and I’ll say it again.

If you don’t have content, you can’t optimize anything.

So, if you don’t want to go the video to transcribe route you could always just hire a content writer off somewhere like writersaccess.com or you could write the content yourself.

I’ve done a lot of testing in order to find out what the optimal word count should be for local and the truth is it really varies on your niche and how competitive your area is, but generally you should shoot for a MINIMUM of 500 words per page.

12. Rank in Local Search With Blog Posts

A lot of people ask if blogging is necessary for a local website and I hear a ton of mixed answers.

I’ve found that if you can rank nationally for easy keywords, you can seriously grow your local authority.

ESPECIALLY if you’re capturing your national traffic and having your audience engage with your brand.

13. Verify Your Google Business Profile Listings

When it comes to GMB (google my business) Google seems to be moderating a lot more with what’s been happening in the local listings.

Meaning that it is now a lot harder to get a listing for a new business than it was a year or two ago. The reason for this is that a ton of people want to rank everywhere locally so they spam fake Google listings in order to bring in more traffic, leads, and ultimately rent out the businesses to business owners who have businesses in the area they are targeting.

With that said, it is still possible to rank a brand new business and get a verified listing on Google without too much effort.

Obviously, if you already have a business address, you can ignore this part and send a letter to your business, and get verified in about a week.

But, if you don’t have an address - here’s what you can do.

Verification method 1: use your home address.

The cool thing about GMB is that you can select a service area for your business so people can’t see your address on Google.

This was the first method I used when I ranked my computer repair and SEO business a while back.

The only problem with verifying your home address is that you can’t really build citations to your business unless you want your address showing on websites like Facebook, Yelp, etc.

Oh, and if you don’t know what a citation here you go: a citation is your name, address, phone number, or website URL (NAPW for short) listed on other relevant websites in your niche, location, or a generic social platform like Facebook, yelp, etc.

Verification method 2: rent a coworking spot.

This is probably my favorite method to get verified.

As long as you’re trying to rank in a somewhat populated area, there should be a coworking space that youc an rent.

Coworking spaces are cool because memberships are generally pretty cheap.

Some let you sign up for the first week for free too.

If you send a letter to the coworking space you want to rank at, make sure you’re not using the same address as the building itself, rather type the address with some sort of extension at the end - most of the time you can even make up the extension.

For example, 2222 coworking rd, “room B”

Also, you’ll want to make sure that you’re not competing with the same type of business that is already listed there as your business may very well get filtered out of the maps.

Verification method 3: ask someone to send a letter to their house

This is probably the most sketchy way (and most difficult) way of verifying a GMB for two reasons:

The person at any time can report your listing to Google if they get mad for whatever reason and get your listing removed.

There’s no way of knowing how long it will take to find someone.

Generally, if I do result to this method, I will make a post on Craigslist or a Facebook group in the area I’m targeting and ask something along the lines of this, “Hi, I’m looking for someone to send a postcard to their home address from Google, I will pay $50 dollars for the help.”

If you’re not having luck, raising the price always seems to work.

I had a ton of people in my local SEO university classes use this method and the results were about 50/50.

14. Optimize Your Google Business Profile

When it comes to optimizing your GMB the process I use is pretty simple.

I really think that Google cares the most about two things when it comes to ranking in the maps:

1. Pictures

2. Reviews

Google has recently added a bunch of other stuff to GMB’s like bios, services, updates, and questions.

I’m sure if you put some effort into these, you’ll get an added benefit to your ranking but here’s the thing.

At the end of the day, Google wants to know that you’re a real business.

So if you can take pictures of your “business” and generate a ton of positive reviews, you will look like a real business in big G’s eyes.

For example, when I ranked for iPhone repair in the garage I was living in a while back, I took a ton of pictures of the “business.”

I would take pictures of the street, pictures of the inside plants, bathroom, and whatever I could to make it seem like I was operating a real business in my garage.

I obviously didn’t take a picture of my garage because that would give away that I didn’t have a real business location even though I was fixing iPhones in my garage to earn a little bit of extra cash to support myself while I was trying to become successful doing SEO.

An extra tip: I would make sure to name my file URL’s for the images that i’d upload stuff like, “picture of street parking, inside office plant, or office bathroom, etc.” I’m not sure whether or not this helped me rank higher but I did it anyway.

Another important step is to build citations as mentioned before. I’ve tried different services from Fiverr and doing it myself but I’ve found that ordering 100 citations from my team works the best ;)

15. Build a Local Review Funnel

This is where we add the secret sauce to local.

I guarantee you this is something that nobody else is doing.

And this technique is something I’ve been preaching for years but for some reason, people really don’t get it.

And quite honestly, this is the advice I should be charging thousands of dollars for.

If you can understand this one technique for local you can outrank anyone in your area AND be the highest reviewed local business in your area EASILY.

Okay, enough hype here’s what you need to do.

The concept is simple, target national content, and use the traffic you receive to build a funnel to generate more engagement to whatever asset you’re trying to grow.

In this case, we will try to grow a local GMB.

16. Optimize Your Websites On-Page SEO

This is the section that most people seem to be concerned with but really it's pretty simple.

I can tell you that after years of doing only on page SEO (no link building) that there are strategies that completely waste your time, and strategies that actually work.

Our job is to spend time doing tasks that we know will help rank us higher and bring in more conversions instead of wasting our time reading about all of the weird hacks that people may think give you a boost but really may only help move the need by 0.5%

With that said, I will list the most important ranking factors I've found and I will explain each one of them in detail.

1. Title tag

2. Content relevancy

3. User engagement

4. Authority signals

5. Internal linking

6. Media

That's pretty much it. Now let's go deeper into each topic and I'll show you what you need to know about each one.

17. Optimize Your Websites Title Tags

Title tags are pretty simple, you just need to follow an easy formula I've created for them. Here it is:

A. Figure out the keyword you want to rank for

B. Make sure the keyword you target is pulled to the far left of your title tag like this: (SEO Santa Barbara)

C. Add a qualifier that people are interested in around your topic.

What is a qualifer? A qualifer is something that people are interested in around your main topic.

If I choose a keyword like SEO Santa Barbara, chances are people are looking for quick rankings and a guarentee.

So, I can structure my title tag with the following: SEO Santa Barbara (Quick Rankings Guarenteed)

Now, if you have no idea what a qualifier will be for your industry, you can always look and see what other businesses are showing up for on Google as a clue.

Most high ranking websites on Google will have some sort of qualifier that people are looking for.

Also, if you have search console, you can look at your own data (if you already have data and some rankings) and see what people are searching for around your main keyword.

Ideally, you want a high CTR (above 4-5% for your main keyword on Search Console) if you have a lower CTR than that, you will want to change your keyword).

18. Optimize Your Pages For Content Relevancy

A while back I ran an experiment to see if I could rank #1 organically for a local SEO keyword that received over 2,000 searches a month with just one page and a website with no real relevancy. I actually ranked #1 in just a month using the technique I'm about to share with you.

The keyword, by the way, was, "SEO Maryland" and if you look up my old computer repair website on Shine Rankers traffic checker you'll see that it ranked #1 for quite a few months.

Anywho, I didn't really do anything super special all I did was figure out what Wikipedia was talking about when it came to Maryland and added relevant information based on what Wikipedia mentioned.

For instance, Wikipedia mentions that "Maryland was thought to be the birthplace of religious freedom" so I added those exact words to the copy of the page.

I also added pictures of Maryland on the page and labeled the alt tags accordingly.

I didn't do anything else besides that, no citations, no videos, no social signals, nothing.

And within just about 90 days the page was ranking number one for the keyword, "SEO Maryland."

19. Optimize Your Pages For User Engagement

So here's the thing, if your website receives a ton of traffic and engagement, it seems to help the page you're trying to rank, rank very quickly.

But what is user engagement and how do you bring in user engagement signals consistently and ethically?

First of all, let's break down some of the top signals that seem to work well in order to achieve high rankings:

1. CTR

2. Dwell time

3. User-generated content or (UGC)

4. Social Signals or shares

That's pretty much the top signals.

So, how do we get better user signals and increase each of these metrics is the question.

Certain people will tell you that you need to fake these signals and black hat your way to the top by purchasing in bulk a ton of different people to engage with your site for something like 0.1 cents per engagement but personally I like to do everything as white hat as possible.

20. How To Get The Highest CTR Possible

The premise here is that you want to have a high amount of people searching for your main keyword and then clicking on your website opposed to your competitors. CTR by definition is the number of people who see your website vs the number of people who click on it.

If you can get more people to click on your website over your competitors, you generally get higher rankings because Google knows you're the preferred website that people click on for your main subject.

But, how do you optimize for your CTRs?

There are a few special things you can do with techniques like using Schema markup but really all you have to do is add your main keyword to the left of your title tag and a qualifier to the right.

21. Increase Your Visitors Average Dwell time

The longer people spend on your website the better.

The last thing you want to see is people "pogo-sticking."

Pogosticking is where people hit your website and then bounce back to the search results in hopes to find something better than whatever you show up for.

So, one way to decrease pogo-sticking is to include certain things to capture your visitor’s attention and keep them around.

I've found that video and media worked EXTREMELY well for this.

I did an experiment a little while ago where I had someone write me a massive 6,000-word post for about $500 and the post I made ranked pretty well on a niche site that I made.

But, I wanted to see if I could rank the page higher on Google by creating and adding a video embed to that page.

I spent a little bit of time, recording a video that basically said the same things the post said and embedded it on the page I wanted to rank.

After about a month not only did the page rank higher and the dwell time went up by 400% but the Youtube video also wound up ranking #1 on Youtube's search algorithm as well.

The video on Youtube wound up accumulating over 125k views and I thought that maybe if I deleted it, it wouldn’t affect the post ranking.

But, after deleting the video and removing it from the page, the rankings plummeted.

Now, this technique obviously doesn't just apply to video but you do want to watch your dwell time and bounce rate closely because based on my experiments, it does affect your rankings drastically.

22. Build User Generated Content For Rankings

Here's the thing, if you can get other people to recommend your content by engagement, that content seems to rank extremely well.

Think about it, if you have a blog post that has 1000's of comments and shares, vs content that has comments and shares, what is Google and your users going to prefer?

This technique is the single most powerful and untapped technique that I find most people REALLY don't understand.

And it's honestly pretty simple.

You just have to create an autoresponder funnel where when someone wants to opt into whatever free offer you have, you ask them for engagement in response.

And the cool part is that this technique works on basically EVERY platform.

I've done a ton of tests on different platforms but let me show you how it ranked me higher on Google first.

About six months ago I decided to make my SEO checklist free.

Everyone who got the checklist I then had an autoresponder robot on Facebook ask the people who got my checklist to go leave a comment on my page where they got the checklist to leave a comment and tell me what they thought about it.

Needless to say, the page wound up skyrocketing to the first page for, "SEO roadmap template," with virtually no content besides comments on said page.

I then tested adding more relevant content and changing the design which made the page rank higher but nothing seems to prove as efficient as sending a ton of my target traffic to said page and getting UGC on that page.

After removing said content, the page did drop in rankings but the initial push seemed to the top seemed to prove the most relevant by the comments I was getting initially.

23. Social and Offsite Signal Optimization

So by now you should sort of see where I'm going with this theme and social signals should be pretty common sense.

But, what social signals really matter the most and why?

The truth is this, most of all these hacks mentioned for on-page SEO fall under the same category.

If you can get people to engage with your content in a positive way, and share, like, comment, etc. your content - Google is going to see this as an extremely positive signal.

One way to get more shares is to add into your autoresponder that you want people to not only engage by commenting but also share your content on social media by exchanging something you're offering as more value.

But, you're not going to accomplish any of these goals until you have a really unique offer with upsells that you can provide as even more free value.

Here's a funnel that I use that you can replicate to bring in as many social signals, user engagement, etc. as possible.

1. Create an offer that most people would have to pay for to get. My offer in most cases is the free SEO checklist I provide that I spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours creating.

2. After someone requests said checklist off my site, I ask them to leave a comment on whatever asset I'm promoting. This could be the place on my website where someone grabbed my checklist, a Youtube video, Facebook post, Google my business, etc. But if I miss this step I'm losing tons of positive engagement that I can get by providing this free opt-in.

That's it.

Now, the more places you can interact and contact someone the better.

I find that Facebook messenger, email, and push notifications work the best.

24. Setup Your Websites Internal Linking Strategy

This is something that I've been experimenting with for a while between both local and national sites.

And to be honest, this is another optimization that works extremely well if you understand this technique.

I got the best results from internal linking with my local web design site.

After originally creating the site, doing the content, citations, on-page, etc. the site was only ranking position 10 on Google for web design in the area I was targeting. (Mind you I've done this technique with several web design sites and ranked them all number 1 on Google.)

As soon as I started to add internal links to the home page from all the other pages, the website began ranking #1 within a few weeks.

25. Use Embeds to Rank Locally

Another test that I ran a while back, was embedding Youtube videos on my sites.

Yes, even local sites.

I actually ranked a site for, "SEO Santa Barbara" a while back just by recording videos on topics around SEO like social media, conversion rate optimization, CTR optimization, etc., and transcribed all the videos for content and the site ranked insanely quick.

I also tried adding and removing a video embed on a page that was ranking nationally and as soon as I added the embed the page ranked #1 within a few weeks. I then removed the embed and the page plummeted.

That's It For My Local SEO Tips

Time to check out what other SEO experts in the industry say.

If you didn't get a chance to leave your tip yet, scroll to the bottom of the post and leave a comment with your favorite local SEO tip!

The past year gave everyone a good shake. Different experiences and trials went our way. But, one thing that doesn’t change is business.

Even though some people were forced to close down physical stores, some are persistent and resourceful enough in keeping it alive by relying on online resources.

Sometimes I wonder. How do people keep their local businesses booming? Maybe they have some sort of secret to their success.

Then I got to thinking. If these business owners can do it, why not everybody else? So I get to ask more and more.

Are the SEO tools, techniques, and strategies that you implemented last year still applicable this year?

Is there something new or is everything the same?

Well, who else can answer these but the local SEO experts themselves. So I decided to ask SEO Experts, bloggers, and business owners a question:

“What is your best Local SEO Tip for 2022?”

Continue reading to discover the best local SEO tips coming from the brilliant minds of these experts.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy reading!

EXPERT CONTRIBUTIONS ARE LISTED IN THE ORDER THEY WERE RECEIVED.

Rachel McMahon | Anvil Media Inc.

1. Understand how your target audience searches in your target service areas

Search intent is one of the most impactful components that affects overall SEO performance. If the information presented does not support what a searcher is looking for, your visibility will suffer. If the goal is to improve your presence within a particular location, understand how people within that particular location will search. Users in Chicago, IL will be searching for “pop” while those on the East Coast will probably be searching for “soda”. Taking this a step further – how do the people distinguish the location? Are there set neighborhoods? Will “near me” suffice? Understanding these nuances will make your local SEO strategy that much more successful.

2. Local SEO is not just for the small, family-owned businesses

One of the biggest mistakes is to dismiss local SEO because of the assumption that it only applies to small businesses. If your company has multiple locations across the country – or even around the world – you will want to be as visible as possible within the area.

3. Reviews

Whether it’s a product or a service, almost everyone considers reviews before converting to a customer. Earning reviews, particularly on your Google My Business listing, is only half of the task. What many companies fail to complete is the other half which involves actually responding to the reviews – good or bad. A response proves that you truly care about your customers which is crucial to both your audience and search engines.

Kyla Glover | WPExplorer,@WPExplorer on Twitter

Mobile Optimization: Do not forget to optimize your site for mobile! This is important for general SEO via Google's switch to mobile first indexing, but it also has an impact on your local SEO. People are using mobile devices to search more and more.

And within those searches the use of adverbs like "nearby" or "near me" has grown exponentially. So having a well thought out, mobile friendly site design should definitely be a part of your local SEO strategy.

Not sure where to start? Use Google's mobile friendliness test to see how your site currently performs. This test will quickly tell you if there are issues loading your site on mobile devices such as content that is too wide, text that is too small, clickable elements that are too close together, etc. While not a complete list, it's a good jumping off point for mobile optimizations.

Subhash Kashyap | The Web Hospitality

Local SEO is one of the powerful practices under search engine optimization. More importantly, it is the well-built pillar for small businesses.

Commonly actionable tips for local SEO are included below ones:

Finding local keywords
Optimizing a Google My Business profile
Enlarging “NAP” citations
Regular posting in GMB profile

Let me elaborate on point number 3rd, "Optimizing Google My Business Profile” with a detailed guide to get it done with the below checklists.

Fill your information in GMB profile correctly, specially your name, phone and number.
Add more pictures related to your business or store.
Create a virtual tour view for your business.
Embrace your local services and product listings with image, description and prices.
Manage reviews carefully as they play an important role in your map ranking.
Create a strong “About” section as it helps in boosting the SERPs ranking.
Use videos to showcase your GMP profile as one step ahead of your competitors.
Get featured on local PR sites.

Kyle Kozie |LSEO

I'm sure you are going to get all of the traditional answers that never change from year to year, like having a GMB and a consistent NAP. I'd like to go a little further.

Hopefully every local business knows they should have a GMB by now, but my first tip would be to take advantage of all the features that a GMB has to offer.

One thing I often see that is missed on local business' GMB profiles is taking advantage of the posts and offers section. Google literally gives you a section within your GMB to link to your latest articles or promote a special offer you may be running. Most users don't click through to your site from the GMB so get them this information earlier in the discovery process and it could be beneficial to your business.

My second tip would be to leverage Bing Places.

Yes, Bing. Most SEO's only focus on Google, but Bing is still relevant. Sure most searches happen on Google, but 126 million unique US users performed over 6 billion searches on the Bing network in 2019. While that may be a small percentage compared to Google, that is still a lot of volume. So, set up Bing Places in addition to your GMB!

Mansi Rana | EZ Ranking LT Services

With digitization, more local businesses are coming online and amid this, it has become crucial to take a lead and thrive online. In the year 2021 and beyond, local businesses need to practice local SEO professionally to bring more customers and sales to their company.

We at EZ Rankings are offering robust local services for years and have helped several local businesses achieve their business goals through result-driven SEO. To boost your online presence and local rankings, our local SEO experts have jotted down top local SEO tips for 2021 and beyond:

Optimize your Google My Business Listing with accurate & value-driven information.
Keep your NAP details (Name, Address, & Phone) details correct & same in case if you have multiple stores at different locations.
Optimize your website's content with local keywords that visitors are searching
Focus more on strengthening technical SEO and on-page factors
Respond to your customers as quickly as possible.

These were the top Local SEO Tips from EZ Rankings' experts that will help you take a lead and bring more sales to your business.

Josh Gill | Inbound Authority

Where a service based business has a desire to serve a geographic region outside of the standard coverage of a GMB (10 miles or so depending on industry).

I would recommend investing in an in-depth content strategy based on areas of highest population, income level, or other related business metric that fits to target other metro regions or cities/towns. Have a city page that is highly targeted (page title, headings, content, images, reviews, etc.) for that local specific market can rank organically fairly quickly and provide a place to showcase your work in that community and testimonials from neighbors. I would recommend using Gatherup.com to acquire reviews and embed them on the page as a way to sort reviews by the neighborhood they are from).

We have seen this tactic have great results and is obviously being used by large companies like Home Advisor, Yelp, Thumbtack, and more.

This company actually has the best guide I have seen: https://www.crowdcontent.com/blog/2018/10/30/ebook-the-complete-guide-to-creating-city-pages-for-seo/.

François-Louis Mommens | Linkody

Personally, the one thing I pay a lot of attention to when looking for a new service and comparing businesses is reviews.

Reviews are even more decisive during this pandemic crisis when we get delivered and other criteria like proximity and setting lose their importance. I look at the global score, the number of reviews, browse through a few good ones but also a couple of bad ones, if any, to have a sense if they are legit or irrational.

So, try to entice your customers to leave reviews. As we're more online than ever, create an email campaign to remind them kindly to leave a review.

Mike Tortorice - Infront Webworks

Core Web Vitals is going to be a big component to focus on in 2021. Those that have not prepared for the roll out in May are going to be scrambling when they see their rankings drop. In 2020, Google announced that they would soon be including three new ranking metrics called core web vitals that will measure user experience or UX.

They include loading, interactivity, and visual stability. What do all three things have in common? Page speed. How fast does it load? How soon is it interactive? And how stable is it while loading?

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures loading performance. Sites should try to have LCP happen in the first 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load.
First Input Display (FID) measures interactivity. Sites should shood for having an FID of less than 100 milliseconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures visual stability. Sites should have a goal of getting their CLS Score less than 0.1

If you have not prepared for this new Google Algorithm update, here are some tools to help evaluate the page experience on your site.

Jackie Owen | techjackie.com

Here's my #1 tip when it comes to local ranking:

In 2021 and beyond, my biggest take away for any local site is to build a strong brand signal. I've got so many people coming to me complaining all the time as to why their competitors are ranking on page 1 with not more than citations and a couple of BlogSpot links. Moreover, some of these sites still have the 1990's design, while their sites are filled with SEO-optimized content, have sleek designs and got tons of links but are still stuck on page 2-3.

The answer is simple. Those sites are having huge brand and trust signals. Their brand names are present in the auto complete section. People search for their reviews, their services, etc. They have huge offline marketing authority

So local SEO in 2021 isn't just about sitting behind your laptop and optimizing anymore. You need to leverage other channels of marketing. And yes, offline marketing is still crucial. Build good reputation online, get as many positive reviews across the web as possible, get listed on trusted local news sites and follow SEO best practices. Become the well-known authority in your local area for your product/service and you will succeed.

And that's my take away.

Zach Stone | DeltaV Digital

Don't try to outthink the thousands of Ph.D.'s that work at Google and just follow the rules. If that isn't specific enough another recommendation would be to add FAQs (with schema) to your local pages that answer questions potential clients would be asking when visiting your store.

We included an example from Home Depot in the blog post:

Include FAQs new customers might have when visiting your office or store, as well as any FAQs about your products and/or services.
- This will help improve users’ experiences and make them more likely to stay on the page than navigate elsewhere to answer their questions.
- If you have the page marked-up with structured data properly and have good authority, this can help improve your search results as well:

Robb Fahrion | Flying V Group

Local SEO is one of the best investments both small and large businesses can make in their business in 2021. We find that there is plenty of untapped business right in clients' own backyards even if they operate on a national scale. For local SEO, we really push clients to focus on three items: great localized content and customer reviews/testimonials. Each of these items provide that fuel that is needed to drive a successful local SEO campaign.

Providing great localized content allows businesses to show their prowess/expertise in their particular space and locale. For example, one of our clients is a construction company that remodels homes in California coastal towns. They wrote an incredible article titled, "The Top 10 Trends for Coastal Home Remodels". This article helps them to show their expertise in the space and is localized since they are highlighting coastal areas.

Reviews and testimonials are the next piece. Think of reviews and testimonials as the best type of social proof that you are who you say you are and you do what you say you will do. Reviews and testimonials are also great for SEO. We have found a direct correlation between search engine rankings and numbers of reviews on Google profiles. Testimonials can also be filmed and placed on YouTube (another search engine) and your own website to give potential customers peace of mind when it comes to working with you. If you place an emphasis on great content with articles and reviews then your Local SEO is sure to explode in 2021!

Jeannie Hill | Hill Web Creations

Already in 2021, GMB has expanded a new inventory feature that businesses cannot turn on; they have to work with an agency provider that has access to inventory feeds to gain this. We're calling it automated, refreshed product feeds. We’ve seen this displayed in both the auto niche and antique dealers, whose one-off products are harder to keep accurate in product feeds. Viewers can click to call the business offering the product or click to go to the full product detail page on the related website. This can really boost and simplify retailers' local SEO efforts.

The Google Merchant Feed is now synced with GMB to make product inventory more integrated. The time frame that the tech giant is refreshing this product data is daily or every so many hours; it is different per niche. Within this feature, viewers can click to call the business offering the product or click to go to the full product detail page on the related website.

Google knows that keeping inventory current reduces consumer frustration. Our assumption is that this feature helps Google maintain a catalog of reliable inventory in its feed. Time will tell where this may lead; it could evolve into Google offering these same businesses where they can then bid on inventory ads that would be based on more conclusive datasets.

Jeffrey Magner | Bighorn Local SEO

Tip #1: Add a monthly task for Google My Business "Name Spam" abatement.

Depending on the business category, GMB Name Spam can be the #1 task to help with map rankings. Take a 2-pronged approach:

Suggest Edits directly through Google maps to mark businesses as "not at this location" or edit the name directly.
Submitted spammy business names via the redressal submission form. Keep a log of redressal submissions and review monthly. You can resubmit a second time. Scan Google Maps for spammy listings each month!

Tip #2: Chamber of Commerce Directory Listings

Getting your business listed in your local chamber of commerce can be a fantastic way to earn multiple powerful links to your website. In fact, in suburban areas, there may be multiple cities in your area with affordable chamber membership options as well as local business associations with member directories. It's true that these associations may provide little actual real world benefits besides those links.

Isn't this essentially Paying for Links? YES. But it works, and it's viewed as legitimate. We've found these links to be super powerful to boost local rankings.

Jeff Coyle | Market Muse

The goal of any local content strategy is to show that you’re an expert in your topic in your area. If you’re a lawyer specializing in bicycle accidents, you could talk about bike safety, but that is too generic. What do you know about your area regarding bike accidents?

If you’re an expert, you would know local statistics, traffic light changes, dangerous roads and hills, bike lanes, local workshops on bike safety, accidents, news, etc.

Get ahead of the game and understand the area, the history of your area, and specific information about different neighborhoods/locales. When a bike accident happens, you can provide content that provides an immediate chance to win in search when something happens.

So don’t just write a piece of content that targets a keyword like “bike safety Boston''. That might work for massive companies, but if you want to rank highly in a much shorter time frame, get ahead of the game and show you’re the expert with super targeted content.

Lance Beaudry | Avalanche Creative

Be relevant. Make sure you create dedicated pages for what your customer cares about. Example: "wasp exterminator near me."

Having a list of the types of insects you exterminate on a single service page won't cut and won't get you local visibility.

You need to have a dedicated wasp page that helps the customer build confidence in your business and answers questions like:

Do you offer residential and commercial wasp extermination?
What does the service look like? What methods do you use?
What are your service areas?
What days and times do you offer this service?
What other questions do customers ask about wasps?

Create a dedicated page that thoroughly answers questions like these to create a relevant experience. That's how to start building for local search visibility and conversion.

Robert Scavilla - FourFront, LLC

The pandemic has impacted Local SEO by changing the way people engage with brick-and-mortar businesses. In particular, it has caused an increase in app-based purchasing that is likely permanent, and more people are using these apps to engage with a local business than ever before. Below are some tips for applying Local SEO in 2021.

If you want customers to come to your location(s), you should constantly update COVID messaging on Google My Business (GMB). The "meet face-to-face" eligibility requirement for Google My Business has been adjusted during the pandemic, since many businesses have suspended those interactions. You can now indicate within GMB the policies in place to facilitate safe business interactions (Masks required, etc.)
If you have GMB Messaging enabled for your business listing, be sure to reply to GMB messages in a timely manner.
You will need to understand the density of competitors in your zone of Google Maps. Your reach in local search results/Google Maps is very dependent on the density of competitors in your area. If density is low, you could be found in a wide geographic area. If density is high, you may only be visible within your block. Knowing this could inform how you reach the audience beyond your Google Local impression zone.
You should build or maintain a dedicated page for different locations. These pages should all have a unique Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP). In fact, NAP consistency is more important than ever. Also, with the growing importance of Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (EAT), you should take time to ensure your site extols the company's/team's unique credentials, certifications, and industry awards.
Consider the application of schema tags wherever possible. Schema tags for specific applications are becoming more available through schema.org. These tags will help to clarify details such as NAP, as well as many minute details that would appear in the knowledge bar or rich snippets in the SERP. As the Knowledge Bar has expanded its options, and many other avenues for rich snippets have appeared in the SERP, schema tags have become more and more valuable to take advantage of these opportunities. Rich SERP snippets such as star ratings, price, hours, description, images, videos often come from Schema tagging. These make a huge difference in click-through-rate of the SERP impression.

Quentin Aisbett - OnQ Marketing

The traditional local SEO factors will still reign supreme in 2021. Perhaps as important as ever is an optimized Google My Business listing. You want to complete that profile as well as you can, choose the most appropriate category, encourage reviews and keep updating with photos and Google Posts. Another great tactic is to get into Google Maps, search for your target search terms and start assessing your competition. If they have spammy titles, fake reviews or worse yet have set up listings where they don't exist - Suggest an edit to Google.

Beyond that, it's about demonstrating your local authority and prominence. Earn local links and citations, encourage local brand searches, and if you have multiple locations make sure you have separate pages on your website and keep them optimized.

Sabrina Schmidt | Blog2Social

A no-brainer to optimize local SEO is to claim a Google My Business listing. It is a free service by Google to promote a business profile and website. Active and regularly updated listings appear on the top right side of the Google search results and will automatically be added to Google Maps. The listing contains general information about a business as well as the location, opening hours, Q and A and reviews. Google My Business is a great tool to promote your business locally and beyond and it can save you money for Google Ads.

The Google Post feature is another option to share information about your business. It allows you to announce upcoming events, highlight products or services, communicate special offers and share interesting news directly with your customers. To keep your profile active, make sure to post content at least once a week, as Google Posts expire after 7 days. The easiest and most efficient way to keep your Google My Business listing updated with current news, is to connect it with a social media automation tool like Blog2Social.

Google currently offers a COVID-19 section where businesses can inform about current accessibility, opening hours and availability during the pandemic and also receive useful guides and tips. To find out how visible the listing is and how much engagement resulted from the posts, it is advisable to frequently check the metrics and make improvements accordingly.

Beverly Mapes - Top of the List LLC

At Top Of The List, we highly recommend that you keep up with local posts on GMB, at least weekly and more often if possible. Whether you create updates, events, or offers, your persistence will pay off. When creating your posts, make sure to add a sentence or two of text that contains keywords, rather than just posting an image.

Images are great for getting the attention of your future customers. Text gets the attention of search engines. Imagine finding your company's local listing not only when searching on your company name, but when searching on keywords when the user is in a specific local area. In any event, you want both kinds of attention: future customers and search engines.

Liz Roncevic - Bizmap LLC

As you may know, local SEO is constantly evolving. Ranking a website locally is becoming both more specific and complex as Google better understands what users are searching for and how user searches relate to local businesses.

There are a lot of things you can do to better optimize your local online presence. In doing so, you will be rewarded by acquiring new customers organically (and for free!).

Now let’s get into our local SEO tips for 2021!

TIP 1: POST TO GMB REGULARLY

One important local SEO tip for 2021 is to post frequently to Google My Business. GMB has become a platform of sorts where businesses can contribute posts about services, products, important information and photos.

While GMB posting should be used as an additive alongside other local optimization techniques, it’s an important component to local SEO. GMB posting can leverage ranking and signal relevance to Google, which is crucial. In doing so, you can be sure to see your business name show up higher in the Google Maps Snack Pack.

MUST-USE TOOLS FOR GMB POSTING

OneUp: OneUp is an excellent tool for GMB posting and automation. It is easy to use and extremely affordable, starting at $12/month with a free 7 day trial.
Local Viking: Local Viking is a GMB software that offers post automation, tracking, GeoGrid features and more. It’s a great tool for agencies who want to better understand their local presence.
Canva: Canva is a great tool to use for your GMB posts and on other platforms too. You can create interesting images and infographics to boost user engagement and take your GMB up a notch.
GeoImgr: Geoimgr is a great tool for geotagging photos on Google My Business and other platforms too. While it is not certain that Google uses the EXIF data from geotagged images, it’s a strong signal of your location and should be done anyway.

Carlos Arnavat | Studio C5

Tip #1 "Near Me" keyword instances have a positive impact on rankings.

It's true. Adding instances of "near me" onto your web pages can increase your keyword rankings.

Recent data shows that optimizing your web pages for "near me" keyword terms (e.g., window company near me) positively impacts ranking.

I recommend adding various instances of "near you," "nearby," and "near me" to your H1 tag, as well as your Meta Title and Description Tags.

While this tactic shows a more positive impact on organic searches (desktop users over mobile users), the same data reflects that it does help local rankings, including the 3-pack.

Take advantage of this tip as many small businesses have not yet implemented this strategy.

Bottom line: Optimize your on-page with "near me" before your competitors do! Staying ahead of them with your SEO strategy is vital to your digital success.

Tip #2: Prioritize Google My Business (GMB)

GMB will transform the way you acquire customers online. Google seems focused on making it more critical for a small business owner than their website.

Why do I say that? Well, algorithm updates continue to build the story that Google would prefer to send potential customers to a platform they own (GMB) rather than your website.

Data trends show that Google is de-prioritizing organic results (as high as 47% of all search queries) by replacing them with "no-click searches," otherwise known as paid ads.

Their goal is to offer their customer, the searcher, as much value within their SERPS (search engine result pages) as possible.

The latest feature enhancing also proves my point. You can post like a blog, offer Q/A, work chat via messaging, allow for booking an appointment, and even offer deals, all directly from your GMB profile. How cool is that?

So what should a small business owner do?

For starters, if you haven't claimed your listing, stop reading this and do it. Once you've claimed it, start optimizing it to the fullest extent based on best practices.

Then make managing your Google My Business Listing part of your search strategy. And as you do, you'll soon discover that Google prefers to send people to your listing rather than your website.

Stats to back it up:

46% of all Google searches have local intent. [Source: HubSpot]
93% of local searches now feature Google My Business listings. [Source: STAT Analytics]
68% of people contact a business directly from search results. [Source: Search Engine Land]

Bottom line: Get busy optimizing and managing your GMB as potential customers will either find you or your competitor directly from local search results.

Need Help? Whether you need help securing and optimizing your GMB listing one time or wish to outsource its management, we can help. https://studioc5.com/google-my-business-support/

Tip #3: Reviews, Reviews, and More Reviews.

An important ranking factor and growing buying behavior are reviews from trusted third-party sites like Google My Business (GMB).

Why? People want to hear what others have to say about you on the sites they trust most.

And if you're fully utilizing your GMB profile, then you have all the power in the world to help yourself rank higher in local search, not to mention ultimately increase your customer base.

Reviews are very persuasive; we call it social proof.

Online reviews have grown to become the 2nd ranking factory for local ranking.

Google My Business (33%)
Reviews (16%)
On-Page (15%)
Links (15%)
Behavioral (8%)
Citations (7%)
Personalization (6%)

So since it's #2, you must implement a strong (preferably automated) post-sale strategy that includes asking your customer for a review, preferably on your GMB listing.

Setting up a process to monitor, grow, and even showcase your reviews (on your website) can help you save time and increase your onsite conversion.

I recommend using a reputation management tool to automate review monitoring to ensure you never miss a review, respond quickly, and even encourage review growth.

Lastly, reviews aren't only important for your rankings but will lead to your GMB listing's highest conversions. Here's are the top 3 factors for GMB:

High numerical Google ratings
Positive sentiment in the review text
Quantity of native Google Reviews

Enough said!

Bottom line: An automated post-sale strategy that prioritizes positive Google review growth is critical to local rankings.

Sandeep Kumar | ROI MINDS

According to my personal experience, I’ve noticed that the following are the top 5 important factors that affect your business ranking and if optimized correctly, can give your business a huge boost.

NAPs Plays a Vital Role
NAP is an abbreviation for Name, Address and Phone Number. They are necessary for local SEO, as well as, for the people who are searching for your business online.
Pictures and Videos to Give a Personalized Touch
Giving personalized touch with recent events happening in your business helps Google’s algorithm to rank up in search results. It is also helpful for people who are searching for your business online and
Reviews
Reviews are also important for local SEO. Google is more likely to rank your business on top than others if you have more positive reviews.
For instance, if your business has 50 reviews with an average rating of 4 stars out of 5 and another business has 30 Reviews with an average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5, Google is more likely to give preference to the latter.
Properly Optimized Categories According to Niche
Make sure you are using all the available options from GMB (Google My Business) profile. The more accurate information you feed to Google the better it can understand your business and is more likely to promote it to the right people.
Be Regular With the Updates
Social media posts, Blog posts, Answering reviews also help in the local SEO. If you keep your information up to date and post content on a regular basis(like post twice a week) also helps you to rank better.

Marc Brookland | SEO Locale

Local SEO is constantly changing and it's my belief that Google is working towards making the online landscape less competitive for local businesses. Their algorithm, however, can only read the signals you feed them. That's why it's incredibly important to take advantage of all opportunities to build as much relevancy as possible between your website and your target geographies.

Maximize your relevancy in specific locations by:

Utilizing specific landing pages for locations. Take into account where the different geographies are. If they're very close, multiple pages probably isn't necessary. It's also very important that if you do determine to create landing pages for different locations that your content is 100% unique. Make the content specific to the location to provide the best user experience.
Incorporate your target geographies into your meta data & content. Your metadata will be read by Google and provides an easy way for them to understand the what and where your page should be most relevant for. Including your target locations throughout the content is also a great way to speak to not only to the search engine, but also to the end user.
Focus on a strong internal linking strategy. Internally linking is a great way to help search engines find all the pages on your website, create relevance between specific keywords/locations and landing pages, and also provides a great user experience.
Utilize your Google Business listing. This is one of the best & most effective ways to win local SEO. Fill out as much information as possible on your listing, get reviews (and respond!), post pictures, provide updates - Those all provide valuable information for Google to use in the local map pack.

Igor Avidon | Avidon Marketing Group

There are two areas where local companies can really help bolster their local organic presence:

Maintain an active social media presence and
Get mentions of their brand name in local media outlets. Google prefers to rank brands who are active on the web. This is as true for local SEO as it is for national SEO.

We always encourage our clients to have at least one active social media channel with expert content on it. Prospective customers can see them as not only a trustworthy source of information about their area of expertise, but also engage with them. This is a significant beacon of activity for Google and there is enough correlation between an active social media presence and great organic rankings.

In terms of getting news coverage from local media outlets, this is one of the oldest known quality signals for local SEO. The difference here is that search experts primarily coveted this coverage in search of a link - however, we've seen a noticeable uptick in rankings just by having our clients' business name being cited in media outlets over the last couple of years. Yes, Google does seem to treat unlinked organic mentions as a relevancy signal.

Coryn D | Be More Innovations

DIY Audience: Optimize Your Google My Business Listing

To help improve your local SEO, Be More Innovations recommends utilizing your free Google My Business listing. The Google My Business listing allows you to display your location, services, products, contact information, hours, and even special promotions directly within the Google search results and on Google Maps. Not only does this provide an instant interaction for users that can prompt them to action, Google will use this data to provide location-specific results to customers searching in your company's area.

Optimizing your Google My Business listing doesn't have to be a difficult or in-depth task: claim your business listing, add your hours, include accurate contact information, and list popular services and products that clients are searching for. Simple updates in the right places can make a big difference when it comes to ranking with local SEO.

More Technical for Advanced Beginners: Handling Online Citations and Your Google My Business Listing

In order to improve your Local SEO, Be More Innovations suggests the very first thing to do is claim your Google My Business listing. After you do this, check for and remove duplicates, and then optimize it using your target keywords. You should be adding every one of your products or services, but make sure to include your target keywords in the descriptions in order to help with rankings. You also should be including these keywords in the business description, just make sure you don’t keyword stuff (include keywords too many times in an unnatural manner). It is very common to get business quickly just from your GMB listing if there isn’t much competition.

Regardless of whether there is competition or not, you need to next handle your citations. Citations involve adding your business information to other websites like Facebook, Yelp, Bing, and many many others. I recommend using Bright Local to handle these. Once all of this is handled, you will be in a great position to improve your rankings and get more local business. Optimizing your Google My Business listing and managing your online citations is fast, simple, and makes a big impact on Local SEO.

Kevin Geary | Digital Gravy

My top local SEO tip for 2021 is to build a better brand through all marketing phases. While this isn't a quick-results local SEO tip, it's an aspect of SEO that doesn't get talked about enough.

Since everyone else is going to shower you with a lot of little tactical things you can do to improve your local SEO, I'll cap it by telling you to focus on building a great local brand. Why? Because great local brands naturally acquire all the off-site things SEOs are so focused on doing manually: link acquisition, reviews & reputation management, PR placements, social signals, etc.

Brand awareness also drives brand queries, which we know is a solid authority signal to Google, and lets you off the hook a good bit in a lot of SEO areas (you don't have to be so tight and technical with SEO when Google trusts your brand).

You still need to create great content, have good on-page and user experience, targeted service area pages, long-tail pages, etc. but brand building supercharges everything and makes your results crazy sticky so you can stay #1 once you get there.

Ken Toh | Thinking Notes

Gather Reviews. Focus on a systematic way to garner good reviews from clients. For example, give a little reward like a cash voucher when a client leaves a review on Google My Business. Of course, focus on providing the best client experience you can.
Clarity of Website and Google My Business. Focus on an optimized information structure that clearly depicts the service/product offerings without any overlapping information in other pages.

William Blair | WJB Marketing

If you want to learn about local SEO, you should first understand what it entails. One of the most important considerations that consumers consider when making a purchase is proximity. This is where the role of local SEO enters the picture.

Simply put, local SEO is the method of optimizing your website and content so that your company ranks higher in local search engine result pages (SERPs) than your local competitors. Local SEO focuses on the people who are close to your business, your neighborhood, and areas of your business services.

So, how do you thrive in local search? It's simple, hard work, and dedication but if you want to dominate local search in 2021 this is how.

Create and Optimize a Google My Business (GMB) Listing
Create Local Citations and List Your Business in Other Directories
Keep Your NAP Information Correct
Create Location Pages for the Areas Your Business Services
Optimize for Mobile by Using a Mobile-Friendly Website Design
Optimize for Voice Search
Obtain Good Quality Online Reviews
Target Local Keywords
Optimize Your Site With Local Keywords
Create Local Content

Beth Walker - SMA Marketing

Businesses looking to stand out amongst their competitors need to implement Local SEO best practices in their digital marketing strategy. At the top of the list of Local SEO best practices, every business needs to have a Google My Business page. This page orients companies on Google Maps and enables searches such as "ice cream shop near me".

By taking things one step further and ensuring your GMB is fully optimized with industry keywords as well as images, videos, and featured products or services you will enable potential customers to find you for more searches. One final best practice to level-up your local SEO best practices includes adding a layer of structured local data to your website. This will enable search engines including Google and Bing to quickly identify the name, address, and phone number of your business.

Brian Cairns - ProStrategix Local SEO New York.jpg

Brian Cairns | ProStrategix Consulting - Local SEO New York

Winning in Local SEO for 2021

The key to winning the local SEO battle is providing consistent, location specific, signals to search engines. The two most important signals are NAP and local links.

NAP - Name, Address, and Phone

Every instance of an inconsistency in NAP is a lost opportunity. Most people don’t have hundreds of hours submitting their NAP to every local listing source. Therefore, they either hire a listing service or prioritize.

If you plan to take the do-it-yourself route, make sure you at least have Google My Business, Apple Maps, and Bing Places for Business at the top of your prioritized list.

Local Links

Typically, low-quality links from local listings and low page authority sites would not be advised. However, this is the one exception to the rule. Local links to your site are a powerful signal to search engines that your location is legit.

Local chambers of commerce, neighborhood business associations, community sponsorships are all great opportunities to gain valuable local links at a low cost.

Brogan Renshaw | FireWire Digital

Build out those Local Landing Pages!

Local landing pages are pages you create on your website to show your business services multiple specific geographic regions. These types of pages are most appropriate for Service area businesses e.g. a Plumber or Multi-location brick-and-mortar businesses e.g. a Coffee Shop chain. Don’t go overboard on the number of landing pages though.

We all should know by now that Google doesn't like spammy content. So unless you service an area or have a physical presence in the location don't make a local landing page for it. Focus your efforts on creating a handful of landing pages for locations that make sense for your business. Don't forget to link to your local landing pages either from the main navigation or in the footer of your site.

Stephen R. Horton Jr. - 828 Marketing and Web

GOOGLE MY BUSINESS

So how do you optimize your listing? First you have to understand how you are evaluated in the first place. Google uses three main factors to determine those local 3-pack results:

Proximity – How close your business is to the user searching.
Relevance – How well optimized both your Google my Business listing and website are in order to match the searcher’s intent.
Prominence – How well trusted you are on this topic. (How much do you talk about it? How many links do you have? How many business citations? Reviews? Etc.)

Essentially, the process of Local SEO is coming up with a plan to attack each of these factors individually. You need to convince Google that you serve people outside the area where your business resides. You need to optimize your website and Google my Business listing around the products and services you offer and explain how you help people solve problems with them.

You need to show that people come to you for each of the services you offer, and that they trust and appreciate your work. You must establish credibility and push your branding so that you have a strong presence in and around your area. Here are some specific things you can do:

Make sure you optimize your Google my Business listing with complete, accurate data. Write a compelling story that connects with potential customers or clients.
Do hyperlocal keyword research for each of the areas you serve and find out what local users are searching for vs what you ‘think’ they are searching for. Use Google’s keyword planner to find relevant, high-volume keywords and phrases.
Research similar businesses around the country, (especially in large areas), and see what categories they choose, what topics they discuss, and how they position themselves.
Use Google posts like social media posts. Share specials, product info, and things that increase your relevancy. Include links to your website with more information. Use clean, branded images.
Post images relevant to your business, in addition to the ones you use in posts. Post pics of your office or building. Post job photos. Post staff at work, or interacting with customers. Etc.
Build up your reviews and reply to each and every one, good or bad. Show potential customers how you handle things and what you stand for. Every business will get poor reviews, and they are hard to remove these days, so focus on establishing a reputation management program internally that will bring in regular reviews to flush out those bad or phony ones.
Monitor Questions & Answers as they come in and be clear with your answers. Take some of your most common questions and post them in advance. Get as much information in front of potential customers as you can to make their decision easy. This will also help Google trust your relevance.
Take advantage of the Google my Business website. Don’t replace your business website, but use this as an additional page to represent your business and another backlink.
Build up links to your business. Get business citations in all of the major directories like Google, BING, Yahoo, Yelp, and social media channels. Find others that are relevant to your business. Find good local links, like the chamber of commerce, or the local paper, etc.
Connect your Google my Business listing to the localized content on your website. You can do this through the two links they give you when you set it up, as well as your individual posts.

Executing these Local SEO strategies are absolutely guaranteed to produce results. Everyone is different, so they won’t all look the same, but you can definitely expect to start generating quality leads and calls 24/7 through your website and Google my Business listing. Who wouldn’t want that?

Chaz Edward | Web 2.0 Ranker

My Top Local SEO Tip for 2021

Leverage the power of local community websites to create locally-relevant entity signals that Google loves to reward with higher rankings and better local visibility.

Getting your brand mentioned, including NAP citations on websites that feature community and local news is a strong signal you can leverage easily for your clients. These mentions include name, address, and phone number details about the entity, along with anchor text or branded link opportunities making these signals locally relevant unstructured citations.

My five favorite sources for local community signals include the following:

Local press releases (like the premium press releases we offer at Web 20 Ranker) which allow you to specify and optimize each release with an article title that uses co-occurrence to associate the brand name with the local keyword, outbound links to the location page and company social profiles, GMB map embed, and NAP section.
Local news blogs that are specific to certain cities or locations. You can find these link opportunities by doing some manual Google searches and using Google search operators (here’s a list of search operators: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EH0A7fFl-V4tYjZ0YPXZNKFCTRKjLJTJXUd7RfY3O-Q/edit?usp=sharing ). If you don’t feel like doing the outreach yourself, we do have a solid selection of local news blogs available at Freshlinks.
With Patch local classified announcements you can create strong signals for your local entity for a very modest price. In my agency Local Brand Advisor, we started creating these for all of our managed campaigns for our USA clients with a lot of success. These classified advertorials index exceptionally well, allow for effective linking to your GMB and brand profiles (though the links are no-followed), and they also show up in Google’s local news section of search. You can see an example of a locally optimized Patch post here: https://patch.com/florida/miami/classifieds/announcements/207873/1-best-miami-plumbing-company-highly-rated-plumbers .
Community classified websites are remarkably like Patch above. We generally use these signals for clients located in areas and communities not covered by Patch. My tip for selecting these sites is to check that the classified ad indexes in Google. If it does, community classified ads are viable signals to consider adding to your arsenal as you can optimize the ad copy to include NAP, links, brand profiles, and sometimes even map embeds.
Community sponsorship opportunities are my final source for locally relevant signals that we add to our local campaigns. These sponsorships typically are either youth sports or youth education based. Examples include local literacy campaigns, local youth associations, and local activity camps. We find these opportunities for our clients by doing a series of manual Google searches and then outreaching to prospective organizations. Sponsorship ranges from under a hundred dollars to several hundred dollars. As with all link building opportunities, do your due diligence and make sure you are getting a good link, so check things like placement on the page, options to use brand or anchor text, ability to add additional information.

Chad Treadway | Cube Creative Design

When it comes to Local SEO there are three things you must focus on:

Google My Business (GMB) Listing

Answering peoples questions on your site or blog
Geographic Landing Pages

Google My Business Listing

It has been said that Google is your new homepage. Unless a user types your website in the address bar directly chances are they are going to use Google to find your website. Your GMB listing should be there to help direct them to your website.

Answering peoples questions on your site or blog

While I can’t take credit for this idea as that was Marus Sheridian and his book “They Ask, You Answer.” The concept is pure gold. Google is the great answering machine feeding our curiosity and need for answers. Why not have your website be there with those answers! Google loves content and helping users find answers to their questions, but it is only as good as what it can find. If you can put those answers on your website you will be rewarded handsomely.

Geographic Landing Pages

Geographic landing pages may be one of the most underutilized pieces of content one can produce that will help you rank better in local search results especially for service area businesses. These pages are similar to a marketing landing page as you focus on a keyword or a service. The key is you also need to add in a geographical area, such as a town, city or suburb. Think about it this way, if it has a zip code it deserves its own geographic landing page.

You will need to give the search engines some type of context around the location, mentioning things such as school, parks, courthouses or town/city halls are great fixed landmarks. While you may be tempted to spread the love and mention your friends restaurant or boutique shop, those won’t help you as much. Google sees those as more transient and not “landmarks.”

Thibault Renouf |Partoo

In just a few years, e-reputation or "online reputation" has become a key element in our daily decision-making processes. While people spend on average more than 4 hours a day on the internet, they consult online reviews for all types of choices: to buy an electronic appliance, apply for a job, go to the hairdresser, access a service or even to move to the neighborhood that suits them. The weight of e-reputation in the decision-making process has been accentuated by two very complementary trends.

On the one hand, Internet users are looking for more reviews online to make increasingly informed decisions. On the other hand, customer paths are becoming more complex and now include an almost systematic passage over the Internet. As a result, whether the customer wants it or not, he will be confronted with the reviews of other Internet users in most of his decision-making processes.

If we look at the customer journey in Retail, more than 80% of shoppers go through Google before going to the point of sale. This is often the time for them to check travel times, opening hours or even look at some photos (products, restaurant menus, layout...). Therefore, even if you go to a restaurant every day and love it, you will be confronted - and even influenced - by its e-reputation, especially if you use Google Maps.

The local referencing platforms such as Facebook, Google, Booking or TripAdvisor have understood this. The objective is then to increase the number of reviews they have to create "network effects": the more reviews a platform has, the more it is visited, the more it sees its number of reviews explode. Far ahead of other platforms, Google My Business, for example, is doing very well, with an average of 125 reviews per page in 2020, against 105 in 2019, an increase of 23%.The question then is how companies can adapt to this change in customer behavior.

And yet for the past two years, more and more retailers have been implementing customer listening strategies on these networks: they are thus seeking to respond more and more to the opinions that concern them. Apart from retailers, reviews now affect more and more sectors, from banking to the medical world, not to mention the cultural world or the public sector.

At Partoo, we are neither for nor against this constant rating of experiences. However, we cannot help but see it as an opportunity for physical brands. Indeed, the feedback from internet users is an inexhaustible source of information that can help every company to progress, question and reinvent itself.

In Conclusion

Here are the key points that I was able to gather with all these helpful tips from our SEO Experts.

1. Learn about what your target audience search in your target area / search intent

2. Local SEO is for every businesses

3. Earn reviews and respond to them

4. Mobile optimization

5. Local Keywords ("near me", "nearby", "near you")

6. Optimize GMB profile and take advantage of what it offers (Google Merchant Feed, name spam abatement, GMB Messaging, safe business interaction, regular GMB posting

7. Have a consistent and correct NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number)

8. Leverage Bing Places

9. Strengthen technical SEO and on-page factors

10. Respond to customers

11. Invest in an in-depth content strategy

12. Have a dedicated page for a specific market and location

13. Create an email campaign

14. Improve page speed: loading, interactivity, and visual stability

15. Build a strong brand and trust signals or authority

16. Help users with FAQs

17. Local chamber of commerce directory listings

18. Assess your competition

19. Connect to a social media automation tool

20. Build landing pages with localized content and be an expert on your topic

Hope you learned a lot from these expert local SEO tips in 2021. Let me know in the comments if you have some other tips that work that you want to share with us.

28 Local SEO Tips For 2022 With Expert Round-Up

EXPERT CONTRIBUTIONS ARE LISTED IN THE ORDER THEY WERE RECEIVED.

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