Increased site traffic, more brand visibility, and ultimately increased revenue from SEO. We’ve provided you with a checklist to control your local search results and your business. By following these tips you can ensure that you are likely to succeed in local search.

12 Tips on Local SEO

1. Find keywords

Searching for keywords is a crucial step in the success of any SEO program or campaign. This lets you know the keywords that users type in search engines to find local businesses like you.

Google uses the text and code of a website to find out what its content is. Website optimization is very important around the word that users search for in Google.

For example, a building painting company might want to optimize the site around the term “building painting” because the title is a name used in the industry. But it may be found by research that most users search for the term “home painter”. In this case, the page of their site should be changed and optimized around the term “home painter”.

If you own a local business you can also use the name of your place or city at the bottom of the keywords. For example, you can use “Paris Building Painting” or “Paris House Painter” as your keywords.

But how to choose the best keyword for good rankings?

To begin with, you can guess yourself or ask your customers and those around you what keywords they are using to find your business. List these words and sign into Google’s Keyword Planner to get new ideas. Then check and estimate their search. This Google tool shows how difficult the word is in advertising. But experience has shown that words that are heavily contested in Google advertising are also difficult to find in SEO. Look for keywords that are searched hundreds or thousands of times a month on Google, but with less competition. You can use these keywords and phrases in the title or meta description of the site pages.

2. Page title

The page title is one of the most important parameters of On-page SEO. The page title is displayed in the search results. It also appears in the browser tab. It shows the user the brief page of information inside it and also tells Google what the page is about.

The page title should include the keywords you want to rank for, and also describe the subject of the page.

Tips to be careful when writing a page title are:

• Consider the page title as 60 characters long so Google will display all of it in the search results.
• Use your business brand name at the bottom of the page title.
• The page title should start with your brand name and introduce your services further. Of course, this is almost optional and there is no requirement.

3. Meta Description

The purpose of the meta description is to allow users to see a summary of the page content before clicking on it. Having an interesting meta description can attract users to more clicks on your site and increase clickthrough rates.

Write meta-specific descriptions for each page and keep it under 320 characters long. If this description is increased, likely, it will not appear in the search results.

4. Contact information

Contact information alongside SEO is a key element in local SEO. Contact information includes your name, address, and phone number.

If you want to showcase your site in local searches, Google is very much aware of your location. Google can understand your contact information on your website and other websites. Google considers the frequency and quality of your contact information as one of the factors affecting local SEO.

The more information about your business online, the more your business name will appear in local searches.

5. User reviews

Over 92% of users read online reviews before choosing their service. About 60 percent of users judge a business based on the rating of a business, and about 43 percent of users have at least a three-in-five rating for their business. Given the huge volume of users reading online reviews, it is important to earn higher ratings and positive reviews.

The quality and quantity of your business online reviews play an important role in showing it in search results. The more five-star reviews your business has, the more likely it is to be exposed.

To get positive reviews, you need to pay close attention to the quality of your service. After completing each service, you can politely ask customers to rate you. Google and Facebook are among the services that you can use to get the user’s points.

6. Optimize images

Optimizing images in the SEO world is an art.

Search engines don’t look at images like we do. That’s why we had to attach extra information to the pictures to describe them. This will get a better ranking for your keywords in the search results.

We can optimize images from four directions to help with SEO :

• Filename: Before uploading a photo to the site, make sure the name matches your keyword.
• Photo Title: This is the name the user will see when you place your cursor over the photo. This title should include your keywords and description of the photo.
• Alternate Text: This name will be inserted when the photo is not loaded correctly. Search engines make good use of signals from this alternative text and use them to determine site rank.
• Photo Size: Before uploading a photo to a website you need to compress it and reduce its size. You can use Photoshop or other online tools such as Compress JPEG.

7. Optimization of Textures(anchor Text)

Anchor text is referred to as clickable, hyperlinked text, which is a hyperlink. Google uses Incredible to understand the linked content. For example, if the text of the anchor text is “building painting”, Google would imply that the link inside is about building painting.

You can link to the relevant keywords within the content of the various pages of the site. This will help Google better understand the topic of the pages and rank them in those linked keywords.

8. Improved mobile version

If your website is boring for mobile users, the text is too small to zoom in and the load is slow, then it is time to make a change to the mobile version of the site.

Most mobile-friendly websites have a responsive feature. This means that they are adjusted to fit any screen. Reactive websites are easy to manage from an SEO perspective. You can also design another version for mobile and transfer mobile users to the site’s mobile address.

In April 2015, Google introduced an update to its algorithm that penalized websites that were not optimized for mobile devices. Google also introduced its new algorithm in May 2016 for mobile site updates.

9. Social gestures and profiles

Purposeless links are quotes that you get from other websites. Social profiles are also pages that you can create and operate on social networks. These include Facebook and Twitter.

The more you visit the site, the better your social profiles and activities.

To have a good place in local SEO from this perspective, consider the following:

• Make sure to refer to your site using the correct information such as a business brand name.
• Update your social profiles if you change your contact information.
• Write a brief, useful descriptions of your business on social pages that describe your services and products.
• Put at least five business-related photos on your social profiles.
• Put your social profile into at least five related categories.
• Avoid repeating quotes and references to your site. Just one positive note is enough.

10. Google My Business Tool

Google processes 3.5 million searches daily and you will miss a great chance if your site is not listed. Google My Business tool is a great marketing platform for small businesses.

Here are the points that Google My Business gives businesses:

• Manage and update how your business is displayed in local Google search results
• Access information such as how users access your local business
• Show up on Google Maps and help customers find you easy
• Response to user reviews

To get listed in Google My Business you can directly record your location and information on Google Map.

11.Structured data

Structured data or schema markups are the code that is added to a website and helps Google understand the type of information the pages have.

All local businesses should use Eskimos local business on-site pages and announce their location and contact details directly to Google. Using this type of schema will create more trust in Google and give your local business more credibility. It will also increase your ranking in local search results.

Some of this structured data is displayed in search results and will make your site richer. By providing a better view of your site in search results, users are encouraged to click on your site and this will increase the clickthrough rate and site rank.

Google currently supports a variety of Rich Snippets such as points, recipes, organized events, videos, and news. Read more about schema.org for more on this topic.

12. Linking

In Google’s algorithm, every link represents a vote for your site. The more links a site has, the more likely it is to appear in the primary search results.

Links transfer credits to the destination site. Backlinks from highly reputable sites can transfer some of that credit to your site. Most websites naturally have a small number of backlinks, but can increase the number of backlinks through the linking process.

Natural backlinking is a process whereby you encourage other sites to share the quality of the content you publish on your site. This will improve your brand, increase the visibility of your site and increase traffic and rank.

Linking is a process that requires a lot of patience and effort. However, you can also use other white hat methods and increase the number of backlinks to the site.