Optimizing your company’s local SEO is essential if you want to develop your visibility on the web in your catchment area. It should be noted that the majority of searches for products and services carried out on Google today are local in nature. Working on local SEO has therefore become an essential marketing strategy that has many advantages.
What is SEO and Local SEO?
Today, nearly 78 percent of consumers do their research online before buying in-store. Whether for a trade, service or other company, the creation of a website is now an essential step in developing its activities. In addition to being the showcase site for your company, this kind of online platform allows you to get closer to your customers, to know their expectations and their needs thanks to the opinions submitted.
SEO
To generate qualified traffic, your site must have good visibility on search engines, because the majority of Internet users do not intend to go to the second page of search results to find the products and services that they need. Only the first rows of the SERPs matter. By seeing your site in pole position in the SERPs, Internet users and mobile users will consider it a trusted site and they will be sure to find what they are looking for. In this case, the implementation of an effective natural referencing strategy is essential to achieve this objective. Abbreviation of the English term Search Engine Optimization and translated by natural referencing in French, SEO defines the techniques implemented to improve the position of. It is an essential tool to propel the site to the top of search engine results.
Local SEO
Local SEO, on the other hand, is a web referencing technique that consists of optimizing the visibility of a site on search engines like Google and Bing with queries based on geolocation. It is an action that has many advantages. Indeed, local referencing is a powerful lever for all companies and organizations that rely on a limited catchment area and local customers. It offers you the possibility to focus on specific, fewer but more qualified queries, which allows you to have more visitors and optimize the conversion rate .
In general, when a user is looking for a product or service close to the geographical area where he is, the first thing he will do is to search the internet including the keyword with a city. In the case of a restaurant, for example, the user will type “restaurant + locality” or related expressions such as “where to eat in + locality”. The results that will follow this query will essentially be restaurants located in or near this location with their contact details.
Listing on GMB is also an effective way to optimize your local visibility . Prospects and customers will know you exist and how to reach you from Google Maps through your GMB account. Neglecting or omitting local SEO will significantly reduce your chances of appearing on search engine results and reaching your target audience. You risk missing thousands of customers, which will harm the proper development of your business.
How to use SEO to improve local SEO?
Having good visibility on the web is one of the major concerns of a company in web marketing strategy. And as it is essential to be well positioned on the search engines for the acquisition of qualified traffic and the increase in the conversion rate, working on local referencing has therefore become essential. Moreover, search engines favor results with geographical criteria. Indeed, Google offers more visibility to pages and sites adapted to local SEO.
Geolocate on-page SEO
Whether in the titles or in the body of the text, the selection and use of relevant keywords according to your services and in line with the concept of your company in your web pages are essential to establish a SEO strategy. effective natural. This contributes considerably to improving your positioning on search engines. This approach allows you to acquire traffic and reach the qualified audience you are looking for. Real groundwork is needed to do this. You need to define a list of relevant keywords that suit your business, your competitive advantages, etc. It is also useful to put the keywords or part of a few sentences in bold to improve the visual aspect of your contents and maintain the attention of the readers.
In practice, it is not always easy to differentiate yourself from your competitors, especially on very competitive keywords like “hairdresser”, “plumber” and “florist”. Although these are highly sought after by Internet users, they are also very competitive. A hair salon will have a hard time finding a place in the first pages of Google search results with this keyword alone. Also, the latter may not really be relevant. It is best to complete your keyword with a city or district (the city where your head office is located or your catchment area or area of intervention).
Whether you are an entrepreneur, specialized in the field of e-commerce or other, local referencing is a powerful lever to develop your activity, increase and strengthen your notoriety. This is a technique that allows you to considerably optimize your chances of appearing in the search results of a nearby Internet user. This is why it is important to always consider the geographic component in your on-page SEO .
Optimize titles and meta descriptions
Even if they do not directly impact the performance of your local SEO strategy at the search engine level, the title tags and meta-descriptions of web pages play an important role. These are the small texts that appear in Google’s search results. Internet users will rely on these to choose the link to click on. Indicate your location in the title tags and meta-descriptions of your pages will increase your chances of convincing users to visit your site and allow Google to improve the ranking of your site.
Optimizing the Google My Business Page
The success of your local SEO also relies on the creation of a Google My Business or GMB account. The purpose of this is to allow local businesses to have a quality page informing Internet users of their activities and their contact details . Similar to Google+ business pages, the GMB page is localized to Google Maps. Having a Google My Business account and properly optimizing your page allows you to appear qualitatively in geolocated searches and provide your prospects, customers and subscribers with the necessary information about your business.
In addition to the basics of your company, consider illustrating your profile with beautiful quality photos and offering a 360° virtual tour of your establishment to attract more customers. It is also interesting to highlight the best opinions left by Internet users and to respond to those who are negative in a reassuring way.
Take care of the site’s microformats
It’s also a good idea to give Google some details using microformats to optimize your local search rankings . These are enriched tags that allow search engines to better understand the structure of your site and thus better position it.
Develop a mobile-friendly site
Be aware that now the majority of local searches are carried out from a smartphone. In addition, mobile voice search is widely used to find nearby companies. However, it is difficult to read your site on a small screen, which causes a significant loss of traffic and chances of conversion. This is why it is essential today to develop a responsive site.
Other solutions such as being present in local directories and encouraging the opinions of Internet users exist to improve your local referencing . It is essential to use them well to increase your chances of reaching your target audience and your conversion rate.
What are the benefits of SEO for better local visibility?
A full-fledged branch of natural referencing, local SEO is a technique that allows you to gain places on the first pages of search engines. The implementation of an effective local SEO strategy increases your chances of appearing on the various queries related to your activity in a localized area. It is a process that represents the behavior Research Online, Purchase Offline or ROPO which translates to research online to buy in store.
As most Internet users search for products and services close to home or by specifying the locality, local SEO is therefore very useful for small and large companies with a local and regional scope.. In addition to boosting your positioning on the SERPs, it allows you to acquire qualified traffic, thus improving the conversion rate. It is a practice that attracts Internet users to an online or physical store without requiring a large budget to gain visibility. Signing up for Google My Business is 100% free. The same goes for the majority of local online directories referenced at the top of search results by Google: Trip Advisor, Yellow Pages, Yelp, etc. So don’t hesitate to use them to advertise your business.
In addition to targeting a qualified and geolocated audience , SEO allows you to increase and maintain your notoriety and your local e-reputation. Know that online reviews are a powerful lever for acquiring new customers. Indeed, reading reviews posted online has a significant influence on users’ purchasing decisions. This is a good way for Internet users to get an idea of the credibility of a company and to determine whether it is trustworthy or not.
Let’s start now to establish an effective and tailor-made SEO strategy to boost your local visibility . Together, we will define your needs and your objectives. We provide you with useful and informed advice for the launch of your website. Developers and SEO experts, we respect your requirements, take into account all the information concerning your company, analyze the structure and specificities of your site in order to put it in the first place of search results from Google, Bing, etc.
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