Imagine that you haven’t been able to cut your hair for two months, because of a pandemic for example. You will be looking for a new hairstylist in your area, and like many people (in fact, it’s about a third of Google searches), you will make a local query , like ” hairstylist Laurier “.
But how can you develop your local visibility on the web when your customers make these types of requests?
local google visibility
In this final SEO challenge article (!), We will therefore assume that you have already installed Google My Business . If you haven’t already, you can start with the guide mentioned earlier.
5 ways to optimize your local visibility on the Internet
1. Regularly update the content of your local tools
Google Maps, or even Apple Maps or Bing Maps … Installing these platforms is a first step towards better local visibility. But these tools are not limited to a single use over time. On the contrary, in particular on Google My Business (the manager of your Google Maps page), you have a wide range of content creation and sharing features.
Let’s take a simple example with Google My Business (GMB), the most important local visibility tool.
Google My Business allows you to publish content in different forms , namely:
some products
offers
news
events
In order to optimize your local visibility on the web, we advise you to use these features as soon as it is relevant and on a regular basis.
Have you written a new article? Share a news! Do you have a product catalog? Add it to Google My Business! Is your best seller on promotion? Share your offer!
Here is a simple example of creating a product. This feature is the perfect opportunity to strengthen your local SEO around the keywords that your audience uses the most . Here is the kind of visibility this can give your products:
local seo
To do this, in your My Business account, all you have to do is enter all the characteristics of your product or service such as its price, photo, description, link and assign it a category if you want to organize your different products:
product google my business
The principle is the same for events and promotional offers and news.
Tip: To optimize the local visibility of your Google Maps page, we recommend that you include your best keywords in all descriptions and titles you write. This will help Google and other search engines to understand your field of activity and promote your business to the right internet users!
2. Generate customer reviews and respond systematically
Online reputation is a major issue in acquiring new customers from the web.
Whether on Google, Yelp, the Yellow Pages or even Glassdoor, the opinions left by other Internet users affect your local visibility in several ways:
They influence the position of your website : for example, if a customer searches for “good hairdresser Rosemont”, the more your Google reviews mention these terms, the more your Google Maps page will be highlighted by Google.
They directly influence the decision of Internet users : 85% of Internet users believe online reviews as much as personal recommendations .
Note that this feature may be disabled on certain platforms such as Google Maps in the event of particular events (such as the pandemic).
Here are some tips to encourage your customers to leave reviews online:
Get an in-person opinion after a sale is closed
Email or text after purchase asking customers to leave a review (make sure you’ve filtered out unhappy customers first!)
Respond to existing reviews in a professional manner, thanking internet users and handling complaints from less favorable reviews emphatically
To be even more efficient, you can also install automated customer review management tools like Birdeye , which will allow you to send such emails to all your most satisfied customers:
local notices
To optimize this aspect of your local visibility and respond as best as possible to Internet users, we recommend this guide to online reputation , as well as this procedure for negative Google reviews .
3. Create and optimize geographically targeted web content
On the Internet, content is king . You will see this phrase in many web marketing blogs and books! As we saw in the first point, some tools like Google My Business even offer functionalities that are increasingly similar to social networks by serving as a content relay.
Sharing a topic or writing an optimized web page specific to a geographic area can only help you improve your local visibility on the web.
For example :
Write an optimized blog post about a local news or event and share it on GMB
Create a video highlighting the local NPOs you support
Create an optimized local page for each neighborhood or city your business serves, for example:
How to optimize my local SEO?
For this step, you can use this guide to creating local pages . To be sure to identify all the local queries made by your target customers on the search engines, we also recommend that you perform a keyword study .
4. Regularly list your business in local directories
This optimization consists of regularly checking and adding your business information (site, address, services) on all local platforms such as Yelp, Yellow Pages as well as business inventories by industry. Not only will this allow you to improve your local visibility to new Internet users, but this practice will also benefit the natural referencing of your website in general.
This is the principle that we explain in detail in this guide to creating quality backlinks .
There are even some tools to make your life easier and find all the relevant directories for you, like the SEMRush Listing Management Tool :
SEO directories
5. Fill in structured data to help search engines
In addition to your web content, you can give Google even more precise information about the products and services you offer to appear in more results in local searches. This information is called structured data .
For example, how do you appear in the results of a user searching for “Spanish cuisine” if you are a tapas restaurant located a few minutes from its location?
This is exactly what structured data is used for on Google.
Concretely, they allow you to enter other information invisible to Internet users but read by Google :
The type of cuisine if you are a restaurant, as well as the reservation methods
The location in relation to the position of the person performing the search
Specific opening hours according to seasonality
Specific information by franchise
… And anything that could help you get better SEO services in Pakistan!
To help you coding your structured data, use the Google Search platform dedicated to local businesses :
how to add structured data?
Tip : Go through the list of recommended structured data, and fill in all that apply to your business!
Ready to optimize your local visibility on the Internet?
Even if there are a multitude of aspects to take into account to optimize the local visibility of your business on the web, these five tips should already allow you to generate initial results over time.
On the web, and especially in natural referencing , assume that nothing is ever taken for granted! Search engines are constantly evolving and Internet users are more and more demanding, so you will have to regularly check and analyze your various pages and local tools!
The Impressive Blogs 