By focusing on local SEO—whether you’re a local business owner or a retail chain—you can improve your visibility in your region. With local SEO, you’ll appear in Google Maps and in search results for local terms, such as “restaurant Groningen.”
This opens up opportunities to attract website visitors and generate conversions in other ways. The 5 tips below will help you improve your local visibility.
Local SEO optimizes visibility in local search results. Key factors include: Google My Business optimization, the use of local keywords, NAP consistency (Name, Address, Phone Number), and local backlinks. This improves the online presence of businesses in specific geographic areas.
You can create a business profile on Google through Google My Business. This business profile appears on Google Maps when someone searches for your brand name or keywords related to your business. The profile also appears in regular search results when someone searches for your brand name.
See also: Guide to Optimizing Google My Business.
Your Google My Business profile is important if you want to be found locally. So be sure to claim your profile and check that all the information is correct and up to date. Depending on your industry, you can provide a wide range of information on Google My Business.
Add professional photos of your business and your services, along with a link to your website. Also, start collecting and responding to reviews, and select the right categories for your business. By filling out your Google My Business profile thoroughly and keeping it up to date, you’ll immediately improve your local visibility.
By using structured data, you can provide Google with more information about your business, such as its location and contact details. Structured data is a piece of code in your website’s HTML that contains this information. Among other things, structured data allows you to display review stars in search results.
This makes your search result stand out more and provides Google with more information so that your business can appear in the right local search results. You can use Google’s structured data testing tool to see what structured data has been added to your website.
See also: How important is structured data for SEO?
To ensure you can be found using the right local search terms, Google needs to know what services or products you offer. So start creating landing pages and blog posts that feature local content.
By using keyword research tools, you can identify the keywords your target audience uses to search on Google. You can then incorporate these search terms into the content on your website.
Other information you can provide includes details about parking options, your hours of operation, special events, and the area you serve.
It’s important for local businesses to get local backlinks. Through link building, you can acquire backlinks that are valuable and relevant.
See also: What is link building?
These local backlinks allow you to further highlight your local presence, services, and products. You can earn these backlinks by sharing content with relevant local businesses. One example is a guide to local events that you post on your website. Other businesses can then link to it.
You can also get backlinks by placing a link on a business association’s website, in an article in local online newspapers, or on the website of a local organization that you sponsor. Be creative when acquiring backlinks, and avoid placing them on questionable websites.
A rapidly emerging trend is the use of voice search: speaking a search query aloud. This growing trend is also having a major impact on how people conduct local searches.
For many voice search queries, a featured snippet is displayed; this is often just a single search result that provides the answer to the query. By optimizing your pages, you can make them eligible to appear in a featured snippet.
When you appear in a featured snippet, you’ll also be displayed above all other search results, which gives you a significant advantage over the competition.
It’s important to continuously work on improving your online visibility. Make sure you have a solid strategy in place—for example, by setting aside time each week to further optimize your website. Or feel free to ask us about the options for local SEO.
Also, try to stay up to date on opportunities and developments in the field of local SEO. With the 5 tips above, you can boost your local visibility on Google so that more visitors can find your business.
With a passion for SEO and an unmatched drive for results, Jarik Oosting is the driving force behind SmartRanking. With over 15 years of experience in the field, he has built an extensive body of knowledge spanning technical SEO to complex site migrations. As the founder of SmartRanking, he has assembled a team of like-minded SEO specialists who help businesses achieve sustainable online growth.
His academic background in information science at the University of Groningen, with a specialization in natural language processing, gives him a unique perspective on the world of SEO. For Jarik, it’s not just about visibility in search engines, it’s about sharing knowledge and guiding businesses toward sustainable online success. That mission also led him to write a Dutch book about GEO.