Your local business in the UK needs a solid local SEO plan if you want to reach as many potential customers as possible. Local SEO involves positioning yourself for searches near your geographical location. You can use local SEO to help pedestrians find your store on their phones. It can boost your sales right away. Choosing an SEO company that specialises in providing local SEO services in London can be beneficial.
A well-developed, implemented local SEO strategy can increase your local visibility. With the right plan, you’ll be able to outwit your competitors and ensure that local clients find you first. Throughout this article, you’ll learn some of the best local SEO tips to help you outrank your competition. Let’s dive in.
Local SEO: Why is it important?
Local SEO aims to improve your business’s visibility in local search results. The following are some of the critical aspects of local SEO that demonstrate its importance.
Google is the Go-to Resource for Local Business
During the olden days, people used the Yellow Pages to find relevant businesses in their local area. Nevertheless, Google has quickly become the preferred resource for local companies. A study found that 69% of consumers search for local companies online at least once a month.
Only 8% of respondents report never searching for local businesses online. It indicates that if you want to reach 92% of local people, your website needs local SEO.
The Ease of Ranking
Your website might have a difficult time ranking well if it is competing against many other businesses. They are your online competitors, and you can’t ignore them. Nevertheless, you will compete primarily with small and medium-sized businesses with local SEO. It makes it easier to gain traction in some search engines. If you follow all local SEO best practices, your ranking may rise in many positions quickly.
You Can Get Free Organic Traffic
The higher your website appears on the search engine result pages (SERPs) of the search engines, the higher the chance that you will generate more traffic from your website. By generating leads through this free traffic, you increase your company’s visibility. Afterwards, you can focus your marketing efforts on turning those leads into paying clients.
Best Local SEO Tips to Outrank Your Competitors
Below are some tips to help you dominate your local market over competitors.
Set up your Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business Pages
You can claim your listing by visiting the Google Business Profile website and registering your business. The form will ask for your physical address, business category, contact information, and website address. Following the confirmation of your listing, fill out the remainder of your profile.
Although Google seems to be the only search engine option on the internet. Companies operating in the UK should also consider using Bing Places for Business when conducting local searches. It holds 11.23 per cent of the local search market.
Visit the Bing Places for Business website, complete the paperwork to claim your business listing, and double-check that the listing is valid.
Ensure Consistency in NAPs
Your company’s name, address, and phone number are the fundamental components of local SEO. Please make sure they are uniform across the entire website. Additionally, you should have them on your social media pages and Google My Business listing. If Google discovers inconsistencies in your contact information, it will affect your local SEO.
Conduct Keyword Research
Providing your website with relevant content requires extensive keyword research. Create a list of relevant keywords for your brand as the first step. By placing yourself in the consumer’s shoes, consider the terms and phrases they would use to find your business.
Through SEMrush, you can see how your competitors rank for specific keywords. Using these keywords will assist you in developing your local SEO strategy. Another source of keyword suggestions is Google Keyword Planner.
You should Localise Your Metadata
You should consider your meta description and title tags as metadata. Although it is fundamental SEO material, optimising and localising it is crucial. Title tags serve as headlines describing what your business offers. Your title tag must be compelling enough to get the user to click.
You should also include your location and service. You should also write an enticing meta description. Since it is longer than the title tag, you can include one or two long-tail keywords and describe one or two advantages.
Increase the Number of User Reviews
The first thing people do when searching for local businesses is read the reviews. Ratings help establish credibility since 84% of consumers trust online reviews. Additionally, Google considers reviews when determining rankings.
The key to winning local SEO is promoting more user reviews. When customers purchase from you or use your service, politely ask them to leave a review.
Develop incentives if it fails. Offer discounts for reviews. Don’t make it too complicated. Perhaps consumers don’t submit reviews because they are unsure how to do so. Show them how to submit a review.
Provide Local SEO Content
You should create more local SEO content if you already create a lot but not much. To learn what questions consumers are asking, you might ask them via email or social media. You can ask your consumers about the issues they are currently experiencing also.
You can use Google Keyword Planner to study potential keywords for each topic once you’ve come up with a few suggestions. Ideally, you want keywords with high search volumes and the right audience. Consider the words and phrases you would enter into Google to find your business for keyword ideas.
Get your Business Listed in Online Directories
Citations are mentioned in local directories that help optimise a company’s local search engine optimisation. You are cited when your company’s NAP information appears in the directory.
Make sure your company is listed on Yelp, FourSquare, MerchantCircle, and CitySearch, among other local directories. Multiple directories can boost your local ranking thanks to Google’s high regard for these directories.
Get Backlinks from Authority Sites
The local SEO tactics above would already have resulted in a good backlink profile from your Google My Business listings, press releases, and local business directories. Linking to authoritative websites is like getting a high-ranking employee to recommend you. It demonstrates your trustworthiness to potential customers.
Invest in high-quality content that helps your audience and is relevant to your niche to gain links. By doing so, your chances of receiving backlinks and shares will increase. Additionally, you can publish guest posts on other industry-relevant websites and earn high-quality backlinks. You should always pick high-authority websites. Quantity is less important than quality.
Add Maps to Your Website
You can boost your local SEO by including Google Maps on your website. It may clarify the exact location of your company. Furthermore, it allows Google to retrieve information from your website’s content. Using this technique might help you appear in local search results more frequently.
The Takeaway
You have learned how local SEO can help you beat your competitors in 2022. Small local businesses should master local SEO; understanding it isn’t enough. You need to optimise your metadata and create great content that gets shared and linked. Lastly, encouraging your consumers to leave reviews can contribute to social proof, increasing sales. You need to use ethical methods to perform fundamental tasks better than anyone else. In this regard, SEO services in London can help you develop result-driven local SEO strategies that will increase your brand awareness in your local area.
