Small businesses and star-tups can conduct digital marketing strategies like SEO to boost their rankings. One particular aspect of SEO services is local SEO, and it can significantly improve your online presence to attract customers.
Local SEO is an integral part of organic SEO. It heavily relies on a geographical component, meaning better web visibility can help attract customers within the vicinity. With local SEO, unlike ecommerce programmatic SEO you can increase your local ranking, allowing your business information—including your address, phone number, email, and website—to appear on relevant search results.
Here is how local SEO works:
Shown above: an example of local search results.
Imagine that you own a pizza restaurant in Singapore. If you want to attract more customers nearby to your restaurant, you can improve your online presence locally through SEO services. Whenever someone types “pizza in Singapore” or “pizza near me” into Google Search, they can discover your establishment, especially if the location is within their proximity.
To ensure customers discover your business on local search results, you have to improve your SEO rankings first. Doing so requires a hefty amount of time and effort, but the results are worth your hard work.
Most importantly, if you want to improve your online presence locally, you need to be aware of the many factors that affect your rankings. These ranking factors play a vital role in your local SEO strategy.
Here are four essential ranking factors that you should consider for local SEO.
4 Factors That Affect Your Local Rankings
1. Keywords
When it comes to local SEO, one thing will forever remain relevant: keywords. They are the lifeblood of SEO in general, not just local SEO. By ranking higher for a particular keyword, your website could appear on top of search results, allowing you to attract more visitors and potential customers.
However, keywords work a little differently for local SEO compared to other types of SEO services. Here, you will need to use location-specific keywords, preferably those containing three or more words. These are also known as long-tail keywords, and they can help your website rank higher.
For example, let us use the same scenario mentioned earlier about you owning a pizza restaurant. Think of it this way: your restaurant is in the heart of Jurong East, Singapore. Therefore, you could use long-tail keywords for local SEO, such as:
- Pizza restaurant in Jurong East
- Pizza delivery service in Singapore
- Pizza delivery service in Jurong
- Pizza services in Jurong
These are just some examples of what your keywords may look like in the mentioned scenario. Notice how each of the keywords contain a location.
Of course, your actual keywords may vary depending on your products, services, business, and location. Do keyword research to discover the ideal terms and phrases that you could utilise for yourlocal SEO strategy.
Once you have created a list of keywords, remember to utilise them in your website. You can incorporate your keywords with local SEO by including them in your meta descriptions, title tags, headings, and body copy. You will need to insert keywords into your content to influence your rankings.
2. Google My Business (GMB)
Your Google My Business (GMB) listing is an integral part of your local SEO strategy. If you do not have one yet, try to claim your listing as soon as possible. With a GMB listing, more people could find your business on local search results.
Shown above: an example of a GMB profile. Here, you can learn more about the business’s ratings, reviews, location, office hours, and contact information.
To claim your GMB listing, sign in to your Google Account with your business email. Afterwards, enter your business’s address and choose how your business will display on Google Maps. Enter your phone number and website URL, then click “Finish”. Request verification to finalise the process, and wait until Google gives you a confirmation.
Optimise your GMB account by updating your business information, including your contact details and address. You could also show a brief description of your business to inform your customers about your products or services. If used properly, your GMB account can be a game-changing tool for digital marketing, so remember to optimise your GMB account regularly.
3. Google Reviews
Google reviews are one of the most prominent ranking factors for local SEO. They can help your business rank higher locally, so encourage your customers to send feedback and ratings.
Customers can send a rating and review to your GMB profile. You can respond to your customer’s comments and even share their feedback on social media.
Not only that, but customer reviews are also excellent for establishing your credibility. Google users can read reviews from other customers displayed on your GMB account. You can also gain a five-star rating if customers are giving you positive feedback.
Besides your brand’s impression on customers, Google reviews also affect your SEO rankings in Singapore. Google will recognise that your business has a wide range of positive reviews and ratings, thus improving your web visibility for local SEO.
4. Links
Google uses your links as a sign of authority and credibility when evaluating your website. That means you should build as many quality backlinks as possible. Doing so will make your website more trustworthy in the eyes of Google.
How do links work for local SEO?
For starters, links drive traffic to your website. Whenever a web page links to your website, it drives signals and traffic that indicate your authority and trustworthiness. Having many quality backlinks means your website is credible. Because of this, it is essential to acquire backlinks from other reputable websites.
To build backlinks, create high-quality content for your website. You can write blogs, case studies, white papers, and ebooks to promote your content. In doing so, other websites could share your content, thus driving traffic to your website and helping you acquire backlinks.
Conclusion
Optimising your website based on these four factors can significantly boost your local SEO rankings. Focus on building your online presence locally so you can grow an audience and attract more customers nearby.
Get in touch with a trusted SEO agency in Singapore to invest in digital marketing services today.
