Local SEO on Google? In fact, it is a matter of correctly distributing SEO emphasis within the framework of “locality”, and not a separate method of positioning. Find out how to fully optimize your website to draw attention to local phrases!
Who is local SEO good for?
Local positioning allows you to accurately reach potential customers, but first you need to check if your services or products you are selling have local search potential. So make sure that:
- you run a business targeted at local clients, you want to contact them (e.g. hairdresser, dentist, auto repair shop, beauty salon, Joomla theme detector, legal services),
- you have your company headquarters in the location you want to promote
- users often search for the keywords that are most important to you along with a local phrase,
- your local competitor appears in the TOP 10 results for a local phrase.
Why do you need local positioning if you have geolocation?
The Google search engine is trying to meet the needs of users as much as possible, so it matches the search results with the location. However, it is not always possible to accurately capture the intent of the requests, especially if the typed phrases have a wide semantic meaning.
Search results include pages from Wikipedia, Google News, specialized articles, and blog posts. Google doesn’t seem to know how to handle this request – which content to prioritize.
The essence of local positioning is to support geolocation, so that the page is displayed using local phrases, but at the same time it is also beneficial in the case of general phrases that are positioned based on geolocation.
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Data optimization in Google My Business.
With a well-optimized business card, your business will appear in both traditional search results and Google Maps.
Choose a suitable business card name – Google recommends that the business card name matches the brand name. However, SEO tries to “optimize” the title by introducing at least one important phrase for the company. For example, for a car repair shop instead of “XYX” -> “XYZ car repair shop”. However, be careful with the title. Google checks the listing and can automatically restore the previous title when it detects fraud.
Check that the address data is correct – consistency is important. The data should be presented exactly the same as on the website. Full address business cards are displayed higher than blank business cards.
Indicate the territorial scope of your activity. This is especially important if you serve a small area, for example, in the same city.
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Selection of “local” key phrases and content richness
Google is a content search engine, so try to make it easy for Google’s algorithm to index your website to quickly discover that you are running a local business. The easiest way to do this is with content that must be rich in key phrases at the same time. Before doing this, conduct an analysis – it may turn out that your potential customers have more complex intentions.
Also pay attention to multi-word phrases. If they are entered in a search engine along with the location (for example, permanent eyebrow makeup in Ufa), this may mean that such phrases should be included on the pages (they do not have to have a large volume of searches, but they will promote you in relation to a competitor, which makes it easier to move to the top positions in the results).
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Optimization of the title and other meta tags.
Title is the most important ranking factor. So if you’re struggling to rank for local phrases, try including them in your main tags as well. For a title, it might look like this:
Key phrase + location – brand – additional phrases or if “locality” does not have such a high priority:
- Key phrase – brand – other phrases + location.
- Similarly, you can enter tags h1, h2, h3, etc.
- Use checkwebsite.pro