Whether or not your business has physical locations, you must know the importance of achieving and maintaining prominence and visibility for local searches. Local intent for web searches has increased significantly since the beginning of last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most people add their location to the keywords while searching for products and services.
These people are usually at a deeper stage in the purchasing funnel, which means they are ready to buy your products or services. So if they do not find your business listed on one of the top search engine result pages (SERP), they will probably go to your competitors. That is why you must focus on your efforts to optimize your local SEO and search engine presence.
Many tell-tale signs can indicate that a business needs to consider local SEO services. However, not all local SEO companies can help your business equally. So make sure that you conduct adequate research before hiring them. For example, if you are looking for an SEO expert in Dublin, 3R should be your first consideration.
Let’s find out what the signs are so you can discover whether they apply to your business or not.
You Have No Idea of the Traffic Generated From Local Searches
If you are uncertain of your local landing page performance, you should consult local SEO experts. They will look into your local search engine analytics and compile a report with actionable solutions.
You can get valuable insights for your local search campaigns from two sources - maps and organic local traffic. Local SEO companies will track both of these aspects and provide reports with local SEO performance insights for all of your locations.
SEO experts can track the traffic that comes directly from map engines. You can also use the campaign URL builder provided by Google to implement the process and see the results in Google analytics yourself. Similarly, you can set up tracking URLs for every search engine to get more granular data. But you will need to add them manually to your platform once you have created one for every location.
SEO experts will also implement canonical tags for your location-specific pages. These tags will inform search engines about the URL that you wish to keep in their index. Search engines will ignore all the other variations of the URL for your business website.
Tracking your phone calls using unique phone numbers is also a great way to measure the traffic generated from local sources. It is necessary to track the phone calls, or you may not be able to segregate the conversions from the exits. Make sure that you set up unique local phone numbers in case your business has multiple locations.
You should also enable the call to action (CTA) button on your Google My Business listing. There are five predefined buttons that you can choose from for your local profiles. It allows your visitors to interact with your business or convert directly from your GMB listing. Also, it enables you to track the number of views and interactions.
You’re Not Sure How To Improve Your Business Citations
Managing citations is a crucial aspect of local SEO that often gets overlooked or ignored by business owners. However, according to reputable SEO experts, citations are the 4th most important factor for search engine local pack and 5th ranking factor for local organic traffic.
Any reference to your business name, address, or phone number on a local business directory website can be called a citation. Common examples of citation sources include Yelp, Yellow Pages, Trip Advisor, GrubHub, or even Facebook. Local SEO experts can place your business citations on the appropriate websites to optimize your credibility.
They can also ensure that your citation data is complete, accurate, and exists without duplications. Duplicate citations can prove to be detrimental for local SEO as it hampers credibility from users and search engine bots. Local SEO experts can also find unclaimed or unverified citations for your business that can prove useful.
Managing citations can be challenging for business owners because they often lack the resources necessary to make them manageable and scalable. Local SEO experts use citation management platforms to manage business mentions for their clients at multiple locations. They will also provide you real-time updates for the top local websites useful for your SEO.
You Are Not Aware Of Your Online Reviews
Online reviews are not only crucial for your company’s reputation but also essential for SEO. Companies with bad ratings and reviews would never show up on the top search results because that will hamper the user experience from search engines. Research has also shown that almost 90% of consumers check a company’s online reviews before visiting their website.
About 74% of those consumers state that positive reviews can affect their buying decisions from local businesses. These consumers say that online reviews from strangers can have the same effects as referrals from friends and family. That is why experts would always advise you to improve your online reviews before jumping into a local SEO strategy.
Local SEO companies can help you build up your ratings and reviews by managing them. They can find out reviews of your company from various sources through brand monitoring tools. They can also find conversations related to your brand on social media or other websites that can influence your company’s reputation.
You Have Not Been Able To Build Local Backlinks
Backlinks from other sources to your business website are the second most important ranking factor according to Google. Links to location pages are all the more important since they offer validation for your brand’s authority for specific locations. SEO experts employ a variety of tactics to earn local backlinks for their clients.
Not all backlinks affect your website SEO equally to local searches. That is why experts employ a variety of tactics to find websites with high domain authority that can link to your site. They also comb through your competitor backlink profiles to discover local opportunities for your business.
So if you see any of these signs for your business, you should reach out to local SEO experts. They will help in improving your local presence to optimize local traffic and conversions. It will also help you to assess where your business stands currently and how it can achieve your desired objectives.