The 3 Pillars of Local SEO
If you have a brick-and-mortar business Local SEO is crucial to staying afloat. Customers have to be able to find you! And more often these days they are doing the discovering online.
Local SEO is essentially optimizing your business so it shows up more often in relevant in local searches. Local searches are things like “pizza place near me,” “pizza place open now,” and so on. These kinds of searches are powerful and high converters.
In only a two-year period, Google has reported a 900%+ growth in mobile searches for “_near me today/tonight."
More people are turning to their phones to find something nearby and you want to make sure that your business can be found.
The fundamentals of Local SEO boil down to three fundamentals: relevance, proximity and prominence.
Relevance
What Does Relevance Mean?
Relevance is probably the most important aspect of any Google search - “Is this website relevant to what the user has typed in the search bar?” Google decides what is relevant and what is not based on the information they are given on a webpage. This is why if you do a very general search you end up with very general results. The more detailed you are in your search query the more likely you are to find something that will answer your question.
If you type into Google right now “pizza” the first few hits will probably be to national chains like Pizza Hut and Dominoes and then the Wikipedia definition for pizza in general. If you were looking for information on how many people like pineapple pizza you probably aren’t going to find it. If you type in “How many people like pineapple pizza” you will see a national survey that reports 12 percent of people reporting pineapple as a favorite topping. That’s relevance.
How Do I Optimize My Business For Relevance?
This is why when building a Google My Business profile or any business directory listing it is important to add all the pertinent information you can. If your pizza place specializes in a certain topping, add it! The more information you give Google the more it can steer people looking for exactly what you have to offer.
In addition to adding as much information you can (pro tip: add your products and services to your GMB page) you want to use keywords so people can easily find you. Brainstorm what you think someone would search to find your business and start there. Be sure to include keywords in your business description so they can easily be picked up by Google Search.
If your business can pop up when people are searching for something you offer you will win a lot more business because they are actively looking for you!
Proximity
What is Proximity?
This pillar here might be the most powerful one of the three when utilized in tandem with relevance. Proximity is all about location, location, location!
If you have a brick-and-mortar business with one or many locations it’s important to get people in the door who are in the area. If you have a pizza place in Boston you don’t really care to get tons of traffic in Seattle, that doesn’t help you keep the doors open and the pizza ovens hot.
Google uses complex algorithms to figure out where people are and to connect them to the right places in search. You can search “pizza in Boston” or you can search “pizza near me” or “pizza 02101” and Google will connect you with the closest locations in a list and a map. It’s an impressive tool and one that is used everyday by millions of users, mostly on mobile devices on the go.
Proximity is unique because it can drive quick conversions. Most people don’t search “pizza near me” when they aren’t actively looking to place an order for a few pies. In fact, HubSpot reports that 72% of people who did a local search visited a business within five miles, often within 24 hours. That’s some instant gratification! If someone is hungry you want them to know you are just a few minutes down the road.
How Do I Optimize My Business For Proximity?
If you have a physical location you cannot afford to skip over proximity! Making sure your business is included in location searches is actually pretty easy. All you have to do is make sure you have a clear and correct address on your Google My Business profile. When you add an address it is automatically added to Google Maps which powers local search. If you have multiple locations make sure all of them are added as well (you can add multiple locations to a Google My Business profile easily).
Once your location is on there you should see your business in local search results when you search for your type of business and the location. The next step is making sure you go back to ‘relevance’ and confirm the information included about your business is correct and robust. Afterall, you don’t want to start showing up in local searches for plumbers if you are selling pizza. The proximity might be right but the relevance is way off. The three pillars of Local SEO all work together to get your business noticed by the correct consumer.
Prominence
What is Prominence?
One of the ways Google sorts search results is based on “authority” or in this case, prominence. This means that the more reliable and reputable sources rank the highest. Websites that are popular, well-respected and well-trafficked are all ranked higher for prominence. This is why when you search something into Google you generally get very well known websites on the front page, sites that you already know and probably trust. Less-known sites and sketchy blogs tend to wind up father down the search because they are less reliable and trusted.
In Local SEO this means that websites that are well-known, like Yelp and Facebook will rank high when people search for your business or for your kind of business in your area. If you search “pizza in Boston” now you will see that after the map the first links are to Eater, Boston Magazine and Thrillist (depending on the day and your search history, of course.) These are all well-known and well respected websites - Google trusts them so they show them to you first while factoring in relevance and proximity.
How Do I Optimize My Business For Prominence?
The best way to establish prominence is to create business listings on prominent websites! This can include Google My Business (of course) as well as Facebook, Yelp and TripAdvisor - all of these websites will rank high on Google Search. When you create profiles on these sites you also have to keep relevance and proximity in mind and make sure you are adding addresses and keywords. The same also applies to social media profiles since they are all prominent websites in Google Search. This can also apply to good old fashioned PR - if you can get your business written about in a newspaper or magazine that also helps with prominence!
In addition to just having profiles on these pages you NEED to have reviews! User-submitted reviews are crucial when ranking for prominence and social proof in general. Businesses with more reviews, especially more positive reviews, are seen as more prominent. If your pizza place has 150 reviews with an average of 4.2 stars you will probably be seen higher in search than your competitor down the street with 3 reviews because Google trusts the legitimacy of your business because of the reviews.
Final Thoughts
Now that you understand the foundation of Local SEO go put it into practice! It’s all about making sure prospective customers understand what your business is about and how to get there at a glance!