This Pandemic (COVID-19) aka Coronavirus has created a great negative impact on many industries and businesses, like restaurants, automobiles, manufacturing, production, chemical industries, digital marketing services, and many more down the line. Hence, Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a very important role in 2020 to keep your business running locally.
What is Local SEO?
Local Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an implementation for your website that helps you to increase the visibility of your website in Local SERP for customers residing near your location. This can be done in different ways that involve Web page, On-page optimization, Off-page optimization, and Content creation with the purpose of targeting a specific area or location.
What is Local SERP?
Local SERP (Search Engine Result Page) is nothing but the result that appears when there is any local search query made, such as “Restaurants near me”, “ Petrol pump near me”,“ Digital marketing services in Andheri “ , “seo agency in Mumbai” etc. And hence the search results appear organically or with the help of Google My Business / Bing Places. Here is an example of a local SERP.
Why is Local SEO Important?
A lot of people look around for services or products like pharmacies, gas stations, vegetable vendors near them. A website that is optimized locally helps one to understand your services, from where do you provide services and also the area where you provide your services/products. This helps you to locally improve your business. According to a recent study, 75% people search for services/products near them and hence Local SEO plays a major role in your business.
Role of Google My Business in local SEO
GMB ( Google My Business ) plays an important role in local SEO, so it is a must to register your business on GMB. You also need to optimize it locally with proper address, open and close timings, proper available phone number and many more aspects. This helps you to keep your customers happy, always reply to their queries and stay polite in your feedback.
Off-page and On-page for local SEO
Off-page includes link building activities like Social Bookmarking, Info-Graphics, Business listing in local online directories, etc. Link Building activities should majorly include locally targeted keywords like “ pharmacy in Mumbai”. Whereas for On-page, creating content like local news, add location page in About Us for customers if not added, making your website mobile-friendly, using locally targeted keywords in URL and content, etc are important.
As we all know, SEO changes rapidly. And we never know when Google will introduce new SERP features for locals searches. But one can always count on these changes coming. That is the reason why doing our best and staying on the top on local SEO is necessary. In these times of uncertainty, be certain to keep your SEO game sharp. Stay safe. Stay relevant.
