What is Local SEO and How Does Local SEO Work?

“It is a process through which you increase your online presence so that you can get more business from relevant local searches.” According to Google, about 46% of Google searches occur with local intent.

Local SEO shows local listings of local area to visitors. Through local SEO, you tell any search engine that your product or business is the best for a particular product or service in the local area.

As you know through SEO, you can top your website in search engine results nationally or internationally, which is time consuming and lengthy process. It will take time for you to get results in general SEO, so you should also focus in local SEO.

You can do local SEO for your website or business. If local visitors search for anything related to your business or service, your business and location information will be visible to them and they will be able to reach you easily, thus you will start getting business.

For example, if you search for a coffee shop or dentist on the search engine, you will see the top three nearby coffee shops or dentist clinics. Which is also called 3-pack SEO. This is visible due to local SEO.  

If you are running a business, if someone searches for keywords related to your business and if you do not register. Your information will not be visible to them, due to which you are missing your business lead. Remember that local SEO has a high conversion rate. Therefore you should do local SEO.

How to Do Local SEO?

Local SEO is not an easy task, it takes a lot of hard work and patience to get any website or business into the top three list of local search results. It is time consuming and depends on your business type, location and your hard work. So be patient, work continuously and your business will definitely come to the top of the search result.

When doing local SEO, you should always keep in mind that the name, address and phone number of your business should be the same on all platforms, there should be no difference even in comma and dash.

Whether it is your Google my business profile, Facebook page, Instagram profile, IndiaMart, Trade India, JustDial listing or Sulekha’s profile, it is important to have the same information everywhere. By having the same information on all platforms, each platform will identify and link to your website.

Reviews of any platform will appear on Google listing. Here all website reviews will only appear if your business name, address and phone number are the same on each website.  

Google always focuses on making the user fully satisfied, Google provides the kind of information that the user needs. Whatever results show in local SEO, it is not from our website but through Google My Business. This means that even if you do not have a website, you can still do local SEO.

What is Google My Business and How to Register a Business on Google My Business?

Google My Business, Google’s free tool in which we do our listing and from there Google fetches all the details and shows it to the user when there is a local intent. In Google my business, you can list your business name, address, location direction, website, working hours etc.

Now let’s see how to register any business on Google My Business. To register your business, type Google My Business into the browser. Click on the first link, log in there, enter your company’s credentials, address, remember that the exact address should be there, do not enter a fake address. Then click on request pin.

In 10 to 15 days you will receive the PIN via post at the registered address. Which you will need to verify, then your Google My Business page will be activated. Their purpose in sending PIN via post is basically to verify that your registered business exists.

Google My Business is a tool that allows us to update our business information, so that when business information appears in local search, the user can get complete information.

After registering on Google My Business, you have to focus on content, you have to write unique and best content, so that more and more people are attracted towards your business.

You must also register your business in the local business directory. Which will increase your citations and your business will start appearing in the top three list of local SEO.  

What is the citation?

Citation act like a backlink and helps Google My Business listing to get better rank. The citation is a very important factor for local SEO. Citation is not backlink. There is a huge difference between citation and backlink.  In the citation, not only the link but also the name, address and phone number are registered.

Having the name, address and phone number of your business on any kind of webpage is called a citation and through citation Google gets to know about your local business. Business listings that have more citations, rank will also be highest but you have to create citation only on good and reputed website. Never create a citation on a spam website.

Google ranks any listing based on these three values i) Relevance, ii) Proximity (Distance) and iii) Prominence.

1. Relevance – How relevant is your business to users’ search queries?
2. Proximity (Distance) – How far is the searcher from the location of the business listing?
3. Prominence – How familiar is the business?

Google collects information of local business from many factors, for this Google analyze online data, offline data and filled maps.  

To increase citations, you can register in all the local directories in your city. You can create your profile on social media platform and any local directory like JustDial, IndiaMart, Trade India, Economic Times, Sulekha etc. There are many websites and business listing websites where you can create citation for your business.

Citations will benefit your business listings only if you keep the name, address and phone number are the same on every digital platform.

I hope you liked this post. If you have any questions, you can comment. I will always try my best to reply to you.

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