Awesome Local SEO Practices that will Help You Become #1 on Google

How To Get To Number 1 On Google Using SEO

When looking for a business in your vicinity that will sell you a perfect toy for your kids’ birthday or fix your favorite pair of shoes, where do you find it?

You search for it online, I suppose.

And, your customers will do the same.

Namely, studies show that 50% of the consumers that conduct local searches via mobile visit the store within a day.

This is exactly why you need to make your store more visible to your potential customers. And, to do so, you need to invest in a solid SEO strategy.

Here are a few local SEO techniques that will help you lift your rankings in the SERPs and drive more traffic to your site.

Write SEO-friendly and Unique Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

On-page SEO is immensely important for your ranking. The idea behind it is simple- once you do your keyword research and find all relevant phrases you want to rank for, you need to optimize your page elements for them.

And your title and meta descriptions are a brilliant starting point. These are HTML elements that get displayed in search results and tell both search engines and your customers what your webpage is about.

Writing these tags is considered pure art. In today’s highly competitive landscape, where there are numerous businesses similar to yours, optimizing their sites just like you, you need to stand out. Otherwise, you won’t engage your potential customers and your click-through rate will suffer.

Now that Google’s main search results are is 600px wide, every character you write is precious. You need to make sure your text won’t be cut off. Even though this may not be that dangerous for your SEO, it does look extremely unprofessional and unappealing. So, your text needs to be concise and, at the same time, informative.

  • Your title tag should be approximately 50-60 characters long, while your meta description should be between 160 and 200 characters.
  • To reach your local customers, add the name of the city or the area your business serves (SEO agency Chicago, Chicago SEO agency, etc.).
  • Focus on implementing just one targeted keyword to both your title tag and meta description. Your aim is to place it close to the beginning of the tag.

Optimize your Site to Make It User-Friendly and Crawlable

To drive more traffic, convert customers, and jump to the first page of Google, your site needs to be impeccable. First, it needs to be user-friendly and easy-to-navigate. Second, its structure should allow Googlebot to crawl and index it effortlessly.

Apart from writing sweet title and meta description tags, here are some other elements of your website you should definitely optimize:

  • Your domain name needs to be short, meaningful, easy-to-remember, and unique. Just like your business’ name, your domain name needs to be brandable. To make sure no one steals your branding idea, you could even consider completing your company registration, business name registration, and domain registration at once.
  • The 2016 Google’s report highlights that 30% of all mobile searches is related to a company’s location. So, optimizing your site for mobile searchers is inevitable and it means adding easy-to-spot CTAs, making your forms simple to click on and fill in, boosting your site’s load speed, and making your phone number easily clickable.
  • Add a map to help your customers find you.
  • Show your most prominent customers’ testimonials. It’s not a secret that customers trust each other more than brands.
  • Use Schema for local businesses to tell search engines what your site is about and showing that it is a local business and not a huge corporation.
  • Make sure your NAP (your name, address, phone number) is prominent and correct.

Produce Quality Local Content to Earn Links

In today’s era of sophisticated Google’s algorithms and their initiative to penalize every spammy and unnatural SEO practice, earning links is directly related to creating top-quality content. It is what makes you authoritative and sets you apart from your rivals.

Start a blog

Start with building a blog on your site’s domain.

When optimizing your posts for search engines, ensure you implement local city and neighborhood information. To make your reach a bit wider, you should also include neighboring places and unofficial terms local customers use.

If there are any local news and events relevant to your business, elaborate them in your articles. This form of information is not only extremely valuable to your SEO, but also to your sites’ authority.

If you participate in charity events, sponsor any teams, or support any organizations relevant to what you do, make sure you let your customers know about it.

Most importantly, never focus on writing about your business. Instead, make your content insightful, engaging, and highly informative.

Sooner or later, people will start to see the value of your content and link to it naturally. And, as you already know, backlinks are the most prominent localized organic-ranking factor.

Build links

We all know that link building is the basis of every powerful SEO strategy. According to Moz’s research, link signals are the most significant localized ranking factor.

So, to boost your rankings, you need to have a detailed link building strategy.

Here are a few techniques you may want to try out:

  • Start with publishing on relevant sites in your niche.
  • Mention influential people in your niche in your piece of content and ask them to share it on their blog or social networks.
  • Leave insightful comments on authoritative sites and blogs. Don’t overstuff your comments with links. Instead, aim to provide their followers with relevant information and answers.
  • Find broken links on important blogs in your niche and offer your content as a relevant replacement.

Get Reviewed

A recent research shows that 84% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation, while 7 out of 10 will review your business, if asked.

The reason why people love reviews is that they tell them honestly if you’re good as you say you are.

So, the first thing you need to do is check your reviews.

If you have anything less than four or five stars on all major review sites, well, that’s bad.

Your poor ratings will drive your target audience off, triggering the drop in your brand authority and revenue.

On the other hand, by boosting your score by just one star, you will skyrocket your cash flow by 10%.

Now, getting reviews requires a long-term strategy you’ll have to stick to for the life of your company.

Once you receive negative reviews (You will. Everyone does.), make sure you remain professional while answering them. Also, use them to improve your business and provide your customers with impeccable products or services.

Now, where to get reviewed?

Start with Google reviews that, according to Moz, have the greatest impact on your rankings. You can even make its shareable link and promote it widely. Some other awesome customer review sites are:

  • Yelp
  • Amazon Customer Reviews
  • Angie’s List
  • Better Business Bureau
  • Glassdoor
  • Trustpilot
  • Which?

Pro tip: When asking your customers for reviews, don’t ask for too many of them. A huge inflow of positive reviews may seem suspicious and may get you removed from some of these platforms.

Over to You

The number of your competitors is constantly rising. Precisely because of this, the only way to reach the first page in the SERPs is to invest heavily in local SEO. It will not only help you boost your rankings and traffic, but also turn your leads into conversions and boost your brand’s authority.