Local SEO is a type of search engine optimization that aims at improving your brand’s online visibility and its position in local search results. This strategy has multiple goals, including boosting your website traffic and, subsequently, sales. But most importantly, it’s there to help your business grow and overshine competitors.

Location-based SEO offers small businesses a lot of tangible benefits, such as: 

• Improved brand awareness; 

• Enhanced trust and credibility; 
• Competitiveness; 
• Increased traffic and conversions; 
• High rankings in SERPs that help users find your company with ease. 

Attaining all these benefits is possible with a solid small business local SEO strategy. The only question is – how do you create a winning tactic?

In this article, we will tell you the top 5 ways to leverage local SEO for your growth. 

1. Google My Business Profile Optimization

Google My Business (GMB) is a term for your company’s listing in Google – one of today’s most important business directory listings. A GMB profile allows you to strengthen your online presence and show up across different Google products, such as Maps and Search. 

A solid GMB profile can offer you several benefits in terms of small business local SEO: 

• GMB listings show up above other non-paid links in SERPs (though only a few top results are shown above everything, the rest can be accessed after clicking a “View all” button). 

• GMB provides users with complete information about your brand, including your address, working hours, phone number, website link, location on a map, etc. 
• GMB can feature customer reviews, which is suitable for managing your online reputation. 
• GMB gives you an opportunity to add additional features to your listing. For example, you can add a “Call now” or “Request a quote” button to your profile. 

All in all, GMB lets your brand become more visible on the web and lets your local customers find you easily and get real-time directions to your office or request your services right away. 

So, how can you optimize your Google My Business profile for local SEO? Here are a few working tips: 

• Use a real and correct brand name. Don’t add any keywords in the name section to avoid penalties. 
• Add an up-to-date phone number  
• Add a correct address to show up in Maps. 
• Ensure that you indicate the correct working hours. 
• Write a clear and relevant yet attention-grabbing description. Don’t stuff it with keywords. The core function of description is to let your prospects know who you are, so it should sound natural. 

• Upload many high-resolution images of your office’s exterior and interior and product shots. 
• If you have videos, be sure to upload them too. They must be smaller than 100 MB and shorter than 30 seconds. 
• Manage your customer reviews and respond to them promptly. 

2. Keyword Research for Local Business Website

The next thing that matters for your small business’s local SEO is keyword research. Thorough research helps you understand the language of your potential customers and optimize your content accordingly to help your prospects find you faster and easier. 

Finding effective keywords is easy. You only need to find search queries that align with your industry, service, or product and target them to your location. It’s recommended to use specialized keyword research tools to streamline this process and detect the most promising queries for your strategy. You can hop on Top 10 and discover the best alternatives to popular SEO services. Top 10 is an independent resource with reviews and comparisons of the leading SEO tools to help you find the best solutions for seamless keyword research. 

Once you make a list of keywords, you need to optimize your website and content for them to fuel your location-based SEO. Here are a few tips for effective on-page optimization: 

• Optimize your existing content for relevant local keywords. 
• Insert them into meta tags and descriptions, headings and subheadings, URLs, and alt text. 
• Craft new, keyword-targeted content. 

Bonus tip: Remember that excessive keyword stuffing can make your content sound unnatural and lose its value for users, which is heavily penalized by Google. Therefore, don’t get too crazy with keyword stuffing. Instead, consider selecting just a couple of keywords (though the most powerful ones) and keep your focus on them while crafting the content for every page. 

3. Reputation and Online Reviews Management

Customer reviews help you identify your weak spots and improve your business. 

Also, a 2023 survey revealed that as many as 77% of consumers focus their search on companies that already have some ratings and reviews. The same study states that 74% of buyers consider the testimonials they find on the web to be their primary way to learn about products and services they’ve never tried before. That is, they also help brands increase their credibility in the eyes of potential buyers. 

Finally, your overall reputation also affects your ranking in SERPs. This happens because search engines highly value the credibility and trustworthiness of a domain and tend to promote sites that users actually trust. 

All these factors make online reviews crucial for location-based SEO. 

In order to make the most out of your reviews, you need to learn how to manage them right. First of all, encourage your customers to share their feedback with you and showcase that you value your clients’ opinions. On top of that, you should always take advantage of the opportunity to use positive comments about your brand as one of your marketing assets. After all, other buyers’ testimonials tend to speak about your reliability and quality better than any other words. 

Finally, must make it a rule to respond to all reviews: 

• When you receive positive comments, reply to them with gratitude. 
• When responding to negative reviews, also thank customers for their feedback. Additionally, ask relevant questions to encourage engagement and offer customers to contact you for additional help and solutions to their problems. 

• In both cases, use friendly and personalized language  

These simple tips will help you manage your online reviews effectively and rank higher, thanks to them.

    4. Local Link Building

Link-building plays a crucial role in local SEO for small business. It helps boost online visibility and awareness and attract more traffic to your website from external sources. Most importantly, an excellent link-building strategy can help you gain domain credibility and crawl higher in SERPs. 

There are several strategies for generating quality local backlinks: 

• Create geographically targeted long-form content. Long-form articles that bring real value can get you a lot of traffic and stimulate link-building. Also, consider crafting infographics – this type of content is also often referred to by others, which can bring you backlinks. 
• Find local business directories. Consumers broadly use these directories to find specific services and companies, and their domains are often high-authority, so earning a backlink from such a directory can bring you many benefits. 
• Find sponsorship opportunities. For example, you can sponsor various events and charities in your area and get backlinks. 
• Leverage partnerships. Partnering with other brands, bloggers, and influencers is also a good way to earn backlinks and expand your reach. 

5. Mobile Optimization for Local SEO

Finally, if you want to leverage local SEO for small business growth, pay attention to mobile optimization. Today, there are over 7 billion mobile users in the world. This number is expected to reach 7.49 billion by 2025. 

Given the growing number of mobile users, it’s not surprising that mobile devices are now prevalent in online search. This is especially true for local searches – most often, people are looking for businesses nearby on the go, meaning optimizing for mobile is a must for local SEO. 

Optimizing your website for mobile requires an all-rounded approach. Here are a few of the essential tips to use: 

• Run a comprehensive site audit to assess how well your pages perform on mobile. 
• Create a responsive design that looks great on all screen sizes. 

• Adjust the positioning of your content, buttons, menus, and other site elements to match different screen sizes and holding positions. 
• Simplify your navigation and forms to keep them convenient for mobile users. 
• Eliminate pop-ups. 
• Retain a concise and short content style. 
• Optimize your images, videos, and other visual elements to look good on mobile. 

• Optimize your page loading speed. 

The Bottom Line of Local SEO

Local SEO for small business is a true holy grail these days. It enables small companies to cut down on their costs while also implementing an effective marketing strategy. On top of that, this tactic allows you to boost awareness and get ahead of the competition in the long run. Besides, high rankings can help you improve conversion rates and generate more revenue. So, one way or another, location-based SEO is a must-have for every business that strives for scalable growth. 

After reading this guide, you have 5 working tactics for creating and implementing your local SEO strategy that brings real results. Use the tips from this expert guide to achieve your business goals and stimulate growth!