Local SEO is always a little bit of a mystery. Google has always had its own rules and signals for local search and it can be confusing to know what to focus on or why it’s even important to rank in local search.
According to a report by Google, 50% of consumers who conducted a local search on their smartphone visit that store within a day, which means local SEO can have a big impact on your foot traffic.
Google recently released an update on how they rank local businesses and includes three factors: relevance, distance and prominence. Let’s break these down.
Relevance refers to “how well a local listing matches what someone is searching for.” For example, if your business is called “Joe’s Pizzeria” and the user searches for “Pizza”, you could end up at a lower ranking. You want to make sure you have complete and detailed business information so Google understands your business and can best match your listing.
Distance is fairly self explanatory. How far is the potential search results from the location term used in a search? However, distance takes second to relevance. Google will rank a more relevant local listing higher in the search results than if a business is closer. It’s important to be clear on key words!
Prominence is the third factor impacting Google local results and it can be the most confusing. It breaks down to how popular is your business? Google will pull information from across the web including your reviews to help position you in local search. The more link building, the more positive customer reviews and the better your overall organic ranking is, the better local ranking your business will have.
If you want to rank on local search, here are five things you can do:
- Create a Google My Business account
- Ensure that all of your listings online are up to date and have correct information,
- Have a mobile-friendly website,
- Add your local keyword terms in your tags
- Write local friendly content to help your keywords.