How to Use Local SEO to Drive More Traffic to Your Website

How to Use Local SEO to Drive More Traffic to Your Website

Local SEO helps your business show up in search results for customers in a specific geographic area. Like organic SEO, it focuses on ranking higher in search engines, with an added location component that targets people searching nearby.

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is the process of increasing a company’s local online visibility. The premise is straightforward: local customers form a defined subset of your customer base, so reaching them requires a location-aware strategy. The goal is to rank highly in major search engines for queries with local intent, such as searches tied to a town or city. According to Mailchimp’s guide on local SEO, this geographic targeting is what separates local SEO from broader organic SEO.

Why targeting the right audience matters

If you operate in a specific town or city, there is little point in building a local website unless you plan to attract people within that locality. If you do not target the right audience, you will not get traffic or sales. That means taking the demographics of the area into account so your website and offers match the people living there.

Ways to drive local traffic

Use geo-targeting

Geo-targeting lets you tell a search engine which locations in a local area you want your site to appear in. Results are then returned based on the user’s location, which keeps your SEO efforts focused on the customers you can actually reach.

Leverage Yelp reviews

Yelp reviews often surface information about businesses before they run paid ads, and many local SEO campaigns target businesses near highly reviewed spots. If a restaurant near you consistently earns positive Yelp reviews, advertising there can put your business in front of an engaged local audience. Read reviews carefully, since one positive or negative comment does not necessarily reflect broader sentiment.

Target the top three results for your keywords

Search engines sometimes show only the top three results for certain terms. If your local SEO work is on point, your business could appear in those top three results for your specific keyword, which dramatically increases the odds of being seen by local searchers.

Build backlinks from relevant sites

Backlinks remain a reliable way to improve local rankings. The more backlinks you have from other websites that are relevant to your own, the better your chances of showing up in local search results. One simple method is article marketing: write articles about the niche you are focusing on, or about the specific business you are promoting, and submit them to article directories. Submit the articles to as many websites as possible so hundreds of search engines pick them up.

Practical next steps

If you are just starting out with your website, focus on local use from day one. Local SEO tools can show you what is working in your area. If you already have a site, prioritize backlinks and SEO practices that grow your website’s popularity. Whichever stage you are at, make sure your website looks good and is informative, because that is what will turn a local visitor into a customer.

FAQ

What is local SEO?

Local SEO is the process of increasing a company’s local online visibility. It works like organic SEO, with an additional geographic component that targets searchers in a specific area.

How does geo-targeting help local SEO?

Geo-targeting lets you specify which locations in a local area you want your site to appear in, so search engines return your site to users based on their location.

How do backlinks improve local search rankings?

Backlinks from websites relevant to your own raise your site’s authority. The more relevant backlinks you have, the better your chances of appearing in local search results.

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