Why Is Local SEO Still Important?

Local SEO is vital for any business, big or small that is looking to dominate today’s digital landscape. It is an integral part for ventures looking to establish an online presence.

Search engine optimisation is the process of optimising your website to rank higher on search engine results on browsers such as Google and Bing. Local SEO is a targeted approach in focus to boost the website to appear high on local search results.

It is a thorough procedure that usually takes about 3 to 6 months to show solid results and garner effective visibility towards your website. Local seo services provided by a reputed seo agency in Sydney can help you dominate the rankings in your locality.

So what is this concept and why is it still important in 2024? In this article we have covered everything about local seo and how you can map out your strategy to dominate online rankings.

What is Local SEO?

It is one of the most effective digital marketing tactics to boost a brand or a company’s website to rank better for local searches and reach more audience. 

Your potential consumers will not scroll through after 10 search results on average, so ranking high becomes essential for a business to get more viewers.

Local SEO specialises in targeting consumers in the specific area. This is immensely helpful for businesses with physical storefront. It helps them bridge the gap between their online presence and offline store visits, get their brand’s voice known in the market and attract visitors.

How Does It Work?

There are various effective methods to do it correctly. Seo sydney specialists generally focus on optimising for these three main factors that are important to help find the best match –

Relevance – How close is the Google Business Profile is to the relative search input in the SERP

Distance – Distance of the consumer and the business’s location

Prominence – How much do Google considers your business’s importance to the consumers

Google for example, will show the results in two series, its original three pack in the form of Google business profile and the organic search results. The top 3 GMB profiles that match the most to the queries will be shown first. The next will follow all the organic websites that are utmost optimised to serve best to the queries. 

Hence, Local seo is a combination of optimising google business profiles and website optimisation to serve best for the local search queries and gain more organic traffic.

Why Is It Still Important?

Brand Awareness 

It has never been more important to have a strong brand presence in the era of social media and the internet. Consumerism culture has allowed businesses to think bigger in terms of marketing. Some brands have aced this game by almost being synonymous to the product they sell. This shoots a loop of constant brand recalling without even trying. 

Think about it, you will have a popular local bakery in your area which dominates others. The name is so homely you often recommend them for their delicious croissants or pastries to the newcomers, hence small businesses popular in their localities can tap into this potential and dominate the numbers game.

Mobile Dominance

Convenient ways to consume the internet has boosted the mobile segment to newer heights. 76% of people who conduct a local search on their smartphones visit a related business within a day. Almost everyone has a smartphone device and they are only one search away to get recommendations on their queries. 

Local SEO ensures businesses are easily found by users on the go, optimising for mobile search and delivering a seamless experience. The rise of mobile commerce and location-based services emphasises the need for businesses to be highly visible in local searches.

Community Engagement 

Brands that go beyond business often garners a large pool of repeating customers. Success comes from constant participation in local events, sponsorships, hosting community events and running exclusive deals once in a while. It largely boosts your promotional efforts and establishes a unique brand identity. This not only fosters a strong local presence but also builds trust and loyalty, making the business a vital part of the community fabric.

Your social media will play a huge part in this. By creating regular content relating to the business, you can garner a massive audience and attract conversions in your area. 

Complete Local SEO Checklist 

Google Business Profile 

This is a necessary step that needs to be checked firsthand. Having your presence on the world’s largest search engine is important. It can be done with a website or simply creating a GMB or Google business profile. It helps your potential customers to find more about the shop or a service and avail necessary information along with reviews of previous customers on their experience.

A simple, segregated steps you should follow through –

• Claim your business profile listing 
• Select the categories wisely
• Insert complete and accurate information about the name, contact number, address and such
• Enter the radius of area your business services 
• Add business products and information
• Add relevant keywords throughout the content you insert
• Create and share content with posts and regularly optimise it

Website Optimisation 

This is where the SEO expertise will be put to use. It can be done individually however hiring a local seo agency in Sydney can handle the job with precision due to their level of knowledge and expertise. 

So where do you start? Generally, you have to follow the basics of seo – 

• Creating high quality content 
• Targeting keywords and optimising your page for it 
• Link building to the pages 

There are other factors such as citation management where a more series of accurate citations of your business name, address, phone number and other information can largely boost Google’s trust on the brand and improve rankings. This means your NAP (Name, address and phone number) and other such important info.

Content Strategy

High quality content attracts links. More reputed links attached to the site, better traffic you will generate. 

To dominate the content space, you will need to create a strategy. Here are some tips to build one for your brand –

• Start by mapping out a consistent content creation strategy revolving around your market or industry. E.g If you run a bakery, then you can cover topics on the baking industry. 

• Conduct proper keyword research relating to the article and use them strategically. Note that you don’t go overboard with them and stuff them frequently, this can affect the performance of the article.

• Optimise Meta titles and descriptions with main keyword and under specific character length.

• Induce photos, illustrations and videos (optimised with keywords) in the article.

• Maintain appropriate keyword density and focus on providing value to the consumers and answering their relative queries.

Link Building 

Link building is simply put, making networks and getting a shoutout of your relative article or a linked page in their piece of media. 

If you are a local brand, you can simply connect more people in your locality and see if they have an online site where they will be happy to link it back to you. 

Getting links from local sites can boost the rankings of the website significantly and increase your website DA. 

Other such factors you need to optimise for is your site’s responsiveness, page speed, schema markup and technical SEO.

Social Media and Customer Reviews

Social media is a massive form of media to garner attention and traffic. You can capitalise on its potential and start social media channels on different platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X (FKA Twitter), Pinterest, etc. and create fun and indulging content, run promotional offers, exciting deals and monthly giveaways. 

• Managing both business and social media can be difficult but hiring someone to manage all your channels and creating content is much easier and easy flowing.

• Ensure local citations are up to date.

• Create compelling content and watch out for trends as it increases your chances of getting viral. 

• Hop on short form video content such as TikTok, Reels and Shorts which is garnering major audiences in 2024. 

• List your business on sites such as Yelp, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor, etc. 

• Urge your happy customers to leave a review about their experience on Google business profile or a business directory site. 

• Don’t forget to reply to these reviews kindly, this can give off a major impression on the quality of customer experience one can expect from the brand.

• Add the links of social media channels and directories to your official website.

• Feature the top reviews on your website, this can allow you to gain more trust and reputation easily.

• Answer to any inquiries or questions courteously. Host Q&A days to better understand what queries your audiences are having that you can better address directly.

Conclusion

In all, 

With the help of these comprehensive local SEO checklists, you can start your journey to dominate online space and get more customers from your locality.

Looking for the best seo agency in Sydney? Our experts at Digitalzoop specialise in putting your small business in the top searches for specific keywords and garner more visitors, Contact us for a FREE Site audit today!