Local SEO starts with your Google Business Profile

Local SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing your local presence, reputation and information so that your business will show up in the map pack and local search results on Google and the other major search engines.

Google My Business (GMB) is a service that Google provides for local businesses and is crucial to have if you want to show up on Google Maps, Google Search and other Google features. It’s essentially a listing that houses all the important information a person would want to know about your business, everything from hours, to photos, reviews and offers. Having a properly optimized and active GMB listing will ensure you show up when someone in your area is searching for your service or product.

Google My Business (GMB) is a service that Google provides for local businesses and is crucial to have if you want to show up on Google Maps, Google Search and other Google features. It’s essentially a listing that houses all the important information a person would want to know about your business, everything from hours, to photos, reviews and offers. Having a properly optimized and active GMB listing will ensure you show up when someone in your area is searching for your service or product.

Having a fully completed Google My Business listing is step 1. You will then need to select relevant business categories, strengthen your online reputation with positive Google reviews, and constantly add photos, videos and content or offers. These ranking signals (and a few more) all work towards improving your business’ chances of showing up on Google Maps.

Ranking signals, or ranking factors, are characteristics used by search engines to determine its position in the map pack results. All ranking signals combined form the algorithm of a search engine. These can include proximity, reviews or online sentiment, presence on GMB listing, NAP citations and more.

Having accurate and consistent Name, Address, and Phone (NAP) information across the internet is critical for local businesses. Not only does it signal validity to search engines and allows you to show up in results, your potential customers have the correct information about your business.

A citation is an online reference to your NAP – your company name, address, and phone number, as well as your website URL. Business listings are a little more robust than a citation and allow you to add more information like business categories, locations, services, logos, imagery, and keywords. Citations & listings usually live on high authority websites such as Yelp, Yahoo, local.com, Bing, Citysquares, Yellowpages, Localpages, Foursquare, EzLocal etc

Business Citations & Listings are used by every search engine to evaluate the legitimacy and popularity of your business. The more accurate citations your business has the better you will rank on search engine results.

Major Google algorithm changes normally occur every 2- 3 months, but minor adjustments occur on a regular basis. To give you an idea, Google made a total of over 500 algorithm changes last year. This is why it’s important to hire a company like Dot The i Creative and stay ahead of the curve on changes. We know how the algorithm updates will impact your Local SEO and can make the necessary adjustments to combat any negative impact from an update.

No one (or agency) can guarantee organic or local search placement. Period. And if they do, you should run the other way. Why? Search engine algorithms are more advanced, competition is far more fierce, and rankings change constantly. Companies are also allocating more and more budget towards SEO because of the value they see from doing search engine optimization. Being able to analyze and develop a creative SEO strategy is key to long term success.

For a better user experience, Google and other search engines always localize results to the user. For example, if you are in Columbus, OH and search for “marketing agencies”, Google will display listings of local marketing agencies located closest to where you did the search. Optimizing local ranking properties and signals so that you show up in those searches is the essence of Local SEO.
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Regular SEO has the same principles of Local SEO, but it is not specific to a geographic area and directly impacts where your website pages show up in the listing after ads and the map packs. Regular SEO is a long term strategy that involves a keyword strategy, the addition of high quality content to your site, creation of quality backlinks from high authority sites, and proper site structure. Companies will find it easier to rank organically if they have a strong local presence along with the items listed above.

A good rule of thumb is that Local SEO is perfect for businesses that have a brick and mortar location or interact in-person with customers, clients, or patients.  If you never meet in-person, then Local SEO is probably not a good fit. E-commerce businesses usually fit into this category. If you aren’t sure if Local SEO is a good fit for your business, you can click here to read Google’s full guidelines or click here to contact us.

Knowing that your Local SEO campaign is successful is reflected in the increases of local leads, increases in phone calls, increases in website traffic, and showing up in front of your competitors for the services or products you offer.  
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We are only as successful as your business, so at Dot The i Creative we are as transparents as possible. Therefore we diligently track and monitor your campaigns constantly. We also provide detailed monthly highlights, the strategy tactics we will use moving forward, and access to the same reporting dashboards we review, so you can see exactly the type of impact our efforts are having first hand.

Best practices dictate you need to optimize locally for each of your locations. We happen to have a great article that goes into much more detail about How to Setup and Dominate in Local SEO with Multiple Locations (or a franchise)