5 Local SEO Challenges and How to Solve Them

Key Insights

• Mobile Optimization: Ensure your website is mobile-friendly to improve user experience and boost local SEO rankings.
• Review Management: Actively request and respond to customer reviews to enhance online visibility and reputation.
• Hyperlocal Content: Use location-specific keywords and personalized content to attract local customers and compete with larger businesses.
• Google Business Profile: Optimize your Google Business Profile with accurate information and engaging visuals to reach nearby customers.
• Voice Search Optimization: Focus on long-tail keywords and accurate listings to improve visibility on digital assistants like Siri and Alexa.

When it comes to small businesses, most owners face Local SEO challenges unique to them. You might find some solutions listed, but for many others, you may not, especially when your business supports local communities’ products and services.

While many are looking for a quick ladder to climb, optimising local SEO correctly, right from the start, is a key factor that makes or breaks small ventures.

Local SEO focuses on creating visibility for the “near me” searches and setting your lead generation plan in stone.

Optimizing by leveraging local SEO techniques can be quite tricky and extensive. Thus, we have some wonderful tips for you to conquer the 5 most difficult challenges when it comes to local SEO.

Here’s our solid local SEO strategy that will assist you in working around small businesses’ unique challenges:

Local SEO Challenge #1 - Mobile Friendly Website

When you optimize your website, you most likely will work on your desktop. Therefore, you will see all your changes in desktop mode and likely you will easily forget to check the mobiel friendliness. Thus, this is your little reminder to remember the importance of a mobile friendly website.

Googles Insights has reported over 900% growth in mobile searches for ‘near me’ and over 200% increase in ‘open now + near me searches.’

This massive increase points to two things. First: you need to mobile-optimise your site. Second, to reap the benefits of local SEO, your landing pages must be built keeping in mind the relevancy to customers in the immediate locality. Google and other search engines are increasingly putting a thrust on your website and the experiences it offers.

How to Ensure that Your Website Is Mobile Friendly?

By making your website mobile-friendly, you are not only optimizing for SEO purposes but also enhancing the overall experience for the user, which should be your main focus after all! Here are a few key aspects to consider to ensure the mobile-friendliness of your website:

Responsive Design

Implement a responsive design that adjusts the layout and content based on the screen size and device type. This ensures that your website looks good whether the user views it on a desktop or a mobile device.

Fast Loading Speed

Optimize images, leverage browser caching, and minimize the use of heavy scripts to ensure quick load times. Make sure your images are not too large and convert them to .webp files. To check your website's loading speed, you can use the free tool PageSpeed Insights. Easy Navigation Use a simple, easy-to-use navigation menu that is accessible on smaller screens. Ensure the user does not have to spend time finding the menu or navigating through your website. Scrolling should be smooth and seamless.

Readable Text

Ensure text is large enough to read without zooming and that buttons are easy to tap. Check that your text is not cut off and flows naturally across the page.

Create Local Pages

If you want to optimize for local SEO purposes, local pages are a must! They provide users and search engines with information on where to find your locations and highlight your unique selling points. Create separate pages for each location of your business and ensure that the NAP (Name, Address, Phone number) information is consistent with what you share across the web (Google Business Profile, local directories). Highlight location-specific attributes in the text and add matching images. Remember to include your keyword in the file name and provide a descriptive alt text for the image.

OBENAN’s local listing solution can help you maximize your local SEO. Keep all your information consistent with what you update on your local pages on your website! Consistent NAP information (Name, Address, Phone number) is a crucial ranking factor for local SEO!

Local SEO Challenge #2 - Review Management

Another crucial ranking factor for local SEO, often neglected, is review management. Review management refers to the process of requesting reviews from past customers and actively engaging with them by responding.

Collect Customer Reviews

When you search for locally available products and services, it won’t take long to come across customer reviews. Since reviews must be genuine and user-generated, managing them can be tricky, especially for small businesses. You must continuously and regularly remind your customers to leave a review. Many customers are reluctant to leave a review, especially when not reminded or asked to do so.

A great way to encourage reviews is to develop a campaign with a QR code that leads customers directly to the review form. The QR codes can be printed on receipts, cards placed on tables, or at the exit of your location.

Did you know that with our OBENAN Suite, you have the possibility to create QR code campaigns that will redirect negative feedback to a private survey instead? This way, only your positive reviews will be shared publicly, and negative feedback can be used internally for process optimization.

Respond to Customer Reviews

Responding to customer reviews within the hour is a recipe for success and can lead to more online visibility. It is crucial to respond to all reviews left for your business, not only on Google but also on every local directory where your business is listed. This can be extremely time-consuming but is very important and effective.

Using a review management tool like the one included in our OBENAN Suite can automate this process for you. You can set up rules to teach an AI to respond automatically on your behalf. Furthermore, we collect all reviews in one place, analyze them, and create detailed, yet easy-to-digest reports that help you improve your service and make informed decisions for your business.

Local SEO Challenge #3 - Going Hyperlocal

Having better location-specific content can put you in the run against larger corporate websites!

Create highly personalised relationships with your target clients in the immediate neighbourhood by employing authentic, local-centric keywords that are seamlessly integrated in your content.

You can add to the website’s local flavour by making your content personal and friendly. For example, think of using local festivals or holidays as a tool to promote special offers.

This customised content can help improve visibility among potential customers. Be sure to include hyper-local terms in your on-page optimisation strategy. This includes keywords in headings, titles, metadata, SEO edited images, and text.

Local SEO Challenge 4 - Optimizing Your Google Business Profile

While setting up a Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business) is essential, optimising it will help you reach customers searching for products and services closer to them. It is basically your digital business card that people will see. Thus, we want to make sure it is filled in correctly, includes all your important information and has a visually appealing image portfolio at hand.

• Ensure NAP consistency: Make sure your name address and phone number is mentioned correctly and matches the information on our website and other directories.
• Additional information: Fill in website link, service area, services & brands, attributes, categories, descriptions, (special) opening hours, social media accounts
• Add appealing images: Add your logo, images of your team, the exterior and interior and additional images (for instance of food, drinks, or other products you offer)
• Use Google Posts: Schedule Google Posts to update customers about new offers, include a CTA (Call to Action) to call you or visit your website, and ensure a rotation of high quality images on your profile

Dive in deeper into the optimization of your Google Business profile and set it up for success!

Local SEO Challenge #5 - Hey, siri – can you search it for me?

The way we consume and search for information has changed drastically over the past few years.

More and more customers are turning to digital assistants that recognize and process voices while searching for information online. To optimize your local business for voice search, start with accurate listings on multiple online directories, specifically on Apple Maps to be suggested by Siri. The steps for optimizing for voice search are similar to regular local SEO steps. Make sure to focus not only on discovery keywords (such as “restaurant near me”) but also on long-tail keywords that have a natural speaking flow (instead of “Berlin restaurant Italian,” focus on “restaurant close to me in Berlin”). To identify long-tail keywords, you can use keyword research tools or Answer the Public.

It's essential to ensure the accuracy and completeness of your business information across the web. Inaccurate listings, missing headings, broken links, poor loading speed, and lack of keyword optimization can all harm your voice search visibility.

Sometimes it can be very difficult to identify issues and potentially harmful aspects of your online presence. Keeping an accurate overview of your performance can be time-consuming, and you need a certain level of knowledge in local SEO to identify potential areas for improvement. Using our OBENAN Suite allows you to leverage all our local SEO tools to manage your online presence effectively and efficiently. Automate numerous processes, synchronize information across multiple platforms, and manage all your locations from a single dashboard. Local SEO has never been easier, as we do all the heavy lifting for you!

Recap

Optimizing for local SEO involves ensuring your website is mobile-friendly, effectively managing customer reviews, creating hyperlocal content, and optimizing your Google Business Profile. Addressing these challenges can significantly enhance your visibility and customer engagement. By leveraging the OBENAN Suite, you can automate many of these processes, making local SEO management easier and more efficient.

OBENAN’s all-in-one platform does the hard work for you and presents clear, prioritised actions to optimise your business for future search. Get started now!