Why Local SEO is Essential for Small Business Online Visibility

Key Insights - The Importance of Local SEO for Your Business

• Grow Online Visibility and Gain New Customers: Boost your online presence by leveraging local SEO techniques. Small businesses can especially benefit by reaching the right target audience at the right time, as local SEO focuses on local search queries from potential customers searching for a service or product.
• Improve Reputation and Build Consumer Trust: Use smart review management to increase your review count and respond to existing reviews. Build credibility, as 88% of consumers are influenced by reviews in their buying decisions.
• Competitive Advantage: Stay competitive and relevant in a crowded market with local SEO, which helps maintain a strong online presence and rise to the top of search results.
• Cost-Effective Marketing: Compared to traditional marketing methods, local SEO offers a cost-effective strategy that provides sustainable visibility and conversions rather than just a short-term boost.

What Can You Achieve With Local SEO as a Small Business?

Local SEO is a competitive landscape for small businesses aiming to enhance their online visibility and attract more customers. As in many areas of life, it's all about being seen! By leveraging local SEO techniques, small businesses can significantly boost their online presence, improve their reputation, and reach their target audience—people in their geographic area searching for a product or service. Local SEO creates a digital business card that extends beyond the business’s website, reaching the right audience at the right moment. With the abundance of options available, the need for local SEO has become essential for small businesses to remain competitive and relevant.

What Are local SEO Ranking Factors for Small Businesses?

To effectively leverage local SEO strategies, we must first understand the ranking factors that search engines use to evaluate your business. This involves sending specific signals that help the search engine understand what your business offers, where and when you offer it, and the likelihood of customers having a pleasant experience at your location(s). These key ranking factors are particularly relevant for small businesses:

• NAP Consistency (business name, address, phone number)
• Google Business Profile
• Local Keywords
• Reviews and Overall Rating
• Local Citations
• Relevant Local Backlinks
• On-Page SEO (including local content, mobile-friendliness, page speed, internal links)

Additionally, the following elements, while not direct ranking factors, contribute to a comprehensive presentation of your business:

• Social Media Engagement
• Geotagging in Images (e.g., on social media)

Do Local SEO Ranking Factors Differ per Sector?

The answer is simple: no, the ranking factors do not differ whether your business is a hotel, restaurant, or law office. However, the content and intent of the optimization do differ. Additionally, the emphasis on certain aspects of optimization will vary. For example, a restaurant will use different local keywords than a hotel. The optimization of your Google Business Profile will also vary; for instance, a law office won’t include a menu but may focus more on on-page SEO.

Benefits of Local SEO for Small Businesses

Optimizing for local SEO holds many benefits, especially for small businesses that aim to increase customers visiting their locations or booking specific services.

Increase Consumer Trust & Enhance Your Business’ Credibility

Customer reviews, overall ratings, and listings on various directories can establish consumer trust and enhance your credibility. They help potential customers verify that your business is legitimate and has satisfied previous customers. According to Zendesk, 88% of consumers state that their buying decisions are influenced by reviews. On the contrary, 68% are somewhat critical of a high rating unless there is a substantial number of reviews (Podium). These statistics underscore the importance of review management in terms of ranking and conversion. Growing review numbers, fostering a positive rating percentage, and being present on relevant directories directly influence your visibility and reputation.

Increase the Number of Calls, Landing Page Visits, or Reservations

When your business appears in local searches, potential customers have direct and easy access to your business information. Depending on what your business offers, potential customers can immediately call for an appointment, booking, or further information. They can also access your website or book a table at your restaurant without having to click through many pages.

Staying Competitive as a Small Business

Local SEO helps small businesses reach the right target audience and stay on the radar. As a small local business, competing with large-scale chains on an international level is unnecessary. The focus should be on being visible to the right target audience at the right moment. By leveraging local SEO strategies, you ensure that your online presence is spotless, your online reputation is outstanding, and search engines understand why your business should be on top of the list for relevant local search queries. Continuous optimization also means staying ahead of the competition that is not utilizing local SEO techniques to their advantage.

Cost-Effective Marketing Strategy

Traditional advertising techniques such as billboards, flyers, or newspaper advertisements have long been overtaken by digital marketing efforts. By investing in local SEO, you can achieve higher visibility and attract new customers without the high financial costs of traditional media. Furthermore, a local SEO strategy focuses on sustainable visibility and conversions, whereas traditional media has a short-term lifespan that requires costly renewal after each cycle.

Higher Conversion Rates by Focusing on What Actually Will Bring in Customers

Local SEO aims not only to drive traffic to your website or location but also to bring in highly relevant traffic. Since local SEO focuses on optimizing for local search queries, it will, for instance, only show your restaurant to people searching for a restaurant in your geographical area. Potential customers searching for local services are already motivated to convert, as local SEO targets mainly people at the conversion or transactional stage. People who find you online are therefore more likely to convert because they are actively looking for a solution to their problem (e.g., being hungry and searching for a restaurant). This results from search engines matching your business to their search queries because you optimized for local SEO purposes.

Where Can You Rank as a Small Business Using Local SEO Techniques?

Besides improving the visibility on the regular search result pages of Google (with their website), the focus of small local businesses should lay on being at the top of the map results, the so-called Local Map Pack. For a restaurant that means showing up as the top result when a hungry person looks up “restaurant near me” on the search bar. Furthermore, small businesses can rank in the local 3-pack, which means they show up as one of the three business suggestions under the map on the regular SERP (search engine result page).

Is Local SEO Only for Brick and Mortar Businesses?

Local SEO focuses on increasing the online visibility of businesses for local search queries. This often means driving traffic to physical stores, also known as brick-and-mortar businesses. However, non-physical service providers that offer services in a specific area can also benefit from local SEO. This includes plumbers, locksmiths, and wedding photographers, for example. Conversely, online shops do not rely heavily on local SEO and instead focus more on conventional SEO to improve their rankings on regular search engine result pages.

Local SEO Strategies for Small Businesses to Start Using Today

Your journey to optimize your online presence for local SEO purposes can begin immediately. Follow these simple steps to improve your online presence and help search engines match your business to the right search queries from potential customers. Let’s turn potential customers into your customers!

Google Business Profile Optimization

The easiest and most important step is to optimize your Google Business Profile. If you don’t have a Google Business Profile yet, create one first.

Update Business Information

Go through all sections of the menu and ensure that all information is entered correctly and as accurately as possible. The information on your website and other directories should always match the data on your Google Business Profile.

Add Relevant Images

When selecting images, choose high-quality ones that best represent your business. Before uploading, confirm that your images do not violate Google’s policies.

Add Business Hours

Make sure your business hours are accurate and update them for holidays or special occasions.

Respond to Questions and Reviews

Engage with customers by responding to questions and reviews promptly. This interaction boosts your profile’s credibility and visibility.

Find Local Keywords

Understand the search intent of people looking for a product or service you offer. By knowing how and what they are searching for, you can optimize your content so that search engines match what you offer to their queries. Start by writing down a few themes that describe your business and add some local keywords.

Example for an Asian Restaurant in Amsterdam:

Business Keywords:

• Asian restaurant
• Noodle bar
• Asian kitchen
• Vietnamese noodle restaurant

Local Keyword Additions:

• In Amsterdam
• Near me
• Amsterdam
• Amsterdam Zuid

Now that you have a good set of “seed keywords,” use a SEO keyword tool to research them. Compare which keywords have the highest potential in terms of volume and keyword difficulty. Aim for keywords with the best ratio between these two components. You can also consider factors such as CPC (cost per click) to see how much businesses pay for a click on a particular keyword. This approach helps you uncover hidden possibilities and discover, for example, that “noodle bar amsterdam” has higher search volume but also a higher keyword difficulty than “noodle restaurant amsterdam”. Due to the fact that the difference in volume is not that high, we would recommend going for the keyword with the lower keyword difficulty.

Keyword research can be extensive and confusing. The good news is that our SEO specialists conduct keyword research for you, ensuring the right keywords are implemented.

Make Your Website Local SEO-Friendly

While Google Business Profile and reviews are important ranking factors, on-page SEO should not be disregarded. Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly and has a local SEO focus. Naturally include your keywords in the headings and content of your website. If you have multiple locations, such as a restaurant or hotel chain, create separate landing pages for each location and focus on high-potential keywords that match the specific location. Conducting a website audit can help identify areas for improvement and create an action plan.

Don’t Forget to Make Your Website Mobile Friendly

As mobile searches are increasingly common, ensure that your website is mobile-friendly. This includes easy navigation, fast loading times, and a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes.

Local Citations on Suitable Directories

Claim or create citations on matching directories like Tripadvisor, Yelp, etc. In some cases, directories may have already created a listing for you, and you need to claim them by verifying that you are the business owner. In other cases, you can simply create a new listing. Listings can be tricky because the more you accumulate, the more you need to continuously update and monitor to ensure your business information stays accurate across the web.

Want to save time on citation building and ensure your business details are consistent across the web at all times?

Benefits of Local Listings for Small Businesses

Local listings offer small businesses increased visibility across the web, increased trust through reviews, and a platform to engage with customers. Being present on multiple directories increases your chances of being found by potential customers, giving you a competitive advantage.

Gather Reviews and Respond to Them

Actively ask your customers to leave reviews and rate their experiences. Respond to new reviews promptly, ideally within a couple of hours, if possible within one hour.

Use Google Posts

Google offers a feature that allows you to update potential customers with posts that share recent information and updates, as well as invite them to act by including a CTA (Call to Action) in your posts. Scheduling a post daily can drive valuable traffic to forms and landing pages or generate calls. Additionally, it keeps high-quality images circulating on your profile, giving you control over your business’s online visual aesthetic. For example, when searching for a restaurant, many people want to see images of the food to get an overview of the quality and portion size.

Build Local Backlinks

Building local backlinks for your small business can help tremendously to excell your local SEO strategy and higher your online visibility. Aim to have journalists or local bloggers write about your business and include a link from their site to yours. Building your link profile this way can enhance your overall authority and credibility, resulting in higher search engine rankings for your business.

Optimize for Voice Search

With the rise of voice search, optimize your content to cater to voice queries. This often means focusing on more conversational keywords and phrases that people might use when speaking rather than typing. For example, the keyword “Amsterdam Asian cuisine” is less likely to be used with voice search. Aim for keywords like “Asian restaurant near me”.

Engage on Social Media

While not a direct ranking factor, social media engagement can drive traffic to your site and improve your online presence. Share local content, engage with followers, and promote your Google Business Profile through your social media channels.

If you want to know in detail how to step-by-step optimize for local SEO, make sure to check out our local SEO checklist!

How to Automate Local SEO Activities to Save Time?

All the steps mentioned require a certain amount of time and effort. The most important thing is to be precise and consistent. But what can you do if life gets in the way and your local SEO efforts slip to the back of your mind? To avoid empty chairs in your restaurant, vacant rooms in your hotel, or an empty lawyer's office, you should consider automating your local SEO efforts to stay consistent.

Using the Right Local SEO Tools

Fortunately, you don’t have to do it all on your own! The founder of Obenan faced the same challenges you are facing as a local business owner not too long ago. From near failure, a product was developed specifically to conquer these challenges by automating processes for you using our advanced AI. Our local SEO tools will streamline and automate all local SEO tasks you normally would need to perform manually to see results.

How Long Does it Take for Local SEO to Show Results?

Local SEO (and SEO in general) is not a quick-fix solution that provides immediate and sustainable results. While some updates and changes you make are picked up immediately by the search engine, others might take days, weeks, or even months to generate results. SEO is a continuous process that requires patience and endurance. Fortunately, with Obenan, you can sit back and relax while we propel your business to the top of the search results.

Wrapping Up

Local SEO can be a game-changer for small businesses looking to enhance their online presence and attract new customers, either directly to their location or through bookings. A strategic approach, including the optimization of the Google Business Profile, on-page SEO, citation building, NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) consistency, and both internal and external link building, will help small businesses become omnipresent on the web. Active customer review management, including encouraging and responding to reviews, can further strengthen the signals your online business card sends to search engines.