How Local SEO Works and Why it’s a Necessity for Small Businesses

Consumers search for solutions nearby by performing local searches. Local searches are searches for things near where they happen to be. It is a way for search engines to deliver the most relevant results to its users, which are computed as per the location information. After all, if a person is searching for a restaurant, they are going to want to find one nearby, right?Studies on global smartphone users reveal that local searches are widespread and happen at all times on all kinds of devices, and offer incredible opportunities for businesses to reach clients. So what’s local SEO? Simply put, it is the process of optimizing your online presence to pull more traffic to your site from relevant local searches. Local SEO happens in Google, Yahoo, Bing, Apple Maps, Yelp, among other search engines. But since Google gets a majority of the search share (about 87% of the market share), it might be wise to put in some more efforts towards it. How local SEO works Local SEO can be divided into two parts

• What affects organic listing rankings
• What affects the map/ three-pack rankings among other map results

The question is, what influences these rankings? Map ranking factors/ Local SEO pack According to research published on TheHoth, My Business Signals, including keyword in business title, categories, proximity, etc., account for 19% of local pack/finder ranking factors. Link signals like linking domain authority, inbound anchor text, linking domain quantity accounts for 17% while on-page signals like keywords in titles, presence of NAP, domain authority had 14%. Other factors like citation signals, review signals, behavioral signals, personalization, and social signals accounted for 13%, 13%, 10%, 10%, and 4% respectively. As you may realize, My Business Signals is the number one factor, meaning you have to optimize your Google My Business listing correctly. Still, on the list, you’ll realize that links are critical, so are on-page signals from your site. A while back, map results depended on your site’s ranking signals, but now the two work hand in hand. If you aren’t ranking in maps, it could be that you need powerful signals to your site. If you don’t know how to go about improving your signals, you can have a top company that specializes in local SEO services in India handle that for you, so you can focus on your core activities – running your business. Organic ranking The research further revealed that link signals including linking domain authority, inbound anchor text, linking domain quantity, etc., accounted for 29% while on-page signals like keywords in title, presence of NAP, domain authority, etc., accounted for 24%. Others signals like Behavioral, citation, My Business, Review and social signals accounted for 11%, 8%, 7%, 7%, and 4% respectively. In this case, link signals is the number one ranking factor – so links are still an essential part of organic ranking. Down the list are on-page signals, behavioral signals, personalization and NAP citation. You can check out these local business SEO packages if you need professional help with local organic ranking. Conclusion A location-based search is an incredible tool for startups and small businesses because of the smaller competition – you’ll only be competing against businesses that are in your location as opposed to the entire country or globe. And as you know, the better visibility you have on search engine results page, the higher your chances of attracting more eyeballs to your site.