Local SEO Agency

SEO is the umbrella term for all the things you can do to improve your site’s ranking in search engines. Local SEO refers to any tactics you use to target people who are searching for something locally. For instance, if you’re a restaurant, local SEO would mean optimising your site to rank well when people search for ‘restaurants’ near you.

Local SEO uses many of the same tactics as SEO, like on-page optimisation, keyword research, link building and content – but with a local flavour.

Google My Business (GMB) is the number one factor affecting your local SEO, so a good local SEO strategy will ensure that your GMB listing is optimised with all the information your customers might be looking for like the correct address, hours of operation, directions to your business and, ideally, good reviews.

As you can guess, your local city or town name also plays a huge role in local SEO, since people will likely be searching for ‘restaurants in Sydney’ or ‘plumber in Geelong’. A good local SEO strategy will make sure to target these geographically specific keywords.

Another factor is local citations. This involves making sure your business name and contact information is listed in any relevant online directory. GMB is an example of this on a large scale, but there are other directories, like your social media profiles or directories specific to your region or industry (like a local trade directory).

Local SEO is the practice of optimising your website to rank higher in search results for local businesses, which means more people will find you when they’re looking for a local business like yours. 

A few benefits of Local SEO:

1. More foot traffic. One study found that 56% of consumers use search engines to find local businesses. So if you aren’t already ranking high on Google Maps, Bing Local and other local search results pages, chances are that you’re missing out on a lot of potential foot traffic.
2. Increased conversion rates. People who use local search have higher intent than those who don’t use it, meaning they’re actively looking to buy something (or at least meet with someone). If your business show up in search, you’re already one step closer to converting these people into paying customers. 
3. Increased brand awareness. A local search will increase brand awareness among people who haven’t heard about you before, because it shows up at the top of their search results and appears more trustworthy than other sites (since Google is a trusted source).

In short, local SEO is a great way to get your business noticed and make sure that local customers can find you easily. 

Google My Business (GMB) is the most important factor in your local SEO efforts. It’s a free, easy-to-use online service that helps people find your business online and connect with you on Google Maps. But it’s not just a directory listing; it’s the number one ranking factor Google uses to identify your site as a local business worthy of appearing in local search results. 

With GMB, you can create a comprehensive listing that highlights the best of what your business has to offer, provides information like hours of operation, phone numbers, websites, photos, and videos, and helps you get found in more ways by more customers.

When we say you need to optimse your GMB listing, we really mean it. You need to fill it out as completely as possible, with up-to-date contact information, address, directions, hours of operation and high quality photos. 

You’ll also want legitimate reviews, ideally positive ones. So you’ll want to encourage (but not bribe) happy customers to review your business right there on your GMB profile. 

Local Pack (aka, ‘Google Map Pack’ or ‘Google Local Map Pack’) is a prominent section in Google Search results that lists the three highest racking local businesses relevant to a local search.

There are a number of ways Google determines that a search has local intent:

1. You type include the city, town or geographic area in your search, for example ‘nail salon Sydney’
2. You include the words ‘near me’ in your search, for example ‘nail salon near me’
3. You don’t include any local terms, but it’s clear you’re looking for a local business, for example, if you search for ‘nail salon’, it’s likely you’re looking for one close by

Being part of the Local Pack is a huge win, so it pays to make sure your GMB profile is optimised to its fullest potential.

You might be thinking that Google Analytics is where you’d go to track your local SEO results. While Google Analytics can give you a lot of information about what’s happening on your website, a fully optimised Google My Business (GMB) listing will be sending you customers who may never even land on your site.

That’s where GMB Insights comes in. GMB Insights will let you know how many times your listing appears in searches, the number of unique users who have visited your GMB profile, how many users requested directions to your business, the number of times someone clicked the ‘call’ button (to call you from their mobile device), website clicks and more.

When you embark on your local SEO journey, you’ll want to set up tracking on both Google Analytics and GMB Insights. That way, when you notice your metrics ticking up, you’ll know your efforts are working! 

Just like with normal SEO, local SEO should be seen as a long-term play, and it can take anywhere from one to six months to begin ranking. Just how long it takes depends on a number of factors, including:

1. Whether or not you’re starting from scratch. If you already have your Google My Business and social media profiles set up and relatively well optimised, you should be able to see results more quickly than if you were starting from scratch.
2. How much competition you have. If you have a lot of competition in your area, it may take longer to see results, especially if your competition has been doing local SEO for a lot longer.
3. Who is helping you. If you hire an agency like Choose Digital to help you with your local SEO, you’re likely to see results much faster than if you do it on your own. That’s because our experts can focus solely on SEO while you focus on running your business.
4. How much time you spend on it. Local SEO isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it approach. Google favours consistent effort: in keeping your profile up-to-date, publishing ongoing content, collecting reviews and so on.
5. Your budget. The more budget you can allocate toward local SEO, the more consistent you can be and the more tactics you can test and learn from.

Be wary of any agency that promises overnight results. It’s a long-term strategy that takes time, effort and patience.

We don’t believe in making promises we can’t keep, so we’ll always give you an honest assessment of how much effort and budget are needed to achieve your goals.