Local SEO, a comprehensive guide with steps 2022

If you own a website and target a specific country and want to outperform your competitors to top the search results for your business in the same country, here is the solution: Subscribe to Tahseen services seo Local SEO (Search engine optimization 2022) for the country you are targeting, it is an important aspect for the spread of your site, as it has many advantages and great importance that we will learn about now through our article in Seo is right.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO It is one of the marketing methods for websites within a specific country to advertise the brand and get double visits from your primary audience in the country through search engines such as the Google search engine. 

For example:

If you own a website for a cosmetic medical clinic in Egypt and want to outperform your competitors, the ideal solution is to improve your website inside Egypt in order to target your audience, or which means improving the site in the local search results pages (Local SERPs) in front of target customers who are searching for medical places. Cosmetic, or looking for cosmetic medical service, and so on in any other field.

Read also: Your comprehensive guide to keywords 

The importance of local SEO

We find that local search engine optimization or local SEO has many advantages that have made a large percentage of sites resort to it in order to improve their ranking in Google, and we will mention the importance of local search engine optimization (local SEO) now:

1. Reach approximately 64% of local customers online.
2. Local SEO improves the ranking of results in search engines.
3. The return on local SEO is faster and more extended in the long term than marketing ads.
4. Brand recognition and the spread of your career.
5. Help the audience searching for you find you and your workplace.
6. Local SEO is an alternative to expensive advertising campaigns.
7. Converting a large percentage of targeted customers into actual customers.
8. Earn public trust in your work and gain beneficial relationships with your work.

Read also: Ways to bring visitors to your site

Is there a difference between Local SEO and Website SEO?

There is no difference between local SEO and website SEO in Target, because they both aim to develop and improve your site’s results in search engines and bring more visits, the only difference is in implementation.

Local SEO differs only in its implementation approach, because it aims to improve your local business, your brand’s reputation, and its reach to your already targeted audience.

We also find that this type of search engine optimization includes small goals, but they are more related to the service you provide.

But…

Website SEO or SEO optimizes your site according to the key words and phrases your target audience is searching for.

Don't worry about Google, because it understands the audience searching for a general result from the audience searching for a local result. 

How to use local SEO?

After completing the concept of local SEO, you must know the mechanism of the process or how to improve the local search engines for your website, and this is what I will explain now, so focus with me to obtain an advanced ranking for your website.

Before starting planning, you must put yourself in the visitor’s place, for example:

 If you are looking for a beauty clinic, the first thing you will care about as if you were the visitor is the quality of the service provided and whether this clinic is close to you or not. You will also ask about other visitors’ reviews of this place, which are important matters.

You will also ask about previous experiences, successful cases, and whether the place is reliable or not. Therefore, you must pay attention to the results of improving local SEO, put yourself in the visitor’s place, and think with his mind.

After the question, you must answer all the questions that will come to your mind when you put yourself in the visitor's place, in order to win the visitor over and provide him with what he desires and he will choose your site.

After putting yourself in the visitor’s place, you must begin the actual steps to use local SEO to grow your brand and improve your website’s ranking according to usual search engine optimization, which are:

•  Competitor analysis.
•  Search for keywords.
•  Determine the content plan.
•  Create a link building plan.
•  Technical search engine optimization within your website pages.
•  Focus on local results.
•  Add the location to Google Maps.
•  Gain local external signals.
•  Web content development.
•  Establish contact information.
•  Website responsive on all devices.
•  The site is free of any technical problems.
•  Ensuring a good user experience.
•  Register on Google My Business.

Read also: Backlinks - the 20 best effective methods for your website in 2022

The 10 most important steps to improve local SEO

All of these things can be followed to improve your website. You can follow these steps:

Search for the keyword Keyword Research

You must research competitors first in order to use competitors to help you extract keywords for your site plan.

For example, “Best Medical Cosmetic Clinic in Heliopolis.” Targeting this word on your website and in your content is one of the main ways to search locally. 

Saying “the nearest plastic surgeon to Heliopolis” is easier for many people who do not prefer writing.

You can use many tools that make this step easier for you, for example:

• KWFinder.

• Google Trends.

• Google KeywordPlanner.

• Ahrefs.

• Semrush.

• ubersuggest.

Register your company on the Google My Business platform

Google provides a platform Google My Business Which provides all companies with the ability to register all information related to your business activity for free, including a detailed address of the headquarters and available branches, contact numbers for your business, official working days and hours, a link to your business website, and pictures of your business activity internally and externally.

Therefore, if you have a business, you must take advantage of this service provided by Google to achieve the best possible results, and you must be aware that Google My Business allows you to register the following items:

• Classification of business activity
• Address of the headquarters or branches of the business.
• Contact numbers for your business.
• Website link.
• Description of the business activity.
• List of services and products you provide.
• High-quality, panoramic images of headquarters and branches (360 degrees).
• A short promotional video of no more than 30 seconds.

Add contact information to the website

Providing contact information and the detailed address is one of the most important basics when creating a website for a company or business, so be sure to add them to the site and confirm whether this information is correct or not. The contact information is as follows:

• contact numbers.
• E-mail.
• Address of the company's headquarters.
• Company accounts on social media sites.
• Your business website on Google Maps.

But it is important for you to know that paying attention to these elements helps you achieve the best results on Google, and you must pay attention to including all addresses and all contact information within the page. Contact US (Contact Us) for your site.

This is because the geographical location mentioned on your website is targeted by search engines when showing local search results.

Register the location on Google Maps

Registering your site on Google Maps is one of the most important steps to improve your site’s ranking in search engines.

You can also register your business address on Google Maps through the following steps:

• Go to Google Map.

• Search for the title using the search bar in the upper left corner of the page.

• Click “Add a site” in the sidebar that appears.

• Add Add location, name and category.

• After that click submit.

Thus, you have added your site and business to Google Maps.

Preparing website content

Developing and preparing website content with words and phrases targeted by the visitor in search is one of the reasons for the success of the website appearing in targeted search results for already targeted customers, so you must improve the website content as follows:

• Use the keywords and phrases used in searching within the meta-tile and meta-description, as this helps in increasing the click-through rate on your site’s pages (CTR).

For example, if you have the word (beauty clinic), it must be mentioned in the title and description as shown in the image:

• Place the most popular questions that your potential customers use to search for you within the content of your blog or in the Askima Frequently Asked Questions if your site is WordPress.

For example, if you have the word (Dermatologist), it should be mentioned in the FAQ as the audience is targeting it, as shown in the image:

• Place local search terms related to your field or business activity in the description and titles of images and videos (Video Transcript – Images Alt tags).

Mentioning words in alternative texts is important because it gives you an opportunity to rank high with images on Google. For example (if you search for a website video), we find that images with alternative texts containing phrases appear to you, as shown in the image:

• Add targeted words within the subheadings and paragraphs of the service pages that you provide to your audience.

Ensure that the website copy is responsive to mobile phones 

Smartphone users occupy the largest percentage of local searches, so you must ensure that your site is compatible with mobile phones. Do not worry, you can ensure that the site version responds to phones through the tool mobile friendly test.

Ensure that the website provides an excellent browsing experience

In order for the user to choose your site over other competing sites, you must provide a website with an easy and fast design, and the design must be responsive to all devices, desktops and phones, and this is called Responsive Design.

You can ensure the safety of your site and that there are no problems with the codes through the website validator Which is considered the best browser for detecting errors in HTML and CSS codes and whether they are compatible with international code standards or not.

You can find out the speed of your site and whether it is suitable for the user or not through the site PageSpeed ​​Insights It is the best site to measure the speed of the site and its pages, and it also shows you the errors that cause the pages to slow down if they are slow.

Registration in commercial activity directories

Registering your site in business directories is one of the most important points that you must follow in order to gain a better ranking on Google, but the directories must be related to your activity and business field.

Among the most important commercial directories that include various activities and you can register in them are the following:

• Google My Business

• Facebook Business

• LinkedIn Directory for Companies

• Yellow Pages

• foursquare

• Yelp

Increase the percentage of positive reviews for your business

Improving your website's ranking is favored by Google if it has high positive reviews that indicate the good quality of your service.

Therefore, you should consider positive and good reviews to appear in local search results with businesses that are already trusted by your target customers.

The most influential ratings in search engines are the ratings your website receives on its pages on social media sites, as well as Google My Business reviews, and also Yelp reviews.

Therefore, you must make your service stand out and present it well, in addition to providing explanations and solutions appropriate to the needs of your business customers, in order to obtain positive and good opinions and ratings from customers, which are known as Positive reviews & ratings, such as Skima WP-Post Ratings.

For example (if you are searching for beauty clinics, you will search for the most positive rating. You can also show the audience’s rating on Google by using Skima WP-Post Ratings. You will allow the audience to rate and show the rating on Google, as shown in the picture.

Gain more local external links, known as Local Backlinks

To get more local and relevant external links to your site, you must develop a precise strategy to build a network of external backlinks.

Obtaining backlinks from specialized, relevant and effective entities in your field is one of the important steps that helps you achieve greater credibility for your website in local search engines.

Examples of local sites that you should pay attention to and acquire external links include:

• Corporate websites.
• Business websites and forums related to your business.
• Trusted and prominent blogs in your business field.
• Local business directories.
• Local websites and forums to get reviews of products and services.

Thus, I have finished clarifying the 10 most important points and steps that will help you improve your site’s ranking in Google. Although it takes a long time, it is considered the best way to reach targeted customers for free and in the long term, unlike quick marketing ads, whether on social media or on Google.

Read also: The best platform for creating an online store

If you have a business website and want to improve its ranking in local search engines and double your visits and profits, you can Register your site data from here We will help you with that!