Can you imagine the hassle of finding an electrician if every Google search returned global SEO results?
How many pages of search results would you have to comb through to find a beautician in your neighborhood?
On the other hand, think of how inefficient your digital marketing strategy would be if your local business had to compete with every competitor worldwide for clicks.
Luckily, Google has delivered a solution for this issue through local SEO.
By allowing you to target just the customers in your area, it’s a quick and easy way to give information about your business to the people who are most likely to patronize it.
But what if you have multiple locations in multiple cities?
Is it possible to rank for keywords that target multiple cities without hurting your local SEO?
Of course, it is.
But before you go running off to tweak your site for local searches, there’s one caveat: If you do it wrong, it can actually hurt you. So, it’s important to ensure you do it correctly.
It’s a bit more complex than regular old search engine optimization, but never fear – we’re here to guide you through the process.
Follow the instructions below, and you’ll rank in searches of all your locales before you know it. Ready to get started?
Why Is Local SEO Important?
If local SEO can potentially “hurt” you, why do it at all? Here are two good reasons:
Local SEO Attracts Foot Traffic
Imagine you’re out of town for a cousin’s wedding.
On the night before the big day, you’re in your hotel room when you crave a cheese pizza.
You pick up your phone and Google … what?
“Pizza?”
I don’t think so.
No, you’re probably going to Google a location-specific keyword, like [best pizza in Louisville].
When you get the results, you don’t say, “good to know,” and then head off to sleep.
No. Instead, you take the action that drove the search in the first place. In other words, you pick up your phone and order the pizza.
Or you get up, take a taxi, and dine out at that spectacular pizzeria.
And you’re not the only one doing this.
In fact, every month, searchers visit 1.5 billion locations related to their searches.
And you’re not the one in a million person who’s doing a local search, either.
Nearly 46% of Google searches have local intent.
That’s huge!
So, the next time you’re thinking of skipping local SEO, think again.
It could actually be your ticket to getting that random out-on-vacation dude to check out your pizza place. (Or beauty salon. Or hardware store – you get the point.)
Local SEO Ranks You Higher On Google
We’re all well-informed on the SEO KPIs you should track to rank on Google.
Two of these are:
- Clicks to your site.
- Keyword ranking increases.
With local SEO, you hit both of these birds with one stone. Note that it’s based on the searcher’s location distance/relevance to the business.