Local SEO Services
When talking about local SEO services, there are 2 major sectors that get the most attention, and both are equally important. These will be “local organic results” and the “local pack/finder.” As with any type of SEO, the goal is to improve your rankings in these results to drive additional organic traffic to your site. More attention to your site results in an increased likelihood of conversions – whether that’s an online purchase, or filling out a contact form. Searches engine queries with “near me” have increased 150% over the last two years, significantly faster than other search engine queries – and 28% of those searches result in a purchase within a short time frame. Now, more than ever, local businesses have to ensure that they are ranking in local search results to capture some of this traffic.
Local Pack/Finder
With these dramatic increases in “near me” searches (and with capturing them being so incredibly lucrative,) you should certainly be ensuring that you’re ranking in the local pack/finder for whatever product or service you offer. With Google holding almost 93% of the search engine market, you should ensure that you have a Google Business Profile established – this will be one of the largest driving factors for capturing local search traffic. This is what the local pack looks like in Google’s search engine:
The results populated here are known as Google’s “3-pack” and these top 3 spots grab about 44% of clicks for the “near me” searches. By optimizing your GBP and placing in the top 3 spots, you can give your business the best chance at grabbing this “free” traffic. The one downside of the local pack and “near me” searches – is that proximity to the searcher will be a driving factor for the ranking. You can make up for this lapse by also targeting the organic local results with long tail keywords.
What factors affect your SEO ranking for the local pack?
Thanks to Whitespark’s annual release for local ranking factors, determining where to spend tie on local SEO is much more simple. You can see that even for local pack, it is imperative for small businesses to have a professional and SEO optimized website to receive the full SEO benefits of a GBP listing. For local pack ranking, efforts are best spent focusing on:
- GBP:
- Keywords in business name, business categories, proximity
- On-page:
- Domain authority, NAP presence, keywords in title tags
- Review:
- High numerical rating, consistent reviews over tme
- Link:
- Authority/quantity of inbound links, anchor text of inbound links
- Behavioral:
- CTR, dwell time etc.
- Citation:
- NAP consistency, number of citations
Local Organic Results
The local organic results are going to be the options outside of Google Maps that populate after a search. These results are what populate for the query “Allentown tattoo.” They look like this:
Again, you’ll notice that the first organic result will most often be Yelp, SuperPages, YellowPages or any other mega-directory. (Again, this is why directory listing management is so important for your local visibility.)
When looking at the local organic rankings, oftentimes the keywords that you’ll be looking to target are long-tail keywords that contain a geographic descriptor (in this case – “Allentown.”) As opposed to the “near me” searches on the local pack, these queries won’t be using proximity as a ranking factor, so it gives businesses a good shot at capturing traffic outside of their immediate vicinity.
Let’s say that a customer is located in Easton, PA – but they’re searching for “tattoo shops in Allentown” (since this is the largest nearby city.) A high ranking for these keywords will provide dramatic increases in the organic traffic – capturing new customers outside of the typical market that would be seeing your brand.
Start Ranking Today
Whether your goal is to rank higher in local results or the map pack (preferably both!) – Hyphae SEO Consulting is here to help. Our specialization in helping small businesses can get you on the map (literally) and start driving traffic to your store instead of the mega corporations that you’ve been competing with for years. Contact us today for a general audit and consultation, and get a plan in place to grow your business and its revenue!