Did you know that 50 percent of consumers who carry out a local search on their smartphone visit a store within a day? That’s right — and a whopping 43 percent of all searches on Google are local.
It’s clear that local search is powerful when it comes to reaching customers, but many businesses fail to take advantage of it. To help out, we’re sharing three expert tips for improving your local SEO on mobile.
Follow this advice, and you’ll soon see an increase in your local leads.
1. Create a Google My Business Page
Creating a Google My Business page is one of the quickest, easiest and most effective ways to boost your local mobile SEO.
You’ll fill in some basic details about your business, including name, address, services and website, and these details will be displayed prominently any time a customer searches for a business like yours on mobile.
Your business will be shown on a local map, and customers will be given the option to get directions, contact you or see more information — without ever having to leave Google. This puts your business right in front of customers at the exact moment they need you.
2. Design Ads That Sound Local
Are you currently taking advantage of paid search ads?
That’s a smart move — but you need to ensure that your ads are location-specific. If they’re not, searchers might assume that you’re a national company, and you could lose customers to other local businesses.
Show that you’re the real deal by referencing local places, using local slang and making references to local events. For example, if you own a clothes shop close to a big festival location, you could create an ad with text like, “Get your last-minute festival look.” Or if you’re close to a beach, you could say something like, “Visiting X beach this weekend? Shop discount swimsuits here first.”
3. Target the Right Search Terms
Are you optimizing your website for search terms that make sense when typed but sound strange out loud? If you want to optimize for mobile, that’s a bad move. Voice searches are growing all the time, and Google reports that 20 percent of mobile queries are voice searches.
That means you need to target terms that make sense when spoken. So, instead of a keyword like, “local plumber Texas,” you might optimize for a phrase like, “Where’s the nearest plumber in Texas?”
Writing website content in a natural, conversational tone makes it easy to incorporate this kind of term and also helps you to move away from old-fashioned keyword-stuffing tactics.
Optimizing for local search is a great way to drive leads and connect with local customers. Get started by creating a Google My Business page, designing location-specific ads and targeting keywords that work during voice searches.
Wrapping Up
These are simply starting points to improve your local online presence. If you’ve been nodding your head as you read these, congratulations! Take a few moments to revisit each of these items and make sure that they are up to date and performing at the level you’d expect. That means, updating or adding to the photos on your Google business page, review your search and display ads to make sure that you’re incorporating seasonal changes and events. This is also an excellent time to compare the performance of your existing ads to determine what’s working best and create variations of that creative.
Marketing is never a set it and forget it exercise, and re-examining your processes and efforts needs to become part of your regular routine to find areas for improvement. This is just one area to review, and any successful marketer should have a weekly schedule of marketing initiatives to review for both cost per lead, and more importantly, cost per sale or acquisition.
