Is there a need for you to do local SEO? It depends.

If your business has a physical location people can go to, your SEO strategy is a bit different from what is required for those that operate online.

For online businesses, technical SEO, on-page SEO, and off-page SEO are usually enough because all transactions happen online.

For brick-and-mortar ones, you need to tell your customers where you are located and what they can expect once they are in your store.

Is it pet-friendly? Can they go there via a bus or train? What time do you open and close? And lots of other questions.

Also, have you tried searching for a particular store on search engines? The results page is different, right?

On Google, for example, at the top is either a list of the stores near you or a link to the official website of the store, and on the right side is either nothing or a section containing information about it.

The information section will appear on the right if your store data is available on other websites, which search engines can use as a basis (Bing does this), or if the Google My Business profile of the store has been set up.

This is why you need to submit your store information to directories and set up your Google My Business profile.

How to Do Local SEO for Local Businesses

SEO for local businesses is much easier because your target audience is smaller, only those within a specific area.

If your website has a blog, you need to ensure that your target area is mentioned in the title, the body, the meta information, and everywhere — but don’t overdo it.

Here is an example of a title for a local business website: “Accountant in New York” or “Roof Installation in Las Vegas.”

You can create a list of “5 Best Coffee Shops in Hawaii” and include your store on the list.

To make the blog posts more effective in encouraging people to visit your store, include pictures of your physical store throughout the post.

But while posting consistently is an important activity in SEO, those people who look for local businesses in a particular area use directories and maps.

Even if you don’t blog and aim to be on the first page of Google, you can increase your store visitors by setting up profiles on sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp as well as on Google My Business.

Being active on social media also helps because people use it to find stores (or even professionals) near them.

But what’s important to remember here is to keep the information consistent throughout all platforms.

Have one contact number, email address, and store address, most importantly, so that they don’t get confused, and you don’t lose potential customers.