9 Local SEO Tips to Help You Rank Higher in Search Results

If you’ve gotten started with SEO, you may have done a Google search for keywords related to your business. And you might wonder, “Why am I not showing up higher in search results? What are my competitors doing above me?”

It’s a common problem that many small business owners face, especially if your local area is full of people offering similar services.

But that doesn’t mean you have to give up.

In this article, we’ll share the top 9 local SEO tips that can help you rank above your competitors.

If you’re short on time, feel free to use the links below to jump ahead to the sections that interest you the most:

1. Why Should You Pay Attention to Local SEO?
2. The Top 9 Local SEO Tips to Focus On
3. How to See Where Your Business Stands

Why Should You Pay Attention to SEO as a Local Business?

SEO stands for search engine optimization.

It’s essentially the process of improving your online presence to rank higher in search results on sites like Google, Bing, etc., for keywords related to your business.

Ranking in the very top position of search results yields an average 39.8% click-through rate (CTR). That means almost 40% of people who type in a keyword into the search bar will click on the first result, which is why it’s so crucial to land that coveted top position.

For local SEO, it’s even more important since your business ranks along with your closest competitors in search results.

Now that you know the importance of local SEO, let’s dive into where to start with improving your search engine rankings.

9 Local SEO Tips to Focus on Today

Tackle these nine local SEO tips and you’ll put your brand in a great position to rank high in search results.

1. Start with your Google Business profile.

Google is a top search engine—boasting a whopping 5.9 million searches per minute— so it’s the best place to start. It’s also free to use, which is great.

To access your Google Business Profile, log into your Google account and click Edit Profile.

Make sure all of your information is correct and up-to-date, including:

1. Your business name
2. Address
3. Phone number
4. Website
5. Operating hours
6. Services you offer

It’s also a good idea to include updated photos of the interior and exterior of your business.

If you don’t run an office where customers can visit, choose related photos such as ones of your work vehicles, examples of your work, pictures of your staff, etc.

Two other important areas to double-check here are your service area and the category that best describes your business.

For your service area, click on Location and add up to 20 different service areas. Pro tip: Google recommends that you don’t extend past a two-hour radius when choosing your service areas.

As for your business category, be as specific as possible with your primary category, and then you can choose up to 10 related subcategories.

You can also use an Online Reputation Management tool to make this process easier.

With this, you can update your Google Business Profile and 40+ other online directories — which is your next step — all in one place.

2. Make sure you’re also in local directories.

In addition to filling out your Google Business Profile completely, you should add your business listing to local online directories to make it easier for customers to find you online. But, with over 40+ online local directories, this task is tedious when done manually.

Fortunately, you can use a tool like Enhanced Local Listings to do the heavy lifting for you.

This allows you to manage all of your online directories in one place and quickly make consistent updates across multiple directories at once.

3. Make sure your business information is consistent everywhere it’s listed.

Whether you use a tool like Enhanced Local Listings or do this manually, it’s important that your business information is correct and consistent, no matter where it’s listed.

Your business name, address, phone number, and other important details should always match so search engines know it’s the same business no matter where it’s listed.

Keep that in mind as you build out your online listings.

Pro Tip: This guide can help you optimize your online listings.

4. Partner with local businesses in your area.

The next strategy to consider with local SEO is getting backlinks to your site.

This is a fancy way of saying that you work with other trustworthy websites to mention yours and link back to it, which helps search engines understand that your site can also be trusted.

As a local business, you may already have other organizations you partner with in the area.

This could be your local Chamber of Commerce, a little league team you sponsor, or other businesses you recommend to your customers.

Ask those businesses to link to your website whenever you’re mentioned on their site to drive traffic and an SEO boost.

It’s also a good idea to return the favor and consider including a Partners-type page on your website that does the same.

5. Manage your online reviews.

Another crucial piece of the local SEO puzzle is your online reviews.

That’s why your next step is to actively work on getting more customer reviews and responding to the reviews you receive.

This is as simple as asking each customer for a review shortly after the sale and carving out some time each day to respond to reviews.

And yes, you also want to respond to any negative reviews you receive.

This helps new customers to see the complete picture of your brand.

Not every service interaction will be a five-star experience but it’s all about how you handle those lower-star ratings. New customers need to see that you addressed the issue and hopefully solved the problem.

If tackling reviews each day sounds daunting given your already overflowing to-do list, you can use an Online Reputation Management tool to make this process far easier.

As the name suggests, this tool helps you build credibility and manage your online reputation. You can quickly see all your reviews, scan your overall ratings, and collect feedback.

6. Revisit your on-page SEO.

Once you have those areas covered, you can work on your website.

This step is a little more in-depth than the others, but it’s not too complicated.

If you have someone who manages your website, they can tackle this step for you.

Essentially, you want your website optimized for search engines so they know what keywords you’re trying to appear for.

You want to make sure your target keywords are located in a few critical places on your site (see the box in the image below for an example):

1. The meta titles and descriptions: This is a short description of your webpage that’s displayed under your link on the SERP.
2. The title of your pages: This is the name of your page and how people can find it.
3. The body content of your pages: This is the copy and text you have on the page.
4. The backend image tags on your site: This is things like alt text and title tags that you can add to images via coding.

Most website providers will give you a way to access and edit these elements on each page of your site.

Go through each page of your website and look at those items to see if you have the right keywords in the right places.

Another pro tip is to use your keywords sparingly – don’t stuff too many on the page.

Each page should have one primary keyword and one or two secondary keywords tops. The primary keyword is the main topic of your page, while the secondary keywords are subtopics that fall underneath it.

For example, let’s say you own a pest control company in Stuart, Florida. “Pest control in Stuart, Florida,” may be your homepage’s primary keyword string. At the same time, you have separate pages for specific services like termites, lawn care, or ants that use those terms as their target keyword.

7. Create a mobile-friendly website.

Another thing that impacts your SEO efforts is whether your website is mobile-friendly.

Many people will visit your website on their mobile devices, especially if they’re looking for businesses nearby.

Because of that, your website must be mobile-friendly, which means it’s modified to fit well on smaller screens and desktop computers alike.

Type in your website address in your mobile phone’s browser to see your mobile experience.

Your website should automatically shrink down to the smaller screen size and your elements should still be clickable and readable as it does this.

If the mobile version is the same as the desktop version, the experience won’t be as good – after all, the desktop version was designed for a larger, completely different device! People may quickly bounce from your mobile site, leading to lower search rankings and missed sales.

To remedy this, ensure you’re using a responsive website theme or that your web developer creates a mobile version of your site. A responsive theme will automatically reformat your website for mobile devices.

This version should be easy to read and navigate, have a large enough font size, elements that fit on the screen, and no intrusive pop-ups that are hard to get rid of.

You also want to ensure you have a phone number right on top that’s easy for people to click on, so they can contact you quickly.

8. Get active on social media.

Like reviews, being active on social media is another excellent way to boost your online presence, but it can sometimes be time-consuming.

After all, with most of your hours spent running your business and being out in the field, it’s hard to find any spare minutes in your day.

If you struggle with this, you can use a Social Media Management tool to do some of the work for you.

Thryv’s CaptionAI tool, for example, can quickly create social media captions for you. Then, you can use the tool to schedule posts in advance so they can launch, even if you’re away from your desk or phone.

9. Share How Active You Are in Your Local Community Plus Local Tips on Your Blog

Another great local SEO tip is one you may already be doing.

If you’re already active in your community, share that on social media and your website via your blog.

Whether you’re partnering with an upcoming local event, sponsoring a little league team, or simply showing your support for your community, adding that to your website is a great way to increase your brand awareness and your website’s rankings.

You can create a blog post and share the link on social media to drive new visitors and potential customers to your site.

Adding helpful, relevant content to your blog is another great idea that search engines love.

Going back to the pest control example – let’s say your company offers a termite service. You can share information on how to tell if you have termites and treatment options, as well as other related questions people might have on the topic.

Use your expertise on your blog to show potential new customers that you and your team know what they’re doing and can be trusted. This will improve your brand awareness and website rankings, helping drive potential leads to your site.

With those local SEO tips in mind, a great next step is to evaluate where your website ranks in search results to see where you should focus your attention.

Perform a Self Audit to See Where Your Business Currently Stands

Don’t worry – this isn’t as complicated as you’d think.

It’s as simple as performing a Google search to start.

1. Do a Google search for terms related to your business.

Choose some simple keywords related to your business, add your zip code in the search bar, and hit enter.

For our termite example, this could be: termite removal services 34997.

Take a look at what comes up.

Is your business prominently displayed at the top of the search results? Or do your competitors have those first few positions?

For this exercise, you can scroll past the paid or sponsored ads section and look at the organic listings, which are below the paid ads.

Jot down some notes of how you stack up compared to your competitors, and if you’re below them, try to determine what could be causing them to rank higher.

Do they have more customer reviews?

Are they rated higher in a five-star rating system?

Is their business display more robust, including their phone number, a call-to-action, reviews, and other eye-catching details?

Don’t worry about what your listing is missing right now – we’ll get to how to fix things in a bit. For now, get an idea of how your business fares in search results.

2. Google your exact business name.

From there, perform another Google search using your business name as the keyword.

Check whether your business appears in the map pack, which Google displays with all of the local businesses related to yours on the map.

Also, make sure the information on your listing – the business’s name, phone number, address, etc. – is correct.

This is also a good time to check out your online reviews.

Do you have anything showing up on your business listing?

What does your five-star rating look like?

Again, don’t worry if you’re not showing up as best as you could be. For now, we’re just taking inventory of how things currently look.

You can add your findings to a Google or Word document, along with some screenshots, to use as your baseline.

3. Dive into your website’s analytics to see a deeper picture.

This step is slightly more advanced, so don’t sweat it if you can’t get to it just yet.

Google Analytics can be a valuable tool to see how you’re doing. The top three metrics to consider include:

1. Google/Organic traffic
2. Landing page performance
3. Conversions

Now that you know where you stand in search results, all that’s left to do is to use the tips in this guide to start improving your situation.

Tackle Your Local SEO Today

Don’t let the information we shared in this guide overwhelm you.

You don’t have to tackle all of these steps at once.

Instead, use this guide as your roadmap to improve your local SEO.

Plan to work on a few tips each week or month, depending on your schedule, and you should see a nice boost in your local rankings in no time.

To save time, you can also check out the tools we shared in this guide to get this process done sooner and with less effort:

1. Online Reputation Management Tool
2. Enhanced Local Listings
3. Social Media Management Tool

No matter what, spending time on your local SEO efforts will pay off, making it worth the investment.