What is Local SEO, and How Does It Work?

But first, you need to understand how Google works.

Google works differently with websites that are focused on a local area. This guide will help you learn how to use local SEO to your advantage and improve your website’s visibility in search results for your target market.

Local SEO is a way to help your business be more visible in the local search results on Google. This means that if someone types in keywords related to your business and there is a map with 3 listings (a map pack), then you can use local SEO to help grow your business.

But first, you need to understand how Google works.

How did search engines evolve?

When the internet first started, there were only a few websites. So it was easy to find what you were looking for. But as the internet expanded, search engines were created to help people find websites more easily.

If you put a phrase into a search engine, it found websites that included those same words. Google did this better than other search engines because it was the first one to use links between websites as a sign of how trustworthy or important those websites were.

Google looks at a lot of different things to decide if your website is relevant to show as a search result. Things like how popular your website is and where you are ranked on other websites are some of the things that Google looks at. They add all these things up to see if you are a top result for what someone might be looking for.

So how does Google work?

Google looks at how relevant your site is to the search phrase, as well as other website signals, to return a list of websites that match your search.

People often think that when they type something into the Google search bar, Google is looking at every website on the internet in real time. But that’s not actually how it works. Instead, Google keeps a copy of all the websites it has found (called the Google Index) which is what it uses to do its searches.

Google uses small programs called “spiders” to crawl the web. These spiders go to one page, then follow the links on that page to other pages. They look at the content on these pages, and add this information to Google’s servers. This helps build the index, which is a list of all the websites that have been crawled. The spiders work quickly to make sure that the index is always up-to-date with new sites and connections.

How Google ranks search results

Google uses algorithms to rank hundreds or thousands of websites in a blink of an eye. These algorithms look at on-site and off-site factors to see which websites are related to your search. The algorithm then looks at how popular and relevant the websites are, and ranks them according to that information.

Making your site better for SEO will make it show up higher in more search results. This is because it will make your site more relevant, popular, and well-liked by others.

Local SEO is a different pattern

Google figured out that people who are looking for a specific type of business need results from their local area. That is why Google’s local search algorithm includes a proximity factor. This means that Google takes your location into account when you search for something, even if you don’t include a city name or “near me.”

If you’re at work and want to get a pizza delivered for lunch, for example, Googling “pizza delivery” shows a list of locations near your office in its local SERPS (search engine result pages).

But if you try that same search from home, you’ll get a different set of results. This makes sense because you need a pizza delivered from somewhere close by.

Local search has been around for a while, but it was limited because people only used their desktop computers. With the recent growth in mobile internet access, however, mobile search has exploded, so local SEO has become hugely important for the success of any business offering local products or services and local marketers.

What matters for local SEO

What does this mean for search engine marketers? The local map pack is shown on the same page as the regular Google organic search results, but there are separate algorithms that control how often your business appears in each. As a local business, you have a chance to appear in both the regular Google organic search results and the local map pack at the same time.

If you’re new to marketing your business online, one of the main challenges is knowing what you should focus on to make your efforts as effective as possible. 

Moz, a company that makes marketing analytics software, publishes an annual Local Search Ranking Factors survey. This survey includes input from 35 to 40 worldwide experts in local SEO. The survey’s results provide insights into which factors influence local search visibility.

Localized content and local link popularity are factors that Google considers when ranking websites in its traditional search algorithm. So it is important to build local landing pages for each of your locations- especially if you are a multiple location business-. These pages should include your business name, address, and phone number, as well as be optimized for their titles tags, meta descriptions, and follow SEO best practice. This should also be taken into consideration when creating your content marketing and link building strategy.

Location-based factors, like having a business listing on Google My Business, local citations from data aggregators, and review signals – that come from your local customers – are also taken into account when figuring out your ranking for local SEO. So you should also think about these things when you are doing your local SEO.

It’s also important to know that there are tools to help with local SEO audits. These tools can help you with keyword research, building citations, managing Google My Business listings, business profile and Google posts, and even monitoring your inclusion in local packs.

The content on your website is important, just like the content on other websites that Google ranks. But other things like where your business is located and how you’re listed online also play a role in how Google ranks your website.