In the digital marketing world, using SEO is essential to stand out from the crowd and drive more people toward your business. Most SEO tips focus on improving a website and its content so it performs better with Google’s algorithms. Then there is local SEO, which specifically optimizes the area around a brick-and-mortar business.

How Local SEO Works

When optimizing a website online, business owners use strategies that aren’t specific to a certain location. This is because online businesses can take customers from far and wide, with most of the biggest businesses in the world operating internationally. If not, they can still take customers on a national scale. Many of these online businesses don’t have physical locations, for example, in e-commerce, streaming, or iGaming. With these business models, users can access entertainment services, buy products, or play at a casino online for real money through digital slots or even live-streamed table games. The presence of these online businesses has exploded since the 2010s, thanks to it becoming easier for smaller entrepreneurs to set up their websites, and the expansion of social media.

However, online businesses aren’t the only ones who can benefit from SEO. Users might use the internet to find digital businesses today, but they also use it to find businesses in their local area. Thanks to Google Maps and its integration into Google Search, users who search for a restaurant near them won’t get a standard search results page. Instead, they’ll get a map and a list of the real-world businesses nearby. Local SEO is all about enhancing your visibility here, so you show up more often when locals search for relevant keywords. It doesn’t just apply to Google Maps, either, as you can do the same on a lot of social media and aggregate services.

Google Business Profile

For Google, a lot of local SEO hinges on your Business Profile. This is a free service that Google provides for businesses, allowing them to put all relevant information in one place. This is the information that will appear if you get a special featured snippet for a local search.

Here are some helpful resources to manage your Google Business Profile. Check ’em out!

✍️Make a post →https://t.co/2lVw0lsWZg

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Tips to improve your local ranking →https://t.co/nWY7lTjFIO

— Google Business Profile (@GoogleMyBiz) March 13, 2024

Every Google Business Profile should include the following:

• Business Name

• Business Logo

• Services Provided

• Street Address

• Business Number

• Website Link

• Opening & Closing Hours

• Pictures of the Business

When starting a profile, you’ll also need to give your business a category. This is where you put the industry your business operates in, with the option to include sub-categories for more niche audiences. In SEO terms, this is where you want to put important but also accurate keywords that you think users will search for.

Get Online Business References

A good Google profile is great, but, all else being equal, it won’t give you an advantage over a veteran business that has both experience and an online business profile. Much like a lot of their other SEO guidelines, Google knows that experience is very important. This is because those businesses will have references from other sites, social media, and a lot of reviews from happy (or unhappy) customers. These tell Google that a local establishment is real and functional, and not just a digital mirage.

Get your business listed on social media, local directories, and sites where it makes sense for your business to be listed. For example, a local news site that keeps a page of businesses in the area should be happy to add yours to their list. The more detailed the mention, the better. Good citations list your business address and number because this kind of SEO is all about directing people to the business in the real world, not just online.

Acquiring references through social media and directories will make your online presence even stronger and more organic. Between the Business Profile and this, you can optimize your business for Google’s algorithms while showing there is real, human interest in your business.