Local SEO Necessity
When looking into ranking your business that is focused on your local area for business, it is important to treat it differently than a business that is a franchise. Local businesses are able to double down on very common tendencies that people use when looking for businesses within their inquiry industry and the local area. The easiest example is when people look for a business “near me”. As a local business, you can use this to your advantage by sprinkling “near me” in your metadata as well as on-page content. In the example below, you will see the search use “near me” in it. With the businesses being shown, Google is not only taking into account their location and content, but also the metadata that is being used. You will see one of them being a franchise that will get Google domain authority due to the size of the business and the “trust” Google has in that company. The other businesses are local businesses that match the content being searched.
When people are looking for businesses that are in the area near them, they are looking for information that will help them immediately including the following things:
Name
Address
Phone Number
Ordering Option
The first three are commonly referred to as a business’s NAP. If your business is in the food service industry, you most definitely need to have your ordering option available.
Another aspect of your website or service pages that your local business can use to your advantage is showing plenty of local imagery with alt tags that are also describing a local spot. Whether that is a local lake, resort, or landmark that is well known to your area of business. Since I am located in Coeur d’Alene, ID you will notice that plenty of my imagery is the CDA, ID area, and its corresponding landmarks.
