Restaurants, hairdressers, car mechanics, plumbers and even doctors – the potential customer wants a given service to be close, cheap and in addition, to have positive opinions. Local search allows you to quickly and easily find the service that interests us in a given situation, while companies allow these activities to reduce the cost of promoting business online. How to position locally to get well in search results?

Local search – how does it work?

Nowadays, a smartphone with internet access is the basic database and services. You reach for it when you want to find a good restaurant or change tires in your area. Then you enter the phrase with the city you are interested in the search engine, after a while to receive a compendium of available companies and services. Interestingly, this also happens when you are just looking for a phrase such as “hairdresser” without entering the city. It is responsible for the geolocation of search results, which allows you to determine the geographical location using GPS or the IP address of the device.

Today, virtually no-one uses paper traditional maps, because these have been replaced by technologies that not only lead the user to the destination, but also show interesting places along the way. Geolocation determines the place where a given user is located and allows him to match ads, companies and services. It is also helpful in positioning the site locally.

Geolocation affects the search result, but this is not the only activity that should be taken into account by companies or services when positioning websites. Website optimization for local phrases is still important.

Local site positioning – where to start?

Activities aiming at effective local positioning should be a priority, especially for small companies that are looking for their target group in a given region: gastronomy, construction and repair services, hairdressing and cosmetics, florists, car workshops and specialist services. The appearance of a given regional query high in search results significantly increases the likelihood that a customer will use a given service.

On-site local positioning

If you have a business domain, be sure to optimize content locally. Especially companies whose activity is focused on the local client must remember about several factors that should be on their own website:

– the use of phrases in the description “about me” which will refer to the activity and location, eg “Los Angeles beautician”,
– providing the exact address of the company with contact details (it is worth using special schema tags),
– saturation of key phrases of texts that will appear on the site. They should not lack words with references to the city,
– headline and meta tag optimization,
– a Google Map marker that will quickly and accurately help the customer find the location of the business.

Local off-site positioning

Off-site activities, i.e. external activities affecting website optimization in terms of SEO, should also be implemented locally. What is important here is the so-called acquiring links that will lead or relate to the business of the company. When positioning outside, you also need to:

– obtaining links leading to the site, preferably those of a local nature, for example from information services, the city or commune office or thematic pages related to the region,
– adding a business profile to the company directory, which should also contain the exact address of the company and contact details, positive customer reviews on Google and on social media,
– sharing on local and industry-specific online forums. Published content should contain substantive values, then they will not be considered spam.

Google My Business and local site positioning

Google My Business is an online business card that affects local positioning. This is another and necessary action on which the owner of a company who wants to reach the users of a given region should focus. This link connected to the Google Map refers to the company’s home page, has a positive effect on its credibility and increases visibility.

Starting this service is very simple – and what is important – it works regardless of whether you have a company page or not. Just set up a profile following the instructions. The company name, business profile, physical address, contact details, opening hours and, optionally, the main website address must appear there. Such a business card increases the chances of the service appearing in SERP searches, and it will be easier for a potential customer to verify it and ultimately use the offer.

Google My Business also affects customer interaction as it can place its rating and review there. This factor will help raise the level of services and verify what works badly and what should be kept in your business. However, it should be remembered that too many negative reviews can have a very negative impact on the company’s operations, which in the eyes of customers will become unreliable and, as a result, will be ignored. It is worth and even need to take care of good reviews by encouraging satisfied consumers to leave positive reviews on the company’s business card.

Focus on the local market

Not every product or service is able to dominate the global market, but this does not mean that it cannot achieve success in its industry. In many cases, when a given company operates typically on a regional basis, there is no point in positioning itself on general phrases, which in turn will lead to a high bounce rate. Who should decide on local positioning? It is a good activity for all enterprises, but small and medium-sized enterprises and services benefit most from it, which in this way have a chance to break through in a competitive market.

Research conducted by Paraphrase-Online.com has shown that as many as 80% of smartphone and tablet users carry out local searches. Considering these statistics, it is even more important to ensure the visibility of your site on regional soil.