11 proven strategies to improve your website’s local SEO

Optimizing your website for local intent is one of the effective tactics to generate more traction and grow your business. 

Even when you operate digitally, some people may prefer purchasing products or services from solution providers near them. It’s where local SEO comes into play, enabling you to enhance your search engine visibility on keywords that represent a local search intent.

Local SEO also helps you capture the attention of audience segments in certain geographic regions. It’s an excellent way to drive more website traffic and grow your reputation. Improving your website’s local SEO may not be as easy as it sounds. It’s an intricate and time-consuming process.

We have come up with a few proven strategies that will help you improve your website’s local SEO.

What is local SEO?

Did you know that 46% of people searching on Google for viable solutions represent a local intent?

Local SEO is a process through which you strive to enhance the search engine visibility of your online business for local search intent. Here, you try to target an audience segment that prefers purchasing products or services from solution providers in the vicinity.

However, the benefits of optimizing your website for local SEO are more than just attracting a particular buyer persona. It fuels your online visibility, increases walk-in customers, unlocks new growth opportunities, increases your revenue, and powers brand recall.

People in different localities may represent diverse characteristics. Improving the local SEO may help you know your audience better and create different segments.

It enables you to compile and convey personalized marketing messages. Plus, you’re able to position your solutions better.

How local SEO fuels organic traction

Search engines are the go-to sources for people to find answers to their questions and explore relevant information. It’s the reason why search engines initiate 68% of online experiences. 

People leverage search engines to learn about available alternatives before making a buying decision. Hence, brands generally strive to grow their search engine presence, as it helps them get more traction. Optimizing your website for local SEO is one of the most effective ways to pull it off.

Running an online business, you may have come across search queries that align with your niche containing the phrase “near me.” These queries represent a local intent. People use these queries to find solution providers in their vicinity.

When you optimize your website for local SEO, you help these people access the information that they need. 

Since you’re helping the intended audience and facilitating their access to useful information, it complements the experience you offer through your platform. It sends positive signals, which amplifies your ability to climb the SERPs quicker than other players in the industry.

As a result, you’re likely to drive more traffic to your website organically, including potential customers with local search intent.

It’s important to note that local SEO is generally more effective for bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content, where the goal is to capture highly motivated, ready-to-buy users looking for nearby solutions. 

For example, if you’re hoping to rank for more general keywords like “New Year’s Eve event ideas,” local SEO isn’t as necessary as your audience could be anywhere. However, if your goal is to rank for more BOFU keywords like “New Year’s Eve parties in Boston,” local SEO becomes essential to reach people specifically looking for Boston-based events.

Strategies to improve your website’s local SEO

Now that you know how local SEO can help you generate more traction and grow your business organically, let’s talk about the strategies that help you improve your website’s local SEO.

1. Find relevant local keywords

The key to crafting a stellar local SEO strategy is to find relevant keywords with a local search intent. These keywords comprise the search queries that your audience uses to look for the preferred products or services.

You can explore relevant local keywords by adding keyword modifiers or proximity terms to your pillar keywords.

For example, you can use phrases like ‘near me,’ ‘in my area,’ ‘in my city,’ and so on to find useful local keywords for targeting.

Using keyword planner solutions will save you time compared to looking for the required information manually. Finding these keywords will help you optimize your website and personalize your content to engage the intended audience segments.

2. Optimize your website for local SEO

To optimize your website, start by adding information about the location of your business. Even if you run a business digitally, you must have an office at a certain location. Adding this information to your website may be helpful to visitors who want to know about the base of your operations.

Furthermore, you should add relevant keywords with local intent in the titles of your pages, page descriptions, and content.

You don’t need to do this for all the pages of your website. Just optimize the ones that you need to drive local traffic.

3. Add location-based pages

Adding location-based pages to your website helps improve your local SEO and enables you to attract people from different localities. It’s a smart strategy to leverage different variations of your pillar keywords by adding location-based modifiers.

It helps you attract audience segments representing different regions. Plus, it protects you from running into content duplication issues when optimizing your website.

Your pages don’t end up competing with one another because they target different local search intents. You can also position your products or services differently in various regions and tailor your messages to the distinct characteristics representing your audience profiles.

4. Create personalized content

Creating location-based pages is an excellent strategy that helps you improve your local SEO. However, you can target a limited number of search queries with local intent with those pages.

Why stop there?

Another viable strategy that you should consider is to cover popular topics in the respective regions. Blogging serves as an excellent tactic to generate traction online and engage the intended audience.

You should consider personalizing the top-of-the-funnel content you create to fit the varying interests and preferences of audience segments representing different regions. You can also cover the latest news, trends, and local events.

Damian Grabarczyk, the co-founder and growth marketer of PetLab Co., says, 

When expanding in the US and UK, we faced the challenge of connecting with audiences that had distinct preferences and needs. Generic content simply didn’t create the trust or traction we needed. 

To address this, we shifted to hyper-personalized content tailored to each region—covering topics like winter pet wellness in the UK and summer heat safety in the US. We layered this with real customer stories and localized tips to make our messaging authentic and relatable. 

This approach transformed our content into a powerful tool that resonated deeply with pet owners, driving not only increased organic traffic but fostering stronger engagement and loyalty that sustained our growth across both markets.

As you educate your audience and facilitate their access to valuable insights, you become a viable source of information in different regions. It helps you grow your reputation and build trust, which complements your search engine visibility.

5. Optimize Google My Business profile

Another proven tactic to improve your website’s search engine presence locally is to create and optimize a Google My Business profile. Creating it enhances your search engine visibility and the discoverability of your brand online.

You get to leverage not just Google search but also Maps, making it easier for the locals to discover your products or services.

You can encourage the intended audience to share their experiences through reviews or feedback.

Creating a Google My Business profile also complements the authenticity of your brand. As a result, the search engine is more likely to recommend you to users in response to relevant search queries.

6. Leverage NAP citations

Generating traction online demands a multichannel presence. People may prefer different platforms to interact with your brand. So, it’s best that you ensure your availability.

Plus, you need to provide authentic information so your people can easily reach out to you. It’s where NAP citations come into play.

You should make sure that the name of your business, address, and phone number are the same across all channels of communication, such as your website, social media, online communities, and other relevant third-party platforms.

Uniformity in NAP citations across relevant platforms and online communities fuels trustworthiness and complements local SEO.

It sends strong positive signals to search engines, which helps you climb the ranks and drive more traffic. 

7. Leverage social proof

People have a hard time trusting unfamiliar brands. They hesitate to buy their products or services due to the fear of making a bad purchase.

Hence, you must encourage your customers to share their experiences and publish reviews about your products or services.

It serves two purposes. First, it helps you get more eyeballs and convince potential customers to try the solutions you offer. Second, good reviews have a positive impact on your local SEO.

The higher people rate the experiences you offer to them, the more likely it is for search engines to recommend your solutions to others.

Furthermore, positive reviews help you build a strong brand image and enable you to stand out from other players in the industry.

People are more comfortable buying from you because the risk of making a bad purchase with you seems far less.

8. Strengthen your backlink profile

Leveraging relevant platforms preferred by locals in a particular region may serve as an excellent way to get more traction. Quality backlinks serve as one of the important elements that contribute to your SEO performance.

When relevant third-party platforms mention you as the source of information published, it enhances your authority in the respective industry.

It tells search engines that the content you publish is valuable to the respective audience. Hence, they’re likely to recommend your pages more frequently. 

9. Improve internal linking

Improving your internal linking structure helps you enhance the experience you offer through your website. Well-thought-out internal links help your visitors navigate the required information and access it with ease.

A smooth user experience contributes to your search engine rankings and enables you to get more traction online. Furthermore, you retain your visitors by helping them find answers to their questions effortlessly.

10. Offer enhanced user experience

Improving user experience also helps you improve your website’s local SEO. There may be a variety of factors that you may want to consider here.

Make sure that the content you publish on your website is easy to understand. The goal is to convey your message to the right people clearly. So, avoid using technical terms.

The load time of your website also influences the user experience you offer. If your pages take forever to load, your visitors may likely switch to other alternatives.

You also need to look into the user interface and improve information navigation through your platform. Furthermore, ensure your website security because it’s your responsibility to protect your visitors’ information. 

All these things enhance the user experience, which enables you to build authority and enhance your search engine presence.

11. Optimize for mobile

Did you know that 52.2% of visitors explore websites through their mobile devices?

People may have different preferences when it comes to accessing your content or exploring the solutions you offer. Hence, you must optimize your website for all screen sizes.

You can’t assume that your visitors will access your website only through their desktops. They may use their phones or tablets to access the required information.

So, it’s best to optimize your website for mobile devices. It improves the user experience you offer, which fuels your search engine rankings.

As you cater to the preferences of the intended audience, they keep coming back to you and prefer you over other alternatives in the industry.

Ready to improve your local SEO?

Improving your local SEO helps you generate more traction organically and grow your business, attracting audience segments representing a local search intent. It may not be as easy as it sounds. But, the strategies we recommended may come in handy in improving your website’s local SEO.

There may be a number of factors that come into play here and contribute to your search engine performance. We helped you identify these elements so you can devise stellar strategies and position your products or services based on varying audience profiles representing different regions. To make your local SEO strategy truly effective, ensure your website’s technical SEO is optimized. A well-structured, fast-loading, and search-engine-friendly site sets the stage for strong local rankings. Learn how to master technical SEO with our simple, complete guide.