Local SEO Services

Local SEO is all about location, location, location. It’s a way to get your products and services in front of your target audience in a specific geographic area. It entails all the nuts and bolts of usual SEO – content, on-page optimisation, keyword research, link building – just with a local focus.

Search engines look for signals in local content, links, social profile pages and profile listings to provide the most relevant local results to the searcher. For example, Local SEO typically focuses on city or town names because people add a city or town name to their search request, e.g. “salons in Sydney”. With a good Local SEO strategy, Google starts associating your business with a certain area, bumping you up the rankings and boosting your profile in the community.

The other thing about local searches is they’re more often highly relevant. Either they focus on a town or city, or things like product availability, opening hours and directions. That’s why Local SEO puts a big focus on directory listings, Google My Business profiles and social media profiles. Your Google My Business location is the number one factor impacting your local search results. No question about it, it must be part of your Local SEO strategy.

Another factor that’s important for Local SEO is citations. This is your name, address and phone number (known as NAP) on other inline listings. There are lots of places where you might want to claim or add your citations, depending on your business. For example, there might be niche directories for tradespeople, salons or childcare centres.

Reviews are also essential for Local SEO. Just make sure they’re good reviews! Send people who have a good experience with your brand to your Google My Business listing. Encourage and incentivise reviews where you can. Good reviews will always help you generate leads and conversions. This is true for companies local and global. Though in particular for Local SEO, reviews will define your success when it comes to ranking with Google.

So when would you use Local SEO versus SEO? You won’t be surprised to learn that Local SEO is mostly (but not exclusively) used for local bricks-and-mortar businesses. We’re not only talking about shops, cafes and restaurants but also services, like plumbers, lawyers and real estate agents. Think about it – if your business has a physical location or wants to appeal to people in a certain geographic area, you want to make sure it pops up in the SERPs when people search for “plumber in Richmond” or “Thai restaurant in Paramatta”.

If your business is online (such as e-commerce), national or even global, the location doesn’t matter so much. Your target audience isn’t limited to a geographic area, so you don’t need a Local SEO campaign.

Doing well in SEO? You will do well in Local SEO. After all, they’re made up of many of the same tactics. So, if you can get SEO right (or you have an agency who is doing a stellar job), your Local SEO will surely succeed too.

If you’re spending valuable dollars and energy on Local SEO and you’re not measuring the results, you’re missing a huge opportunity to turbocharge your return on investment. As famous business thinker Peter Drucker said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. This is absolutely true for Local SEO.

So, how do you measure Local SEO? It comes down to a proper tracking set-up. With the right tracking, you’ll be able to answer the two most important questions: What’s working? And what isn’t?

There are lots of things you can measure. Most digital marketers still focus on measuring how many people click through to the website, or traffic. All this requires is a simple Google Analytics tracking code on your site. But what is this actually telling you about your Local SEO efforts? Not a lot.

The thing about Local SEO is that they might not click through to your website. Chances are they’ve seen everything they need to know thanks to your Google My Business profile and won’t click through to your website. So how do you know if they’ve converted?

Google My Business Insights. GMB Insights offers some great data to tell you how your Local SEO is tracking. We’re talking about impressions and clicks for your listing. But that’s not enough by itself. Conversions can come in many forms, so you need to set up some conversion goals. This might be contact form submissions, quote requests, phone calls, live chat, or appointment booking. GMB cannot tell you how many calls or store visits your listing has generated. All it can do is tell you online activities – so it can say how many people clicked on the phone number, but not how many made a call.

Good news! There are ways around this. One tactic is to promote a unique offer on your Google My Business page, so when people ask about that offer, you know they’ve come from Google. This can work with store visits too. Another option is to use a certain Insights report within your Google My Business profile – Driving Directions Requests. It will show you how many people clicked for directions to your location. This isn’t foolproof, but it does show you their intent. Even if you can’t tell the exact number of people who visited because of GMB, you can see trends. Are requests for driving directions increasing? Your Local SEO efforts are on the right track.

That’s the key with measuring Local SEO. You might not be able to get concrete numbers, but you can see trends. For example, Google can track how many times it shows your Google My Page listing. If views are trending upwards, your Local SEO is winning. If they start falling, you need to adapt your strategy. Keeping an eye on the trends can give you a great indication of what’s working and what’s not.

Bottom line, measuring and tracking need to be part of every Local SEO campaign. At OMG, we will help you outline your goals, track your campaigns and make sense of it all so you can skyrocket sales and revenue.

Did you know that 4 out of 5 people use Google Search and Maps to find local information? Or that 80% of local mobile searches result in an offline purchase within 24 hours?

Local search is exploding. More than half of online searches actually specify a location. This is called ‘local intent’, and it means consumers are stating the name of a city, town or postcode when they type a search request. For example, rather than searching “SEO agency”, you might type “SEO agency Sydney”. You’re telling Google that you don’t want just any SEO agency in Australia or the world, you’re telling it you only want an SEO agency located in Sydney.

Can you guess the other huge force behind the Local SEO boom? Mobile. People are using their mobile devices to search for services or products at the exact moment they need them. In fact, 50% of people who did a local search on their phone went to a physical store within one day. That’s one in two people physically acting on their mobile search. Compare this to 34% who did the same when they did a local search on a computer or tablet. Here are a few more stats that prove the power of local search: 78% of local-based searches on a mobile result in purchases being made offline and 71% of people say they search for the location of a business before a first-time visit.

Local SEO is driven by Google too. For example, Google’s Local Pack is the top section of the search results that highlights three local businesses related to a search. This is incredibly useful for mobile users as they can rapidly find a business near them and see opening hours, phone number, reviews, and more – without wasting time clicking through to a website.

Add this to the other reasons above, and one thing is crystal clear: Local SEO has never been a more powerful tool for business. If you want greater local exposure, you need an SEO strategy that sends you to the top of the listings in your city or region, right where your local customers can see you. With an intelligent Local SEO strategy, you can dominate your niche in local search results and outrank even the big-name competition. No matter how big or how established your brand may be.

Truth is, if you’re a bricks-and-mortar business with a physical address in a specific location, you cannot afford not to rank high in a local search. Will your business show up at the exact moment a local customer is looking? Will they choose you out of all the other local businesses that offer the same products and services? That’s why you need Local SEO. When a searcher is looking for a place to go for a certain product or service, you need to show up in their search. And you don’t just want to tell them what you do or sell. That’s not going to cut it.

Make sure they can find all the information they need about your business right there – your exact location, opening hours, contact details and reviews. Because it’s this information that people need if they’re going to physically visit your business and make a purchase. Don’t stress; you’re not in this alone. Talk to OMG about your Local SEO strategy today!

Full disclosure – we cannot give you an exact dollar figure for Local SEO. There are far too many factors involved that we can’t go into until we know more about your business. And we’re not in the game of making false promises and guarantees.

But we can talk about value. Here’s the thing. When people don’t understand what’s involved in something, you naturally focus on the one thing you do understand – price. The dollar figure on the agency quote becomes the biggest factor for comparison. Problem is, the lower the price, the bigger the risk you’re taking on for your business. You won’t realise it until it’s too late and your website is getting penalties left, right and centre.

What you need to look at is how much you need to pay to benefit from the right strategy and the right people for the best return on investment. In other words, value.

Cheap Local SEO can wind up being incredibly expensive. Let us explain why. If you pick cheap Local SEO, the agency won’t be able to spend the time required to build those relevant links and optimise your Google My Business profile. They won’t be able to create good, relevant local content. But they’ll still need to show you results. So, they start looking for shortcuts to make you happy. Sure, these short-term strategies might generate some quick results, but you’ll also wind up with long-term penalties that are even more expensive to fix. The lesson here is simple: you get what you pay for.

Local SEO takes time and time means money. Want results faster? Pay for more time. It’s a simple equation. To maximise your return potential for Local SEO, you need to engage a quality SEO agency with proven experience.

There are a number of other factors that impact the cost of Local SEO success. Top of this list is your competition. Are you in a competitive sector? You’ll need to invest more than a business in a less competitive industry to get the results you want. Think about it: If you want your restaurant to rank highly in searches for “Sydney restaurant”, you’ll have to invest more than if you want to rank highly in searches for “Bondi restaurant”. Because there are more restaurants in Sydney than in Bondi. It’s a numbers game.

Another factor is whether you have multiple locations. Are you only in one location? Focus on one location for your Local SEO. Got stores all over the city? Ranking local listings for each location requires more time and effort t uhan ranking just one. For each location you need to focus on another set of citations. These are mentions of your name, address and phone number (NAP) on another website or directory. Creating and maintaining citations is a time-consuming job, so the more locations you have, the longer it will take and therefore the most budget it requires.

Ready to kick your Local SEO into shape? Chat to our Gurus. You can also claim your free SEO audit, worth $2,000. We’ll review your website, tell you how you’re performing against your competitors, and come up with SEO success plan for you. Now that’s what we call value for money!