A local search ranking signal is a characteristic that helps search engines rank businesses and websites in results pages.
Many elements impact the way a website shows up in SERPs; these elements or key factors are also known as signals. For example, NAP details, listings, and reviews are a few Local Search ranking signals.
No Local Search ranking signals list can do without one of the most prominent ranking factors - a Google My Business profile. According to Whitespark, Google My Business (GMB) helps increase the local pack rank of a business by 33%. That’s why it’s important to claim a business listing on this platform.
A GMB profile is a top factor because search algorithms factor in smaller signals such as proximity, NAP info, etc., which are available on the platform. Plus, it puts your business on Google Maps. Therefore, it will appear in local searches as well as map searches.
Say you’re a jewelry shop in Westport, Kansas City, and a user in the area wants to purchase a ring. By searching on Google, your business will appear along with your competitors.
However, if you have a GMB profile, chances are it will rank your business in the coveted local 3-pack section. Therefore, users will be enticed to visit your store.
It’s no surprise that keywords are a ranking signal. That’s because they are a big component of local SEO. Plus, they’re used by crawlers to understand and index the content of a website. Therefore, optimizing your website with local keywords is essential to establish your company in an area that will show up in those location searchers.
For example, say a person is walking through downtown New Orleans and wants to visit the best bar for the Mardi Gras. So, they conduct a search using the keywords ‘best Mardi Gras bar in New Orleans.’ Google will show them all the bars according to the location, using keywords and proximity as a ranking factor.
On-page signals such as keywords help to rank your business in local searches. Therefore, optimize your website for local keywords that are relevant to your niche and area.
NAP information or Name, Address, and Phone number information is a building block of local SEO. It’s an on-page ranking signal that helps crawlers establish your company in a specific area.
For example, say you’re a pet store in Greensboro, North Carolina. You’ve optimized for local SEO by adding your company address to all your website pages, social media platforms, and business listings.
When a user searches for a pet store in your area, search engines will use your NAP info to show your business to the user, depending on proximity.
When a crawler indexes each address on your web pages, it will take each citation as a “vote” that your business is in from that area. These votes help search engines rank your business for relevant local search queries.
Your NAP info must be consistent on all platforms so that it gives out one clear signal and doesn’t confuse crawlers.
When a company shows up in search results, users will look at reviews before taking action. Therefore, the more positive the reviews, the more likely a user will click on the website or visit the store/company.
That’s why Google uses high-quality reviews found in GMB profiles as a ranking signal.
Say you’re a dentist in Fort Worth. Reviews from local customers are deemed more trustworthy for a potential patient than reviews from patients in another state.
Additionally, reviews that use local keywords further help rank your business higher in search results. That’s because those reviews are more relevant to potential customers in your location.
However, it’s not enough to have a large number of reviews. Google also says it looks at review responses to gauge the quality of the review. Therefore, verifying whether your business is authentic and relevant to user searches.
So, acquiring and managing reviews is vital for your company and its local search rank.
Apart from Google My Business, listing your company on relevant and reputed directories will boost your local SEO ranking. Every profile acts as a citation, which is a significant signal for local searches.
A healthy number of quality citations is seen as a vote of confidence by search engines. Plus, adding your NAP info to each listing will further establish your company as being from that area. Therefore, citations will increase your ranking in general and local search results.
Although directories aren’t a huge signal for local ranking factors, the information from these profiles does help crawlers give more context to your company. Which allows search engines to display your company in more search queries.
So, say you have a restaurant in Manhattan. Claiming your listings on Uber Eats, Postmates, Zomato, etc. is a good idea, as it strengthens your citation profile. Plus, the NAP info on these profiles will help rank your restaurant in local searches.
Pictures of your store, products, or offices can significantly improve the likelihood of a user clicking on your website or taking the desired action.
Give your local SEO a boost by adding high-quality photos to your Google My Business or other profiles. These photos give your company credibility and act as a local ranking signal.
Say you’re an ice cream shop in Dallas, and a potential client with a craving for ice cream happens to be in your neighborhood. You, along with competing ice cream shops will appear on their search results page.
However, if you’ve got eye-catching images, Google will boost your rank. Plus, the client will be enticed to visit your store and not your competitors who don’t have photos.
Photos are a must for your business listings and website. Invest in high-quality images. Additionally, geo-tag and optimize images for SEO, so they contribute to your company’s search ranking.
Backlinks is a term for when websites mention your company/brand and link your website to their article/ feature. They help search engines determine the authenticity of your company and are a major component in SEO.
Getting reputed backlinks is still an essential part of building authority for a local business.
When trying to boost local ranking, acquiring backlinks from local sources is vital. Search engines comb through backlinks and factor in the NAP info, location, etc., when ranking local businesses.
For example, if you’re a car dealership in Miami, then it’s beneficial to build backlinks from local publications, newspapers, influencers, directories, etc. That way, when search engines index your site, it’ll factor in the Miami-based “mentions” and start ranking your company in local Miami searches.
Quality is always better than quantity when it comes to building backlinks. Therefore, invest in a backlink strategy to help get authentic and relevant backlinks.
Users often utilize Facebook to search for businesses and professionals. That’s why having a Facebook Business page is essential for local businesses.
Additionally, for startups or small businesses who don’t have the budget for a website, an FB profile is just as good. That’s because you can upload information you would typically add to a website on your FB business page.
So, say you’re a local maths tutor located in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Creating an FB page is a good way to show up in local searches and get more clients and visibility.
Search engines use the information found on Facebook. Therefore, make sure to fill out all the relevant details on your FB business page when creating one. Accurate address information, business hours, photos, and regular posts help keep your company page thriving.
So, make sure you create an FB business page and keep it updated regularly to maintain your business ranking.
Having a strong social media presence gives users a sense that your company or brand is legitimate. Plus, a social listing is another great way to create more location-specific content that can be indexed and help boost your local ranking.
Say you’re a makeup artist in Detroit. Creating profiles/pages on various platforms such as Instagram, Linkedin , TikTok, etc., will help establish your brand in that area. That’s because each of these platforms asks for location while setting up your page.
Apart from building links, social media gives you a chance to interact with potential clients and increase visibility. Social shares and interaction may not be a huge ranking factor, but it can impact your company’s overall SEO strategy.
So, create profiles on social media platforms, even if you don’t plan on being extremely active on them.
According to a study by Whitespark, 15% of on-page signals influence a business's local pack and finder ranking. That's because search engine crawlers are constantly combing through on-page content to understand and rank your company.
Of all the text and codes on your pages, alt tags, headers, sitemaps, and URLs are significant factors in indexing. So, add location keywords to these elements to boost your local SEO ranking.
For example, say you're a plumber in Austin, Texas. Adding 'Austin Plumber' to alt tags, headers and URLs will help search engines display your website and services to users in your area.
"Near me" searches have increased by
200% since 2017
and are among the top types of searches conducted by users. Therefore, on-page signals like location keywords help your company show up in more of these proximity-based searches.
Google announced its mobile-first indexing in 2018 , and ever since it's been very important for companies to optimize their websites for mobile devices. Simply put, websites that are responsive for mobile rank higher than those that aren't.
Say you're a car manufacturing company in Detroit, competing against others in your area. By having a website that is responsive for mobile, your company will rank higher than your competitors.
According to Statista, mobile usage accounts for 54.5% of global website traffic. That's why making your website responsive for mobile is a huge ranking factor for general and local SEO.
Additionally, all smartphones have location enabled, and search engines use the device's location to bring up results for search queries.
So, don't waste time; ask your developers to make your website responsive for mobile.
Thanks to structured data markup or Schema, Google displays only the most relevant information that pertains to the search query. Search engines want to give their users the answer directly on the results page without clicking off it. It's a new development and is called zero-click searches or results.
For example, if a user searches for a coffee shop in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the top 3 results will appear in the 'local 3-pack.' This section is then followed by Google Maps and a Q&A section (depending on your search queries). And then lastly, are the top 10 organic search results.
The Q&A section that directly answers a user's search question is thanks to structured data markup. This piece of coding can propel your content to the top spots on SERPs.
So, if you want to get the most visibility, it's imperative to implement structured data markup into your pages.
Search Engines are incredibly discerning when it comes to content. All the new updates to their algorithms help them display only the most relevant, authentic, and reputed content/results.
Local keywords and content tell search engines that your business is located in a specific area, and therefore it will organically appear in more local searches.
If you want to improve your local SEO ranking, one of the first few things you must do is create local content. Say you're a doctor in Detroit and are dependent on local patients to grow your business. Creating local content will establish your website/clinic in Detroit, which will help your business show up in more local searches.
Here's how to incorporate more local content:
● Add NAP info to individual pages,
● Create blogs with location keywords,
● Make videos and geo-tag the location,
● Create event pages, and add local address/venue info, etc.
The information that you fill up in your Google My Business profile is extremely important. That's because Google uses more minor details to help rank your business. When setting up your GMB profile, your industry category is one of those beneficial ranking elements that you must identify.
According to Moz, GMB categories are the third most important signal for getting into the local 3-pack spot. So, for example, if you're a wedding planner, then adding 'wedding coordinator or 'wedding planner' to your profile will boost your local SEO ranking.
The primary category must describe your business and not your service or what you sell. The secondary category can be less specific. So, if we were to use the same wedding planner example above. The ideal primary category would be 'wedding planner' and the secondary is 'event planner.'
Keep in mind the category is shown when your business appears in SERPs. Therefore, being clear will help users identify your business quickly.
Another significant signal is the diversity of the inbound links to your website. According to a study by Moz , diversity with inbound links is the third significant signal for local organic search.
Think of link building as personality traits, the more diverse the traits, the more search engines can understand the company's personality. Which leads to search engines displaying your company/content in more relevant searches.
For example, a contractor in Boston should start reaching out to local news sites and community bloggers to get more clout in that area. Additionally, claiming listings in reputed contractor directories will also strengthen the company's link profile.
Along with link building, ensure that the content on those pages uses location keywords and is local SEO-friendly. Link building + location keywords together are more potent and will boost your local SEO ranking.
So, having quality backlinks from a variety of sources will lead to more brand visibility and appearance in search result pages.
The number one signal when it comes to local SEO ranking is proximity. Currently, Google curates results within a 10-mile radius of the user.
For example, say a person is walking within a 10-mile radius of your shop/company. Search engines will rank your business among their local 3-pack and on their maps. However, the further they walk away from your location, your rank will drop from the top spot.
The good news is there are two ways to ensure that you capture all those people searching for your business in a 10-mile radius. Firstly, claim your Google My Business listing and keep it updated with pictures, reviews, ratings, posts, accurate info, etc.
The other way is to have consistent NAP info on all platforms, including other listings and directories. Those are the two main ways to optimize, keeping in mind a searcher's physical location.
As mentioned earlier, reviews are a significant factor in boosting local SEO ranking. Having reviews on GMB is a top priority. However, users look at reviews and ratings on various platforms before taking additional action.
For example, say a user is looking for pizza in Manhattan. They are more likely to read, and trust reviews from Uber Eats or Zomato. Therefore, having a listing on industry platforms is vital. Additionally, responding to negative reviews and managing them also helps users make decisions.
When it comes to reviews, there are a few smaller signals that also factor into your local SEO ranking. Here are some of them:
1. Responding to negative reviews,
2. Replying to reviews in general,
3. The number of reviews,
4. Reviews from within the city/location area,
5. Location keywords in reviews, etc.
That's why it's important to regularly manage your reviews on popular platforms such as Yelp, GMB, Foursquare, and Bing Place.
Site speed is a ranking factor that also has ramifications on user experience and bounce rate. When thinking about how to boost local SEO, it's important to first understand that your on-page and technical SEO must also be working at optimal.
For example, let's say a pet store website is optimized for local searches but has a site loading speed of 5 or more seconds. Not only will users click off because they are impatient. Also, Google will rank the website lower than the competitor with a site speed of less than 3 seconds.
So, ensure that your site speed is under 3 seconds. Speak to your developers and invest in technical SEO. Or else all the local optimization work you've done will not effectively increase your website ranking.
Additionally, don't forget to optimize the site speed for both desktops as well as mobile, because site speed is also a factor for smart devices.
There is a heated debate on whether or not Click Rate (CTR) has any effect on local SEO ranking. However, CTR is part of overall behavioral signals. These signals have a 7% effect on local pack ranking (Bright Local), which has been on the decline since 2017 when it had a 10% effect.
Keeping that in mind, it's still a good idea to pay attention to the CTR factor. That's because a company wants to rank high on search results pages to get more traffic and clicks on their website. Therefore, CTR and local signals are interlinked.
Monitoring CTR can be done using SEO automation tools such as Ahrefs, Moz, Bright Local, and more. These platforms also have statistics and reports on various signals such as website ranking, CTR, keywords, review management, etc.
There are two types of domain authority known to SEO specialists. One is a system created by Moz to establish a website's rank. According to their study, domain authority is among the top 6 factors that impact local ranking.
The other type of domain authority is to consistently create great content and optimize your website. It's a long process but is a key local search signal. Trying to climb the local SEO ranks without focusing on increasing your overall SEO rank is futile. Both go hand in hand.
That's why, to be an authority in your niche, it's essential to implement an SEO strategy that will improve your company's visibility, awareness, and rank.
Hiring an SEO agency will help improve your local SEO and general SEO rank. Plus, ranking signals are subject to change. Specialists know the best practices and updates that will help your company rank consistently.
1. Claim your Google My Business Profile.
2. Ensure consistency with NAP info on all platforms.
3. Update GMB profile with high-quality pictures.
4. Get backlinks from reputed sources that are part of your local community and industry.
5. Respond to negative reviews on GMB profiles and other listings.
6. Add Structured Data Markup to your website.
7. Put NAP info on all the pages of your website.
8. Curate localized content such as blogs, videos, articles, etc.
9. Strengthen your social presence by getting profiles on social platforms.
10. Add local keywords to headers, alt tags, etc.