Local SEO

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.

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!

If you want to smash the competition and boost visibility in local search, you need to do three things and you need to do them well: optimise your Google My Business, improve your on-page SEO, and deliver consistency.

The single most important thing you can do to boost your local search ranking is to claim and optimise your Google My Business account. When we say optimise, we mean you need to make it the best and most complete listing it can be. Choose the correct categories, add pictures, get reviews, respond to reviews and so on. However, this is simply the beginning.

Create local listings for your business across other major and niche directories too. The more directories your business is listed on, the more Google will trust your business and the higher you will rank in local SERPs.

Second, Local SEO success relies on your website. No surprises there! Add geo-specific location pages to your website. This is a brilliant tactic for retail business or franchises with more than one location. But simply having a few location-specific webpages isn’t enough. Your whole website should be optimised to rise up the ranks in local SERPs. That means on-page elements such as headings right through to unique, relevant content that really focuses on the local market. Short and low quality content simply won’t do.

Let’s talk about content for a moment. Creating local content is essential if you want to rise the ranks on local search results. Zone in on your local area and write about local or industry news to engage local audiences. Think local news, fundraisers, and other topics relevant to your business and the area. As well as appealing to Google, this will build your profile as a member of the local community.

Inbound links are another incredibly powerful factor to boost your local ranking. As well as telling Google you’re a legitimate business, inbound links can also raise your domain authority. Focus on building links that are local and relevant to your business, such as sponsors and partners.

Of course, none of this will work if your website isn’t set up for great SEO. Build a solid link profile. Make sure your meta descriptions are optimised. Use relevant keywords. All the proven tactics for organic SEO.

There is another factor that will supercharge your Local SEO results. A factor you might not have thought about: Consistency. Google loves consistency. The reason is simple – Google wants to make sure it is providing accurate information to its searchers. So, it looks to your listings. Do you have different phone numbers on all your listings? Google won’t be happy. Maybe your business name is spelt slightly different on different listings? Google won’t be happy. Make sure your name, address and phone number (NAP) are consistent across all review sites, directories and social media. This won't just make Google happy; it will make life easier for any customers trying to connect with your business.

Bottom line, Local SEO requires a strategic and targeted approach. You can just add your city name to your keywords and content and expect local customers to come running through your doors. Our tip? Work with SEO Gurus who make it their business to make your local search rankings soar. Hint: OMG can help!

Local business listings are absolutely essential to local search, and Google My Business is the cream of the crop. Get Google My Business right and you should be nicely rewarded with a top spot in Google local search. Get it wrong, and you’ll struggle to be seen by local customers.

So, what exactly is Google My Business? Google My Business is an interface that lets you take charge of how your business is displayed across all of Google’s platforms, including its search engine results pages (SERPs), reviews, Google Maps and more. Every business has its own profile including a map location on Google Maps, photos of the business, reviews, a website, contact details, business hours, and more. In short, it tells people what you do and where you do it.

Why did Google create Google My Business? Here’s the deal. Google wants to share content it can support and verify as being legitimate. Google My Business has been designed to help your business meet Google’s needs. The best part is, it’s free.

Bottom line, if you want to win in local search, you need to ensure you’re optimised for Google My Business. It is quite simply the easiest and most effective way to get your Local SEO up and running. Start by claiming your Google My Business page. This will give your control over your listing. Then, within your Google My Business account, you can optimise your profile for the best results. Working with Local SEO experts like OMG makes this easier, as they can make sure you tick all the right boxes.

There’s another reason why Google My Business is important. If people are searching on a mobile device, organic results now show below the fold (i.e. you have to scroll down to see them). For your business to show up on the top, you need to make sure it’s part of Google’s local results.

It’s all about visibility – the Holy Grail for websites. Thousands upon thousands of third-party sites rely on Google for their data. Complete your business profile and you have a higher chance of being featured on these sites. Like we said, visibility.

Another big ranking factor within Google My Business is positive reviews. Ever noticed the star rating next to a local business listing on Google Maps? This comes from reviews. Encourage customers to leave great reviews on your GMB listing and you'll build a star rating. We don't have to tell you that the higher your rating, the better the click-through rate.

Google My Business isn’t the only local business listing you should focus on in your Local SEO. Google looks at all sorts of citations to make sure it’s giving out the right information. Start building citations for your listings on local business listing websites and other directories, and make sure the same information is displayed in each place.

Consistency is absolutely essential. Keeping your Google My Business up to date will ensure the accuracy of your business’s information in Google. This means any apps and services that rely on Google for their information will also be accurate (phew!). But it’s down to you to make sure other business listings have the right information.

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.

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 to rank than 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!

It’s the million dollar question: how long will it take to start seeing results from Local SEO? First things first, as with general SEO, it takes time for good Local SEO to get results. There’s no magic formula to fly you straight to the top of the local search engine page results (SERPS). It takes time. Exactly how much time depends on many factors.

First, are you starting from scratch? If you’ve only just claimed your Google My Business page and have never done any SEO before, it will take longer than if you have a solid foundation to start from. Whereas companies that come to us with a good SEO foundation obviously see results more quickly than those who have never done SEO before.

Another factor to consider is whether you’re trying the DIY approach or are hiring a professional SEO agency. For a DIY approach, it’ll be longer before you see results, simply because you have to dedicate the time to learn the right tactics and put them to work. Work with a Local SEO agency, like OMG, and you’ve got experts dedicated to your success.

That said, there’s still the budget to consider. The more budget you can invest in your Local SEO, the faster you’ll see your website soar to the top of local search. That’s because you can post more content, test out different tactics, build more links and so on.

But no matter your budget, you should look at Local SEO the same way you look at any SEO: with a long-term lens. Local SEO is a process. It takes time to demonstrate your authority to Google and to build your local reputation online. Things won’t happen overnight. The great news is, the longer you maintain a first-rate Local SEO strategy, the more momentum you build and the better the results will be. Sure, you need to be patient in the beginning as you set things up and Google starts taking notice, but this is a foundation that you are laying for the future of your business. It’s worth taking the time to get it right.

The challenge will be if you’re trying to maintain this momentum in-house. You might start off with the best intentions, but over time other priorities will appear and you (or your team) will be pulled in different directions. The minute you stop actively working on your Local SEO, things will start falling apart. Simple as that. That’s where a Local SEO agency comes into play. Work with OMG and you can be confident you always have a team monitoring and tracking your campaign, tweaking and fine-tuning your strategy to deliver results you can see.

We hate to say it, but there are plenty of non-reputable SEO agencies out there that will promise you overnight Local SEO success. It’s not possible. Don't be fooled by their guarantees. They're either giving you empty promises to win your dollars, or they are relying on “black hat” unethical practices that will harm your website in the long run. Work with an honest, reputable Local SEO company and you’ll get long-term results that help your business grow.

We’re born and bred in Australia. We get local businesses. This might not sound like much, but it’s actually really important for Local SEO. It’s one thing ticking all the right SEO boxes, but you need a local SEO company that understands your target audience and how they will be searching for products and services.

Do you want some anonymous SEO team working on your business? Of course not. OMG becomes your local SEO partner. We get to know your business, your market, your challenges and your goals to create truly effective local search results. We don’t just give Google what it needs, we give consumers exactly what they need to pick you over all other local businesses.

Our Local SEO is driven by data. At the end of the day, we know you want more customers, more sales and more revenue. So, we don’t focus on numbers that are virtually meaningless, like “more traffic”. We develop a Local SEO strategy for you that will help you get more value for your budget and kick the goals that are important to you.

Anybody can start adding your location to web pages and publish a few blogs with your local keywords. What you get when you work with OMG is next level stuff. We build a comprehensive strategy that combines data with technical know-how and local expertise. It’s a rare combination, and we’ve got it down to a fine art. Everything we do is “white hat” (AKA ethical and honest) and designed for long-term success. No fly-by-night “tricks” that might work today but will bring your website penalties in the future.

We can’t talk about being the best SEO company in Australia without spruiking our team. Our Gurus have a ridiculous amount of experience working with every type of business, from B2B to B2C, restaurants to plumbers, franchises and start-ups to multi-generational family businesses. Drawing on these skills, we develop a killer strategy that works for your bottom line. Best of all, we’re completely transparent. You won’t need to worry about hidden tactics that may or may not be ethical. We’ll always tell you what we’re doing and why.

You don’t have to take our word for it – our clients are pretty convincing! We have clients all over Australia and helping them grow is literally our favourite thing to do. Nothing’s more rewarding than seeing sales skyrocket for a local business, or having a local store tell us they just had the best sales weekend EVER. This is exactly what happens when we work on Local SEO for Australian businesses. We make things happen. Read our case studies to see exactly the kinds of results we’ve achieved for local businesses. What you’ll immediately notice, aside from all the buzz about insane revenue increases and sales conversions, is that every client talks about how honest and genuine we are. We don’t take this at face value. It’s absolutely the best compliment our clients can give us. Because in SEO, as in business, trust is everything.

So, what do you say? Let’s work together to own your local search presence.