A Comprehensive Guide to Local SEO in 2021

本地搜索对于小型企业来说是强大的：46％的Google搜索正在寻找本地信息, which means if your business isn't optimized for local search, you could be missing out on potential customers who are ready to shop in your area. In short, local SEO is critical if you want your business to stay relevant.

To help you optimize your business for local SEO, we've created a comprehensive guide, which will cover local SEO tips and tools.

By the end of the guide, you'll have a firm understanding on how to optimize your business to reach potential consumers who use local search to choose which products or services they're going to buy.

To gather information for local search, search engines rely on signals such as local content, social profile pages, links, and citations to provide the most relevant local results to the user.

借助本地SEO，企业可以使用它将其产品和服务定位在正在寻找它们的本地潜在客户和客户中。

1. Optimize for Google My Business.

Google My Business已经成为本地搜索的奶油奶油 - 因为Google可以理解地分享它可以支持和验证的内容最舒适，因此Google我的业务是帮助您满足Google需求的工具。

To ensure you're optimized for Google My Business, you'll want to:

1. 创建并验证Google我的业务页面
2. 在您的帐户中使用Google帖子
3. Encourage your customers to share reviews online
4. 真正的回应评论,指定location. For example, “We appreciate your feedback on [product/service] in [city, state]. We value your input and look forward to working with you again. Thank you from the [full company name] team.”

If Google can verify your business as authentic, the search engine could potentially reward your business with a coveted sidebar space in Google local search.

Don't just do this for the SEO, either. By having reviews and keeping your contact information and operating hours up-to-date, you're improving the experience for potential customers to find you. Finding current information is important to consumers, now more than ever, due to 2020's disruption in consumer shopping behavior and business operation.

To learn more about using Google My Business, check out our full posthere.

2. Engage on social media and add posts to Google My Business.

Google认为现在在社交媒体上共享的内容比以往任何时候都更为重要。

Now that you've carved out a beautiful Google My Business page, share the page on social media, further aligning social and search.

3. Ensure your name, address, and phone number are consistent online.

您必须使人们和搜索引擎更容易找到您。为此，请设置您的午睡，该午睡代表名称，地址和电话号码（带有区域代码）。该网站上应将其作为可爬网的HTML文本。

Avoid the common mistake of only including the NAP within an image -- images can't be crawled from search engines like HTML text. The most common location for the NAP is in the footer or header of the site.

4.优化在线目录和引用。

For United States companies, these four map data aggregators provide a large amount of the map data for Apple, Yelp, Bing, Google, Trip Advisor, and more.

• Express Update
• Neustar Localeze
• Foursquare
• 事实

Consistency is key:verify that your citations are consistent并完成这四个数据聚合器。

Discrepancies like misspellings, abbreviations, lack of suite number or wrong phone number can be problematic.

If Google can't determine which information about your business is correct, it may not show your business at all in search results.

此外，请确保删除您发现的所有重复列表。强调社区中商业会员的奖励积分，这将为您提供外部入站链接。

5. Perform a local SEO audit.

一旦您的基本原理倒下，可能会很容易踩刹车。但是，SEO是一个持续而直观的过程。它没有停止那里或简单地进行更改并查看什么粘性，而是有助于执行全面的审核，以查看您的网站所在的位置以及您需要努力实现目标的内容。本地SEO审核可能包括以下内容：

• Google My Business Audit- How does your Google My Business appear in the SERPs? Is the information accurate?
• Google Search Console Audit- 您的网站可以爬网吗？是否有任何错误会阻碍索引？
• 页面SEO审核- 您的网站是否适合所有有助于排名的页面SEO元素？
• Citation Audit- Are all of your citations correct in the top business directories?
• 竞争对手分析- How does your site match up with your competition's? Are there any gaps that you need to close? How do you match up in terms of inbound links, content, design, and positioning?
• Website Audit- How well is your website performing?

6.提高你的实习生al linking structure.

Although external links pointing to your site are ideal (which I'll discuss soon), adjusting your internal linking structure will also boost your SEO rankings.

为什么内部链接很重要？它执行以下操作：

• Supports website navigation
• 协助信息体系结构和网站层次结构
• Distributes page authority and ranking power among pages

If you want to improve your internal linking structure but aren't sure where to start, check out Kissmetrics'一流的SEO内部链接的七个诫命.

7. Optimize URL, title tags, headers, meta description, and content.

When it comes to content, every new blog post is a new indexed page for your site, a new page on which to target a geographic search phrase, and a new opportunity to get found in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

每次写一件内容时，都需要通过使用URL，标题，标题，元描述和身体中的大量关键字来优化搜索引擎的内容。如果您遇到了针对地理目标的内容，请考虑突出客户成功案例和案例研究。

8. Add location pages to your website.

如果您有一个以上的砖和砂浆位置，请创建位置页面。位置页面为读者提供您的姓名，地址，电话号码，商店时间，独特的商店描述，停车/过境信息，促销和快乐客户的推荐。

It's also important you avoid duplicating content across multiple location pages. For single location businesses, create a locally descriptive About Us page. You'll get big time bonus points if youadd a Google Map to your websiteon your respective location page(s).

9. Create local content.

Google continues to get smarter, which means content creators are now able to truly write for users, not search engines. But while writing about general topics will attract a wide crowd, sometimes it's more important to hone your focus and write about local or industry news to attract a local audience.

Be the local authority for your industry by promoting local industry gatherings, news, employees, and other educational content on your blog. Think of top-of-the-funnel content that goes beyond what your business sells.

例如，如果您是本地安全公司，并且正在尝试吸引该地区新手的企业，请创建有用的资源，bob全站app以使这些企业熟悉您的城市。本地服务提供商或全市活动日历的地图都可以为您的角色提供价值，并包含高度相关的页面本地信号。

10. Ensure your website is mobile-friendly.

Local search and mobile search go hand in hand (所有Google搜索的61％是在移动设备上执行的).

Some of the most common ways people will use your site in a mobile environment is to look up reviews, find directions to your location, and search for contact information. In fact, "near me" searches on mobile have increased 250% since 2017 (Think With Google).

Make it easy for your prospects and customers by making your site mobile-friendly.

11. Get inbound links with relevance and authority.

Inbound links are incredibly powerful opportunities to boost your local SEO -- every inbound link tells Google you're a legitimate company, and inbound links can also raise your domain authority. Here are a few ways to get inbound links:

• Sponsorships or Partnerships
• Guest Blog Posting
• 奖学金

从您自己的个人网络开始，其中可能包括商会，业务改善区，许可局，贸易协会，经销商，供应商和/或制造商以及其他分支机构。

Consider sponsoring a webinar or meet-up, hosting a community event, promoting something local you love, and building relationships with prominent people and influencers. Additionally, learn to feel comfortable reaching out to partners to see if they can feature you on their partner directory.

Also, being aguest bloggercan help attract links. Talk to and about (positively, of course!) other people in your industry, and act as a resource provider for the community. If you're an active participant in community conversations, the buzz around you grows in the form of inbound links, social media growth, and media coverage.

12.参加您当地的社区。

The more you participate in the local community, the more数字公关you'll receive. Partnering with a nonprofit on a campaign, having a volunteer day in your organization, sponsoring an event (even an online one!), or appearing in the local media as an authority in your industry are all ways to earn press, brand awareness, and inbound links.

For example, given that .edu links are the bee's knees for domain authority, why not earn some links by featuring a scholarship in your geographic region? It should be relevant to your industry, send the right signals to your domain (given the backlinks from schools) … and make you feel good, too!莫兹（Moz）为有效奖学金宣传的成功步骤奠定了坚实的指南。

Local SEO Tools

Now that we've covered how to optimize your business for local SEO, let's explore some useful tools you can leverage to improve your ranking in the areas where it matters most.

1.Whitespark本地引文发现者

A local citation is any online mention of the name, address, and phone number for a local business.

Citations matter because they help surface local businesses in online search, and when local businesses actively manage their citations to ensure data accuracy, it promotes trust of these online listings.

Whitespark非常了解这个领域 -reallywell. Whitespark offers local listing management, recommends where to list your business, examines your competition, and robustly builds and monitors your citation growth for better local search rankings.

2.尖叫的青蛙

This desktop program crawls websites' links, images, CSS, script and apps from an SEO perspective. Curious if you have any 404's? Wondering about missing meta descriptions or H1's? Screaming Frog will analyze up to 500 URLs for free and offers an unlimited paid version for $200/year.

3.Moz Local

Less expensive than most of its counterparts, Moz Local will ensure your business listing has been verified on Google and Facebook, and distribute your listing across the search ecosystem.

Additionally, Moz Local will collaborate with data aggregators to help push listings, ensuring your business gains visibility.

4.Ahrefs

Ahrefs helps with backlink checking, which is important as these links (which are directed toward your website) serve as an indicator of website authority.

AHREFS还提供竞争对手分析，关键字研究以及对其他网站在反向网站时使用的锚文本的见解。

5.Buzzstream

BuzzStream facilitates earning local backlinks, which helps you identify and build relationships with local influencers by researching influencers, tracking conversations, and providing reporting insights into your outreach campaigns, team performance, and link placements.

6.Brightlocal

Brightlocalis a comprehensive SEO tool suite specifically built for local business marketing needs.

The tool can help you generate and monitor reviews on local sites, understand your local search performance, and analyze nearby competitors.

Brightlocal还提供客户访问和白标的报告 - 使其非常适合代理和品牌。

Local SEO is an important part of any SEO strategy for local businesses. If you have a storefront or service area, local SEO will help your audience find you when they search online.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.