We all know the importance of good local SEO, but mobile searches are on the rise, in fact, over half of Google searches are made on a mobile. If you haven’t optimised your business for “near me” and local searches, it’s time you consider doing so. Here’s how you can help your business rank, both on desktop and mobile for “near me” related searches.
The Rise of “Near Me” Searches
In the past two years, “Near me” searches have grown massively. Most mobile users now have location or GPS enabled on their mobile devices — and since most apps require this to be enabled, even users who previously had this turned off for privacy reasons now leave them on. This allows Google to automatically detect their current location and present the most relevant and localised search results to the user.
How Do You Optimise For “Near Me” Searches?
Optimising your business for “Near me” searches is extremely crucial to increase your business presence in local search.
Here are some ways through which you can optimise your business for “near me” searches:
1. List your business on Google My Business and optimise it.
In order to get your business to the top of “near me” searches, you need to rank your business on local business results’ pages, as shown in the screenshot below:
Cakeadelic is ranking on top of the local search results when searched with the query “Bakery near me” — but how?
In order to list your business in the local search results, you need to open a business account on Google My Business. Simply click “Start now” and follow the instructions provided to add your business on Google local.
It’s equally important to follow the instructions below to properly optimise your business listing in the Google local search results:
- Enter your complete business name and business address.
- Add the complete direction to reach your business address using Google Maps. Follow this guide to edit your business details in Google.
- Add your business hours and contact details like phone number and website.
- Include your business in the correct category and be as specific as possible.
- Add photos of your favourite services.
- Ask people to leave reviews on your business page. Reviews are a great way to filter the best businesses from the average ones, and Google always prefers to list the best businesses on top. If you want to move your business to the top of local search results, then you need to acquire a ton of positive reviews for your business.
- Make sure the NAP details (Name, Address and Phone Number) remain consistent on all of your business profiles, including social media sites like Facebook.
- Ensure your business information remains accurate, comprehensive and up-to-date.
2. Use proper schema markup.
Schema markup is a great way to help your business stand out from competitors in the local search results. Schema data helps search engines acquire more information related to your business and present them in the form of rich snippets, which are immensely helpful for the user.
Have a look at the below screenshot, where hours have been added in the business listing to avoid any confusion to the visitor. This information is added with the help of a schema markup:
Add schema markup to every location page that your business serves. The schema data should have the business address, hours of operation, and contact information. You can download plugins like ‘schema pro’ that help you add schema to a WordPress website. If you need help with Schema Markup, contact us for more information.
3. Gain backlinks using local anchor text.
Backlinks work well to improve your business rankings on Google local. In order to increase your business rankings for “near me” searches, you need to gain high authority/relevant backlinks with geographically-rich anchor text.
For example, if you want to rank for “near me” searches for the location “Berkshire” and for the category “bakery”, then you need to use location rich variants of anchor text like “best bakery in Berkshire”, “bakery in Berkshire”, “Berkshire bakery High street”, “cakes in Berkshire”, “fresh cakes Berkshire”, etc.
4. Create pages targeting every location of your business, and optimise them.
If your business serves several locations then you need to create different pages for different locations. For example, if your bakery business serves five different towns, for example, Reading, Ascot, Crowthorne, Wokingham and Bracknell, then you need to create five different web pages serving each of these different areas.
Additionally, you need to optimise those web pages for “near me” searches by using the following tactics:
- Keep user-friendly URL structure for easier readability. For example, if you’re advertising a bakery in Berkshire, then name your page “www.mysite.com/berkshire-bakery”.
- Optimise the title and meta tags for your target keyword.
- Add proper alt tags and title tags to the images used in the web page. It’s better if you provide an image of your bakery and use your location keywords in the alt and title tags of the image.
- Add a suitable description to your bakery and include store hours, your menu, store directions, and other amenities offered.
- Include a video of your store and add a video transcription to it. This way, you’ll be able to increase the relevancy of your web page with respect to the specific location your business is serving.
Lastly, use internal linking wisely. You can link to different location-specific pages in the footer of your site with the anchor text “near me” in them.
For instance, have a look at the below footer from TripAdvisor, which links to location-specific pages and also uses the words “near me” in the anchor:
5. Make your site mobile-friendly.
Google prefers to return those sites in the search results that offer the best experience to the user. Making your site mobile-friendly and improving your overall site speed are some of the best ways to improve your site experience for users and rank higher for “near me” searches. Here are some of the best ways to make your site mobile-friendly:
- Make your site responsive so that the same content and experience is delivered to all the visitors regardless of the device they’re using to visit your website.
- Improve your site speed
- Enable compression on your site by using Gzip.
- Use the search bar on your site to make it easier for people to look for information.
- Minify CSS, JavaScript and HTML.
- Reduce the number of redirects and remove render blocking JavaScript.
- Avoid using Flash as it degrades the user experience.
- Turn on auto-correct for forms and the search bar.
- Keep the button sizes large so that it becomes easier for the user to click on it.
- Use browser caching to improve your website loading time.
6. Create a blog and acquire local links.
Creating and maintaining a blog is one of the best ways to acquire local links. A blog lets you share articles on a regular basis, which allows users to remain updated about your business services when they subscribe to it.
A blog is a good way to earn local links — and, additionally, it can persuade users to buy your products when they are in the “I want to know” phase of the customer journey.
You can conduct interviews with local influencers related to your niche and publish them on your blog. The influencers might link to your blog in return, which will help you acquire relevant links.
Additionally, you can conduct local surveys and publish the report regularly on your blog. This is an excellent way to earn authority back link.
If you have an informative list of queries where people are looking to find answers to their questions, then you can create blog posts that specifically answer the exact query of the users.
Conclusion
Local SEO is vital to all local businesses and something that any business will need if they are intending to grow. In the age of mobile phones and smart devices like Alexa, you mustn’t miss out on ranking in ‘near me’ searches.
If you have a website that is not ranking on search engines, we can help. We can run a free SEO audit on your website or help you with a month to month SEO service. Contact us for more details.
