For many businesses, their growth prospects start with their local customers. As the search engines have become more user-friendly and precise, it is a go-to place for all types of information.
If you have a business that has a local storefront or if you are catering to your local audience, you should have a robust local SEO agency in India strategy in place.
When a user enters a local keyword that is relevant to your website, for example, “Chinese restaurant near me”, you would want to appear on the first page of the Google Search Results.
If you fail to grab a spot on the first page, you are likely losing on a lot of potential customers that would have been visiting your restaurant just now.
In this article, we will discuss four key factors that you need to keep an eye on if you want to influence your local SEO rankings by SEO agency in India.
4 Local SEO Factors
Here are all the factors that we will cover in this article –
- Local Keyword Optimization
- Physical Address
- Backlinks & Customer Reviews
- Online Directories
Let’s get started!
1. Local Keyword Optimization
By this time, you might have a slight idea about how SEO works. You type in a keyword phrase regarding what you are looking for in the search engine, and it lists down all the relevant websites and URLs that fit your keyword’s intent and criteria.
This said keywords play a crucial role in the entire SEO process. For example, to find a car wash service in Brooklyn, people would generally type in “car wash in Brooklyn” into the search box.
Similarly, if you wish to be found in your local area, you must pay attention to local keyword optimization.
2. Physical Address
Even though you don’t have much control over it, you should know how it influences your location-based searches.
For example, if someone is looking for a bookstore in Manhattan, the search engine will list down the bookstores located in the nearby areas of the user first.
This said, your physical location plays a crucial role. For example, if you have a bookstore that is in Brooklyn, but you want to rank for people in Manhattan, that’s going to be a toughie.
However, you can invest in the best SEO agency in India to boost your overall search ranking.
3. Backlinks & Customer Reviews
As the search engines go on to prioritize user experience, they would want to see proof that your business is doing well. Backlinks & customer reviews are a way to create a proof. Backlinks serve as a token of goodwill that signals the search engine algorithms that your website has everything that a potential customer would be looking for. To establish your online reputation, you need to build good relationships with other sites to have them mention a link to your website on their page.
Encourage your loyal customers to write reviews about your company online, especially the reviews that are connected to your Google My Business profile This is because, when you show up in the search, these customer ratings will appear alongside other details on your business.
4. Online Directories
Your aim should be to appear as a legitimate and reputable business on the web. One sure-shot way to do this is by getting listed in credible online directories.
One thing to be sure of is that you need to keep your details constant throughout the web. This includes your contact information, address details, and your opening hours.
How Is SEO Related To Semantic Web?
User intent is an essential part of acing the SEO game. The purpose of the user’s search cannot be overlooked if you are looking for SEO to help you generate more organic traffic.
However, many entry-level SEO masters find it challenging to wrap their heads around this connection.
The developments of semantics have further boosted the world of search technology.
Let’s first understand the definition of Semantics.
“Semantics: It is the historical and psychological study of changes in words or forms viewed as factors in linguistic development.”
Understanding this definition will help you understand Google’s update back in the summer of 2013.
It was in 2013 that Google rolled out its Hummingbird algorithm. This update was purely based on semantics. It was this update that took a toll on several websites that ranked for specific keywords, making them lose their rankings. The search engine was now able to understand the intent with which the user is searching.
Unlike before, when the search engine listed results based on the keywords and phrases that the users input, now they look beyond the keyword to grab hold of “what exactly is the user trying to find by using a particular keyword?”.
Before we go deeper into the topic, you must remember that the ultimate goal of SEO is to bring in more leads organically to know more about SEO trends 2021.
Google’s Knowledge Graph
If you’re not familiar with Google’s Knowledge Graph, here’s a simple summary of what it does.
Unlike Google Crawler that just indexes whatever new information is posted on the web to show it for relevant searches, the Knowledge Graph goes a few steps ahead to organize various concepts and themes before the searches are done.
Why Is This Crucial?
A keyword or a phrase can mean different things. Earlier, the search engines used to have difficulty differentiating intents and meanings for these keywords when searched for. Because everything is about enhancing user experience, semantic web can be a crucial help.
As humans, we have particular nuances. When we say “money in the bank”, we could mean different things like – literally money being saved in the bank, or a more fugaritative meaning like “achieving a goal”.
With the incoming of semantic search in SEO, Google’s is now able to differentiate between such nuances.
A few ways in which you can take advantage of semantics for your SEO project is by using –
- Schema
- Metadata
- Titles
- Subheads
By strategically optimizing your content keeping in mind the user intent you want to target, and updating this content to several areas of your web page like schema, metadata, titles, and subheads, you can optimize your website.
Use Of Rich Snippets
You should use Schema markup to use snippets for presenting more data about your services in the search results. If you want to optimize your search results for semantic targeting, your rich snippets should be optimized keeping in mind the user’s intent you wish to target, covering all the topics like – who it is for, what all does it cover, and what all do you offer.
One way to initiate this process is by making your heading a question and then answering it with detailed data and content. The search engines can then pick up this data and provide it as an answer to the user in the form of a snippet.
Importance of Content
Gone are the days when you used to optimize your content for a particular keyword. Now is the time to optimize your content for the search intent.
By including a detailed description of your content topic from every angle, you can optimize your website for semantics.
This said a few words content would no longer work. You must go into the in-depth details and cover every element of the topic you wanted to rank on, without any confusion.
Limit the phrases that can mean multiple things and target direct phrases and keywords that exclude anything vague. Be straightforward!
Wrapping up!
Semantics is the difference between traditional and advanced SEO. To make your organic investment fruitful, you need to hire the top SEO company that can assist you in your SEO efforts to bring in more relevant and targeted leads and conversions. Before hiring any SEO Agency in India, you need to have at least some knowledge of the relationship between SEO and semantic research. Now that you know the critical role that local SEO plays in your overall success in online business, you must hire best company that offers the most effective in local seo and help you rank higher and improve your store footfall.