See What’s New in Local SEO and 7 Ways to Make it Better!

There’s little doubt that it takes some effort to keep up with all the changes that surround Local SEO these days. Since Google has publicly admitted that there are between 500-600 changes to the search algorithm every year, it’s little wonder people sometimes throw their hands up in frustration when trying to optimize for local SEO.

If your head starts spinning at the mere mention of things like Pigeon, the Local Carousel, and MobileGeddon, then we have good news for you.

We’ve assembled a list of 7 best practices for optimizing your pages for local SEO. Most won’t require a huge technical effort, but can yield significantly better results for you if you get them done!

7 Best Practices for Local SEO

Continue to build links – These days it’s not really the amount of links you have but the quality, and the best way to acquire authoritative incoming links is to produce awesome content people are dying to share and link to.

Be sure to GEO-target your pages – The Pigeon update was all about preferring local content over global when possible. Make it possible on your pages with local geo-modifiers.

Citations still matter – These days it’s about getting quality citations, and cleaning them up so you don’t have duplicate entries and inconsistent data.

Solicit customer reviews – This is the highest form of social proof available, and studies are showing that the overwhelming majority (90%) consult product reviews before purchasing. Ask your present customers; they’ll usually be happy to comply.

Utilize your Google My Business – The latest local business tool offered by Google, this one’s a keeper. You can do many things using this virtual tool suite, including managing your online reviews.

Create and optimize local images – Use unique local images and make sure they are geo-tagged appropriately. This can help you in a number of ways, including Google Images, the 7 pack, Your Google My Business page and more.

Be social – Yet another Google search signal, giving your audience the opportunity to share your content by including social media icons on your pages and content is a no-brainer. Give your content the ability to be seen outside your walls!