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Maps, maps, maps. Local Search Engine Optimisation SEO is all about getting clients and customers on the phone or to your door.

“near me” searches have growth crazily in recent years. “near me today/tonight” has growth by 900% in the past 2 years.

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If you're Not On Google You're not anywhere

What is Local SEO?

Location, location

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.

Signals in local intent

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 Melbourne". 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.

Customer reviews

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.

Google Business Profile

Local searches are 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.

Quality link building

One of the strongest ranking factors boils down to how trustworthy your website appears to Google. If lots of other trustworthy websites are talking about you and linking to you, that's a surefire sign of credibility which is crucial for boosting you up the ranks. That's why quality link building is key for every local SEO campaign. Quality and relevance is also crucial for making an impact. Take the heavy lifting out of accelerating your link velocity with our dedicated link building team.

Local search citations

Another factor that’s important for Local SEO is citations. This is your name, address and phone number (known as NAP) on other online 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. Keeping this information up to date and also consistent across citations is beneficial both for rankings and helping your customers find you!

Keyword research

SEO is all about connecting with ready-to-buy customers where they are: at the top of the Google results! That means aligning every page of your website with the exact phrases they're searching for on Google every day, so your brand has every chance to appear #1. Local SEO in particular focuses on those 'near me' and location-based keywords. Keyword research is essential to mining for the most relevant and ultimately profitable keywords to focus on.

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Specialist lead generation for Local Businesses

Little Fox Agency

Little Fox Agency has been providing Local SEO lead generation campaigns since 2016. Our founder has been generating leads for small, medium and enterprise businesses since 2014.

Growing local businesses is a passion and we’ve been very successful with our current and past clients.

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Get found by people in your area

Generate local community buzz online

So you want to be a local hero? Get noticed online, and the buzz will follow.

More people than ever are turning to search engines, especially on their mobile devices, to find local businesses. Location targeted search marketing that sends you to the top of the listings in your city or region is the ultimate way to tell the community “I’m right here and you want this now!” and direct real customers through your doors. Did you know that 80% of local mobile searches result in an offline purchase or appointment within 24 hours?

Does SEO Work to get new customers and clients?

Tap into the local search phenomenon

Local search is booming. In fact, 4 in 5 people use Google Search or Maps to find local information. Local searches are usually highly relevant, focused around service availability, opening hours and directions. If you want greater local exposure, you need a geo-focused SEO strategy. One that puts you ahead of the competition and in the direct sight of locals whose search behaviour demonstrates their eagerness to check out what you have to offer. Thanks to the ever-growing popularity of local search, you can dominate your niche in regional search results and outrank even the big name competition, no matter what size or how established your brand may be.

Little Fox Agency will help you gain traction on these super relevant searches. We optimise your website, Google My Business profile and business directory listings for location based queries. With an accomplished Local SEO strategy, Google begins associating your business with a certain area, bumping you up the rankings, blowing up your local profile and boosting your bottom line.

Frequently Asked Questions

Curious? Here are some of the more common questions we hear from Financial advisors

What is the difference between SEO and 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 Melbourne”. 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 are niche directories for financial planners and insurance professionals.

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. 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 “financial planner in New Jersey”

What is a local business listing? What is Google My Business?

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.

What is a local business listing? What is Google My Business?

How do I measure local SEO?

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 Little Fox Agency, we will help you outline your goals, track your campaigns and make sense of it all so you can skyrocket sales and revenue.

How much should local SEO cost?

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 “New York restaurant”, you’ll have to invest more than if you want to rank highly in searches for “Bronx restaurant”. Because there are more restaurants in New York than in the Bronx. 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 than ranking 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 one of our Little Foxes. 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!

How long does local SEO take

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.

How do I improve my local ranking on Google? What factors into local rankings?

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 Foxes who make it their business to make your local search rankings soar. Hint: Little Fox Agency can help!