Local SEO: A Guide to Maximising Visibility in Your Area

Table of Contents

• How Local SEO Works
  • The quick answer
  • Who is local SEO for?
  • Where to start
    • 1. Research & focus
    • 2. Your website
    • 3. Google Business Profile & Bing Places for Business.
    • 4. Social media profiles
    • 5. Semrush
    • 6. Other online listings
    • 7. Track, tweak & improve
  • Organic Vs Paid
  • The local advantage in the age of AI
  • Local SEO – Conclusion

Ayup! This introductory guide to local SEO covers everything you need to know to start ranking in your city. I’ll discuss your website, online listings, paid vs organic traffic, social media and backlinks.

Additionally, I’ll cover how local businesses are still benefiting from SEO in the age of AI and zero-click searches.

Over the last eleven years at Clearcut Derby, nearly all of our clients initially found us via our online presence. Here’s how you can start growing your reach to unlock a long-term source of new business.

How Local SEO Works

Who is local SEO for?

Local businesses or any service-based business covering a specific area. To benefit from targeting your local town or city, you’ll need either:

• A physical address where clients or customers can visit you.
• A service area where you visit your clients or customers at their address.

Furthermore, a fully online business, such as a business coach or freelance writer, could easily increase their web presence with local SEO. Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that a business address and phone number will nearly always be beneficial.

Where to start

Here are seven of the most important areas to dive into first. As this is an introductory guide, we’re not getting too technical. Keep in mind, however, that a solid set of website foundations should be in place before tackling any local SEO work.

As legend of the SEO world, Simon Cox so beautifully put it in a recent reply to one of my posts on Mastodon:

It has to be technically sound, or it might not be found.

simoncox.com

1. Research & focus

Firstly, what is it you’re trying to rank for, and where? These answers will define your whole online strategy, so it’s important to set clear goals from the very beginning.

Top tip: Unless you’ve got a humongous budget or an infinite amount of spare time, you’re not going to be able to rank for everything at once.

Instead, consider your primary service and area. Keep it as simple and focused as possible. Once you’re ranking for your main keywords, additional phrases and services can always be added.

Use Google (incognito mode) to search for your service/area keyword and take a good look at what you’re up against. What are the websites on the first page doing right? What wording are they using?

Additionally, I’d highly recommend setting up a free Semrush account. The Keyword Magic tool allows you to see the search volumes and difficulty of your chosen keywords.

Keyword research is one of the few things in SEO that hasn’t changed. No matter how many algorithm updates Google rolls out, understanding how to find and target the right keywords is non-negotiable if you want your content to rank.

Hubspot

2. Your website

Secondly, the most significant of all the steps on this list is your website. From an SEO perspective, WordPress is one of the most powerful options. Paired with the Yoast plugin, you’ll certainly be off to a flying start.

With that said, alternative solutions such as Wix now also offer a robust set of built-in SEO tools. Conduct thorough research and select the ideal platform for your specific business needs.

Either way, your pages should be laser-focused and have a clear goal and purpose. For example, an electrician in Derby would usually dedicate their homepage to those particular keywords.

• Laser-Sharp Focus – Is it immediately clear what you offer? Have you been able to gather any feedback on your website copy? Does it make sense? Less is more. Try not to explain everything that you do all on one page. One page per service/area.
• Website Goals – Set very clear, intentional goals for your website. Lots of businesses I speak to want a website just for the sake of having a website. This is a waste of money. Know what you’re trying to achieve (usually leads/new customer acquisition) and track your progress.
• True Purpose – Once you’ve set your goals, your website will have a purpose. We know exactly why we’re spending time or money on it. It’s not just going to sit there without bringing in any traffic. It’s now positioned to drive enquiries from a targeted audience who are already interested in what you offer.

In the competitive online space, establishing clear goals for your website is essential to achieving business objectives, boosting website traffic and converting leads into paying customers.

Bluehost

3. Google Business Profile & Bing Places for Business.

Although your website is going to do most of the heavy lifting in your local SEO campaign, it’s important to realise that it doesn’t stop there.

This is because we can further expand your online reach with free tools like a Google Business Profile. For certain businesses, this free online listing can bring as many leads and enquiries as your website.

More people search for businesses online than anywhere else, so it’s important to make sure that your local business listing can be easily found on Google and Google Maps. With a Business Profile, creating a great listing takes just a few minutes and doesn’t cost a thing.

Google

Basically, what you want to focus on here is building up a better profile than your competitors. This will significantly improve your chances of ranking above them. Here’s how:

1. Complete your profile – Fill out everything that applies to your business. Only use your exact business name, rather than adding any further keywords. Conversely, make sure the words for your products or services, as well as your area, are all in the description.
2. Images – Continually add plenty of images that show what you’re all about. Think product shots, behind the scenes, images of your location, etc.
3. Build your reviews – Specifically, focus on getting your first ten reviews within a year. Reviews build trust, as well as providing Google with all of the right signals about your business. As a result, they’ll contribute towards your rankings.
4. Post updates – Updates are a bit like social media posts. They’re certainly not going to reach a bigger audience, but they do, however, play a small role in how high Google decides to rank your business profile.
5. Stay up-to-date – Lastly, try to avoid abandoning your profile after setting it up. Those who persevere and keep their listings up to date are usually the ones who come out on top.

Once your Google Business Profile is all set up, you can quickly and easily transfer it all over to Bing Places for Business.

4. Social media profiles

Social media plays several key roles in your Local SEO campaign. Firstly, it’s going to help build your NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency across the web.

Search engines like to see the same business name, location and contact number used across all of your online profiles.

You can set up social media business pages on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and most other networks. You won’t need to use all of them. Instead, research where you’re audience is hanging out, and start there.

The indirect benefits of social media, such as driving website traffic, promoting content, generating backlinks, and contributing to NAP consistency, can positively impact local SEO efforts and overall online visibility.

Local Falcon

Additionally, you can use your chosen platforms to share tips and engage with your potential clients or customers. Although linking to your website will sometimes limit your reach, it’s well worth directing traffic to your blog posts once or twice a week.

5. Semrush

As mentioned in the first/research step, Semrush will be extremely useful to anyone growing their online presence. While it includes plenty of tools that will greatly assist your campaign, let’s take a look at their position and map rank trackers.

• Position Tracking – This keeps tabs on your rankings for specific keywords related to your product or service and the area that you cover. With a free account, you can track up to ten keywords. Rather handily, you can also opt in to receive notifications if your ranking goes up or down by a certain amount (5 is the default).
• Map Rank Tracker – Next up, the map rank tracker tracks the position of your Google Business Profile listing in the maps results. This is vital for a local business because the closer you are to the top of the map pack, the more enquiries you’ll bring in.

6. Other online listings

For quick, free and easy backlinks to your website, you’ll also want to set up accounts on some or all of the following:

• Yell
• Cylex
• Freeindex
• Central Index
• Brownbook
• Infobel
• Acompio
• Hotfrog
• Any listing sites for your specific industry

Again, make sure you’re using a consistent business name, address and phone number across all of your listings. Search engines will check to see if they all match up.

Unlike your Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business accounts, these listings won’t require ongoing maintenance. Set them up, add all of your details, then simply update them if any of your details change. Happy days!

Note: Most, if not all of these sort of listings require a physical business address.

7. Track, tweak & improve

Lastly, tracking your progress will allow you to monitor what’s working and areas that need further attention. There are, of course, many ways to do this, but here are three solid options to get you started.

Semrush – Yes, I’m mentioning it again, but only because it’s so useful. Within Semrush, you can keep track of your rankings on both the search and map results.

With SEO tracking, you can more easily determine whether specific optimizations or SEO campaigns are helping you accomplish your business goals. And uncover strategic insights you can use to improve in the future. 

Semrush

Website Analytics – GA4 is one of the most widely used, but also one of the most complicated. It also requires a super-annoying consent banner. Plenty of GDPR-compliant alternatives are available, including Koko Analytics.

Google Search Console – Always set up and monitor your activity with Google Search Console. This will provide some of the most valuable insights into what people are searching for when they visit your website.

Organic Vs Paid

Is local SEO free? In my recent article on organic SEO, I covered the strategies that don’t rely on any paid ads. Instead, organic growth focuses on a long-term presence, all of which applies to your local SEO campaign.

You can, however, also introduce paid ads (PPC – Pay Per Click) for short-term wins when needed. This can often be advantageous for new businesses or those looking to show up on search engines quicker than it would take with an organic strategy.

The local advantage in the age of AI

Worried about AI overviews and zero-click searches stealing all of your website traffic? Although this is affecting most websites, you’ll be glad to hear that local businesses are one of the few unaffected sectors.

Yes, you’ll most likely see declining numbers for your blog posts, but people searching for your product or service will still need to visit your website or location to find what they need.

Continue to build your online presence as normal, and apply further emphasis on your E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), which will send all of the right signals to search engines.

Local SEO – Conclusion

For local businesses, a local SEO strategy is how people searching for your product or service in your area will find you online.

When optimised correctly, your website, alongside listings such as your Google Business Profile, will bring in a healthy flow of ongoing enquiries. Although it gets more technical than this, the seven areas to initially address are:

• Research and focus
• Your website
• Google Business Profile and Bing Places for Business
• Social media profiles
• Semrush
• Other online listings
• Track, tweak and improve