How to Improve Local SEO: 11 Best Practices

Local SEO is the process of optimizing your online beingness to assistance your concern look successful hunt engines erstwhile adjacent users hunt for applicable products oregon services. 

Implementing section SEO tactics tin assistance to summation ft and web traffic, negociate your online reputation, and vie with adjacent businesses. 

Plus, ranking for section keywords tin thrust concern results. Because users conducting section searches are typically acceptable to bargain a merchandise oregon usage a service.

Like those looking for a landscaping institution oregon a location cleaning service. 

11 Tips to Improve Local SEO

Follow these champion practices to boost your local SEO:

1. Optimize Your Google Business Profile

Google Business Profile is simply a escaped concern listing from Google, and optimizing it helps Google recognize your concern and amusement it for applicable hunt terms. 

An optimized Google Business Profile tin assistance you look successful the local pack. This is wherever Google displays the astir applicable section businesses for that hunt term, on with a representation showing their locations.

Like this:

Once you acceptable up your Google Business Profile, optimize it with Semrush’s GBP Optimization tool.

Enter your concern accusation to spot tons of actionable tips to amended your listing and boost your online presence.

2. Leverage Directories and Local Citations 

Your concern is much apt to look successful section hunt results if its accusation appears successful galore trustworthy sources. 

These online mentions are known arsenic citations successful local concern listings and different directories. Your business’s name, address, and telephone fig (NAP) accusation should beryllium accordant crossed those sources.

Semrush’s Listing Management instrumentality helps you physique section citations. And ensures they show accordant NAP information. 

In the instrumentality overview, you’ll spot accusation astir your existing listings. And immoderate problems to fix. 

You tin besides spot the fig of lawsuit reviews, your mean prima rating, and tips to amended your reviews and ratings.

All businesses should spell aft wide citation sites similar Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Foursquare. Because they’re wide recognized. And spot tons of website traffic, which means much imaginable customers volition spot your listings. 

But besides see niche-specific citations. For example, restaurants would beryllium omniscient to see DoorDash.

3. Track and Manage Your Online Reviews 

Good reviews positively power section SEO due to the fact that they’re among the main factors hunt engines see for section rankings. 

In this example, the bowling alleys with the highest fig of affirmative reviews apical of the results. 

Reviews besides assistance physique spot with customers. Especially erstwhile you marque an effort to respond to them.

The Review Management instrumentality helps by scanning implicit 70 directories. 

Enter your concern sanction successful the hunt barroom and prime your concern from the drop-down list. 

Scroll down to “Manage estimation & way competitors” to spot your full fig of reviews and mean rating.

Click “Manage reviews now” to motion up for a program that volition springiness you entree to each of Semrush Local. 

Then, spell to the “Reviews” tab to spot each your reviews from antithetic directories. 

Click to unfastened reviews successful the directory wherever they occurred. Or respond to Google reviews straight wrong the tool.

Either way, enactment to respond to each reviews. To amusement customers you care. 

That’s existent adjacent for antagonistic reviews. In fact, a bully effect to a antagonistic reappraisal tin positively interaction your concern image. 

Here are immoderate speedy tips for responding to antagonistic reviews: 

• Respond promptly 
• Offer to remedy the situation, specified arsenic issuing a refund
• State your committedness to improving your merchandise oregon service

Finally, encourage your customers to permission reviews. And marque the process casual for them by providing wide instructions and nonstop links to wherever they tin supply reviews.

4. Add Local Business Schema to Your Website 

Schema markup is simply a benignant of structured information added to webpages to assistance hunt engines recognize your website and marque you eligible for rich results—unique hunt results that basal retired from modular results. 

Local concern schema is utilized to convey indispensable accusation astir section businesses. Including location, operating hours, and the benignant of business. 

Schema.org provides a modular vocabulary you tin usage to specify your concern benignant and the cardinal accusation astir it.

You don’t person to beryllium an adept coder to instrumentality section schema markup. Because tools similar Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper tin assistance you easy make basal section concern schema. 

Here’s how:

Choose “Local Businesses” and participate your URL. Then, click “Start Tagging.”

On the near side, item the conception you privation to people up. And take the due schema constituent from the menu.

When you’re done, click “Create HTML” successful the apical close corner.

In this example, we’re tagging the restaurant’s operating hours. 

You tin past transcript and paste the HTML markup into the <head> tag of the due page.

Finally, marque definite to travel Google’s structured information guidelines. Violating these guidelines tin marque you ineligible for appearing successful affluent results.

5. Target Local Keywords

Focusing connected local keywords means your contented volition beryllium applicable to audiences successful your area, which tin summation the accidental that Google volition fertile your contented successful section searches.

Local keywords are circumstantial hunt presumption radical successful your country usage to hunt for products, services, oregon information.

Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool tin assistance you find section keywords to target. 

Open the tool, participate a effect keyword (a wide hunt word that’s applicable to your business) and location. To get personalized recommendations, participate your domain successful the “AI–powered feature” bar. 

Then, click “Search.”

You’ll get a database of related keywords with adjuvant information astir each term’s search intent, search volume, and keyword difficulty score. These metrics usher your contented selling and SEO strategy. 

The Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD %) file shows however hard it volition beryllium for your circumstantial domain to fertile successful the apical 10 results for a fixed keyword. 

To find section keywords, click the “Include keywords” drop-down menu, prime the ellipse adjacent to “Any keywords,” and adhd benignant successful applicable locations.

Then, click “Apply.”

You’ll present spot a database of keywords circumstantial to your desired locations. 

Use this accusation to take the applicable section keywords to make contented for. 

6. Create Location-Specific Landing Pages

Creating a dedicated landing leafage for each concern determination helps Google recognize that each determination is simply a chiseled entity and lets you marque a focused SEO effort for each location. 

On each of these landing pages, see location-specific keywords successful the main heading, subheadings, assemblage content, and meta tags. 

Check retired this landing leafage for a section concern that people incorporates section keywords successful its heading and content: 

7. Audit Your On-Page SEO Health

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing your webpages to assistance them fertile higher successful hunt engines and thrust much postulation to your website. 

One mode to bash this is to place your on-page issues and enactment to code them.

In the On Page SEO Checker, participate your domain sanction and click “Get ideas.”

If you haven’t acceptable up this domain arsenic a task successful Semrush, the instrumentality volition usher you done the process. 

And past springiness ideas to amended your on-page SEO, including tips related to strategy, backlinks, method SEO, and more. And a database of pages to optimize successful bid of priority. 

Click “# ideas” to the close of 1 of the URLs to get elaborate recommendations.

Which look thing similar this.

8. Create and Publish Locally Relevant Content 

Publishing section contented helps Google recognize that your concern is applicable to section searches. 

Emphasize your transportation to the section country passim your website. Like connected your homepage, astir page, and blog.

Like this:

On your blog, see covering topics similar lawsuit occurrence stories, vicinity spotlights, section events, and area-specific guides. 

Like this blog from 4 Rivers Smokehouse does: 

It features a assortment of section contented astir the business’s property mentions, vacation tips, and section events. 

9. Prioritize Local Backlinks

Backlinks are links from different websites to yours and are an important Google ranking factor. 

Links from authoritative websites to yours amusement Google that your contented is invaluable and trustworthy. Like votes of confidence. 

For section SEO, absorption connected links from locally-relevant websites. For example, from different section businesses oregon publications.

Publishing high-quality contented tin people gain you backlinks. 

Or you tin build links by contacting applicable tract owners straight and asking for backlinks wherever it makes sense. 

When doing link gathering outreach: 

• Create personalized emails tailored to each prospect
• Work to physique a narration with the imaginable earlier asking for backlinks. Like commenting connected their contented oregon pursuing them connected societal media.
• Demonstrate however linking to your website tin payment their concern oregon audience
• Keep a grounds of your outreach efforts to assistance you enactment organized. Semrush’ Link Building Tool makes it easy. 

10. Optimize for Mobile

Optimize your tract for mobile hunt due to the fact that astir section searches hap connected smartphones. 

Plus, Google uses mobile-first indexing. Which means it prioritizes the mobile mentation of your website for indexing and ranking. 

Optimizing for mobile means:

• Ensuring you’re utilizing a responsive website that automatically adapts to mobile devices’ smaller screens
• Using font sizes that tin beryllium work easy connected a mobile device
• Using abbreviated paragraphs
• Using a cleanable and intuitive navigation menu
• Including wide links and buttons that are casual to click

Like this example:

Being progressive successful your section assemblage supports your SEO efforts. 

This is because:

• Making an content locally tin pb to affirmative online reviews
• Having a strong, in-person beingness locally could promote section backlinks to your website
• Getting to cognize your section assemblage helps you recognize their needs and interests. And could animate applicable contented oregon adjacent caller products oregon services.

Improve Your Local SEO and Track Your Rankings

Start improving your section SEO by tracking your reviews and rankings connected Google Maps.

Semrush’s Map Rank Tracker shows your mean fertile compared to different section businesses and tracks your advancement implicit time.

This station was updated successful 2025. Excerpts from the archetypal nonfiction by Camillus Kingori whitethorn remain.