What is Local SEO?

It is the improvement processes that are carried out on the websites and pages of companies / institutions / centers / restaurants that have a presence on the ground that provide a service limited to a specific geographical place (for example, at the state level) so that the person looking for these services is interested in finding service providers from the same area.

That is, it does not search for text, video or other content, the search is for local places and services close to it.

For information, 46% of searches on Google are local searches ( source ), meaning that they are for the purpose of obtaining information about nearby places. Do you think the number is large? How often do you search for a restaurant? Dental Clinic? Sport club? cafe? All these searches are considered local, which is why you should pay close attention to local SEO for any business that has a presence on the ground.

On-Page SEO A complete explanation of internal SEO

?How do local SEO results appear

We mentioned the side part of the search results page, so that it displays information about the place with all its details, pictures and ways to communicate with the place, but this is not all about local SEO, on the contrary, these results appear when someone searches for the exact name of the place “almost” and does not reach customers Mostly new.

For example, the dentist Salem Suleiman has a clinic, the skill is not only to show all his information when someone searches for “Dr. Salem Suleiman’s clinic”, this is a good part of the process, but the most important thing is that the result of his clinic appears when searching for a “dentist” or "Dental Clinic".

So there are two types of results in local SEO, and they are interrelated, the first is the big result on the side of the search page, like this:

Google My Business Picture of the Pyramid of Khufu

Yes, do not be surprised that the Khufu pyramid has a record on “Google My Business.” This issue, as we mentioned, is not related to companies only, but also to any place that has a presence on the ground and provides services to people.

What is important here, is that this result appears when we search for “Khufu’s Pyramid”, for example, but our friend, the dentist Salem Suleiman, does not want to be satisfied with this, so whoever searches for his name directly will often want contact information or a map, the dentist wants to appear here:

Searching for a dentist

Herein lies the importance of improving your business on Google, so that it appears when someone searches for your services and not just your direct name.

The difference between normal SEO and local SEO

In most of the articles I have read on this site, whether in the blog or in the SEO series , or any other site that talks about the basics of the work of search engines SEO, most of the talk was about SEO in general, how can you improve the appearance of your pages for any audience, being mostly Provide written content on your site, that anyone can benefit from anywhere in the world, unlike local SEO.

Local SEO is directed to the residents of a particular area, it does not differ from “normal” SEO if we call it that in terms of writing methods and others, but the essential difference is that normal SEO provides content, while local SEO provides direct services to people looking for us.

Add your business (your company) to Google My Business

First of all, you need to add your location to Google Maps (in case it hasn't been added before) and establish ownership of it.

To add a map location, visit the official Google My Business website here .

Search for your site in the search box, if it does not appear, click on “Add to Google” or “Add your business to Google” as in the picture:

Add a place to Google My Business

You will see several screens after this to fill in your business information, try (and must) add all the information correctly and accurately from address, photos, opening hours, services, and more.

Tip: If you do not have a real place on the ground, do not do this, and do not pay anyone to do this, it will be known that this site is virtual and will be deleted, whether in a short time or if the period is a bit long, Google My business is directed to the owners of places that have a physical presence, and adding virtual places is against Google's instructions in this regard.

Fill in your Google My Business information

It is not about some pictures, your location on the map and the phone number, but there is a lot of information that you have to add for your business, and all of it will ultimately raise the ranking of your result when searching for your services.

Enter your detailed address, the area, street, and building number, if any, and pay attention to setting the map address to the most accurate place. Imagine that someone arrived at your location, but it was only 20 meters away, so he went to your nearby competitor because he did not find you?

Categories are one of the most important things that you have to fill in correctly. Through them, Google understands what your business is and what results are worth appearing on it (based on Google’s understanding of what you offer, and what searches are close to that), in case the available ratings do not match what you offer. , choose a category a little more general, or close to your services, not all sub-categories are available as options.

Also, don't forget to add your contact numbers, and your website if you have one (and is there another option these days? This article can be considered a first step to building your website ).

The most important step, Verify your listing, most likely the only way will be by sending a code via postal mail, unfortunately Google does not support email for this, you have to fill in your zip code and mailbox if any, and wait for the code to arrive.

To be honest with you, in many cases this code will not arrive, it will be lost somewhere as it is a small envelope and is not taken care of in the post offices, after several attempts to request the code (after waiting long enough), the verification of ownership can be enabled by sending a code via Phone or have them call you to confirm the information.

After installation you will have full permissions on the activity, you can add images, detailed services, respond to reviews, and much more, you have to take care of all the details of the activity to ensure a higher reach for any potential customer.

Do not neglect the reviews part on your business, you can request it from your customers (but of course do not tell them to leave 5 stars), this helps greatly to build a good credibility of your place, and also the ranking of your activity on the search results of your services.

Youtube SEO basics

Optimizing the local SEO of your website

One of the most important factors that affect the appearance of your site in local search results (pay attention, we are talking about sites and not places from Google My Business) is the Top Level Domain extension, as we know there are country-specific extensions, such as .jo, .eg or .sa for Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, respectively.

Sites that serve one region and their domain with a local extension, this helps them appear on the local results in that country, but if you provide services in more than one country, I never advise you to use a local domain, it is very difficult to show the result of your site (with the extension of Jordan for example) on Searches are conducted from Egypt.

So you have to choose your domain extension carefully based on what you offer.

Suppose you have a company specializing in photography, most likely your services will be limited to a specific region, your company operates in Saudi Arabia, and you have different offices in Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca, and others.

In this case, the content of your site should clarify this, and you are not satisfied with using a Saudi domain only, it is possible that the dates of each office are different from the other, its services also have what distinguishes it, in this case you can build landing pages for each of your offices For example, if your site is PhotoPro.sa, you can make different pages like this:

Thus, this helps you to improve the search results of your site in these places, but beware of building many pages only to appear in these places (and you do not have offices in them), this will affect the weight distribution of your pages instead of being for the home page, it will be divided into many pages.

Your activity on the services and reviews sites

Do you have a restaurant? hotel? medical clinic? Or even a tour company? There are many sites that provide reviews services for places and allow users to rate these places like TripAdvisor etc. Try to establish ownership of your activity on these sites, and fill in all your information correctly there.

Also, be sure to respond tactfully to all reviews, as this shows that the owner of the place is very interested in the opinions of users (customers) and is active in interacting with them.

External links to your site

If your activity is in the state of Jordan, for example, it is illogical that the majority of its external links are from the state of Morocco!

Therefore, when you start a plan to build and earn your external links , you should direct your attention to the local sites in your country, of course your competitors will not accept referring to your site on their sites, but it is easy to communicate with the large sites in your country that do the listing for all companies and institutions in the country, fill in All your information on these sites (for example, in Jordan and other countries, there is a Jeeran site on which the majority of commercial activities are carried out in these countries, and there are dozens like it).


Look for these sites and earn your links from them, as they are the easiest, and also try to get external links from sites close to your field and working in the same area as yours (but they do not compete directly with you).

Conclusion

There is a lot to do in the local SEO field, and this article will not suffice to cover all of this, as much of what applies to SEO optimization on public sites also applies to local sites, we recommend that you read the SEO series for a greater and comprehensive understanding of how these engines work:

GuinRank Tool | Comprehensive training on the Gene Rank Tool

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