Local Awareness: Local SEO Tool To Increase Local Involvement

Let's pretend you're up for a cup of coffee and checking open coffee shops on Google Maps. What coffee shop would you rather choose? I bet the one that is currently open, within 10 mins walk, with high rating and good reviews, has outdoor sitting option if you'd like to enjoy your coffee outside or has a takeout option.

Now, let's take a look from the other side — you are the owner. You'd have way less visitors to your coffee shop if such information were not available for your potential customers or you were not displayed on Google Maps at all. And you'd have more customers if you included information about payment, delivery options, if the mask is required or if it's a pet-friendly place, etc. This way, you're setting correct expectations for your potential visitors, which will directly affect customers' satisfaction. That's why you need to improve your local SEO.

Like with the regular SEO, you will need to do a research for local keywords. A local keyword is a keyword that potential customers are typing into Google whenever they're searching for products and services just like yours. When you start to rank for these keywords, you can drive targeted and highly qualified local traffic away from your competitors — and towards your website.

When optimizing your content with local keywords, it's important that you research them the right way. A good way to start is by brainstorming and then listing all the different services you offer. For example, a dentist might offer teeth cleaning services, emergency dentist services, root canal services, and more.

If you're not sure about all the services you offer, or which a customer might inquire about, consult your team and existing customers. Then, once you've got your terms, check out any synonyms that might be useful, and which your customers might be using when they type your business into Google. You may find Serpstat's Related keywords report useful for this.

Listing your business on Google My Business, TripAdvisor, Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare and other directories essentially means that your business is suddenly much more visible in search results. After adding it, people searching for your product or service in your area will see it listed. They will see your address, your phone number (if you've added it), any other contact details, as well as your opening hours, and customer reviews.

For instance, if you're a plumber in New York and someone types in “plumbers in New York," there's a big chance that your business will appear alongside the other plumbers in New York.

How do you add your business to local business directories?

Surely, you can add them one by one — first directory, second, third… and then update the outdated information after a while. However, you must agree that it may consume a lot of time, especially if your business has multiple locations in multiple countries. There is a way — manage your business presence and reputation in Google Business Profile, Yelp, and other numerous local directories from a single dashboard in a matter of minutes with Serpstat Local SEO tool!

No more need to waste your time updating the information about your business in dozens of directories separately — fill out the information in Local SEO and synchronize it across all your directories automatically.

The tool is a must-have for every offline business, as well as for online companies.

Now let's look through all the sections in the Local SEO tool!

The dashboard shows the summary statistics for all your locations. The tool will let you know the average percent of profile completeness, the number of listings in syncs and those requiring your attention or if you have duplicated info in your listings.

The menu on the left allows you to switch between tabs easily, and the activity feed on the right keeps you updated on any news regarding your locations.

Below, you'll find the average rating, reply rate, rating activity, Google and Facebook impressions and clicks.

The info from Google and Facebook will not be available right away — you'll need to connect your GMB and Facebook accounts first:
1. go to Locations;
2. select a location;
3. go to the Directories tab;
4. connect your Facebook and Google accounts.

One of the most effective strategies to improve your rankings in local SEO is to fill out as much information as possible in your listings profiles. This ensures that all the important data about your business is being presented to the right audience. If all your listings are up-to-date and contain accurate information, you're less likely to experience any negative effects from an algorithm change or update. And that's a good thing.

Here's where things can get a bit tricky. Although filling all your listings is crucial, it isn't always easy to achieve. One of the main reasons is that while having listings in local directories, it takes way too much time filling out the info in separate directories. And if they're not updated with the newest information, they could potentially be missing out on conversions due to inaccurate or missing data. With Serpstat's Local SEO you fill out the information once and sync it automatically across all directories. This is where monitoring the status of your listings in this tool comes in handy.

The Directories tab in the menu a bit above shows all directories available in your region. Here, listings are divided into groups:

• Pending actions. These are directories requiring your attention. Usually, they are Google, Facebook, and others that you need to additionally connect to;
• Search, Voice & Discovery. Biggest sources of traffic like Siri, Bing, and Petal Search;
• Social & Reputation. Social media apps like Instagram;
• Navigation Services. For example, Google Maps or Uber;
• Business Directories. Authoritative sites like Brownbook.

Near each directory, you'll see its status of synchronization. The status may be:

• Listings in sync;
• Listings being updated;
• Requiring your attention;
• Claimed by others.

Additionally, on the right, you will see a short summary of how many of your listings are in sync, being updated, etc.

Whether you're just starting up or you're already established, keeping in touch with your customers and letting them know you're available when they need you is the key to a successful business. Adding your location to business directories allows people to find your services and contact you with ease. When someone searches for a business nearby, their GPS will help them find you if your business's local SEO is taken care of.

Speaking of basics, your location profile needs a title and a description. Your profile should include your business name, address, and phone number. In addition, you should include your website if you have one and a short or long description of your business. Finally, you can include a few keywords strategically sprinkled throughout your text to increase the odds of your business showing up when someone searches for your product or service. These are must-haves for your profile, but you do have to add more info. We'll get to it below ;)

By the way, check out YouTube video where our Product Marketing Manager Yuliia shows how the Local SEO tool works!

It is so easy to manage locations in business directories from one tool — let's take a short look at how this is done in Serpstat!

Your locations are stored in the Locations section — this is where you add new addresses, fill out your locations' profile and manage your locations separately.

You can also add locations one by one or import them in bulk.

The following information is mentioned next to the locations:

• Location status;
• Number of directories the location is synced in;
• Percentage of the profile completeness;
• Missing data;
• Number of posts published;
• Average rating;
• Total no. of ratings and reviews;
• Profile suggestions if empty fields are found;
• Labels for internal groping and sorting;
• The date of the last sync.

Upon clicking one of the locations, you'll see 4 tabs that make up the location's Profile.

1. Basic data — here you enter the following information:

• name;
• address;
• phone number and other contact info;
• opening hours;
• service areas;
• categories;
• keywords;
• short and long descriptions;
• imprint;
• labels.

2. Rich data — this tab allows you to fill out:

• social media profiles;
• attributes (they vary depending on the categories selected in basic data),
• payment options;
• brands;
• languages;
• services.

3. Photos & Videos — you can upload:

• logos;
• cover photos;
• exterior;
• interior;
• menu;
• product, etc.

4. Suggestions — recommendations that are displayed if empty fields are found in any directories.

- Accept suggestions if you'd like the missing data to be imported from other directories automatically.
- Reject, and these suggestions will be deleted and will never appear again.

Online reviews are such an important SEO method for raising local awareness that they should be non-negotiable.

In other words, if you want to rank higher in the SERPs and get seen by more customers, you have to generate as many online reviews as you can.

How are online reviews related to SEO?

Online reviews obviously help potential customers decide whether to choose Business A over Business B. Moreover, if you don't have any reviews at all (or just a handful), it's very hard for a first-time customer to choose you over a different business.

Naturally, you can't generate customer reviews all by yourself. Instead, you have to find ways of encouraging your customers to leave you a review. Here are some tips:

• Ask! There's nothing illegal about emailing your customers to ask them to provide a review. The main thing is that you wait for a few days after they've made their purchase;
  
• Make it easy for them to leave a review. Include a link in the email!;
  
• Explain to your customers why their reviews are helpful;
• Win-win — reward users for sending feedback. It could be extra options to services, mentioning in your blog, merch...be creative.

Then, when you're getting new reviews, whether they're from Google, Tripadvisor or other, you can reply to all reviews just in one inbox with Local SEO.

Opening Customer Feedback section from the left menu will present you all reviews left for all your locations in all available directories. Feel free to filter the reviews by data range, rating, or status and get started with replying to feedback left.

If you wish to browse reviews only for a separate location:

• go to Locations;
• choose a location;
• go to the Customer Feedback tab at the top;
• or click on the name of the location in the reviews list.

Publishing news, offers, Q&As, and events will also help you improve your local rankings. Make publications consistently to engage with your customers through Local SEO.

Localized content marketing campaigns are a tad different from general content marketing campaigns. It increases your brand awareness and attracts the targeted traffic to your site. As such, you need to focus on content that contains local information that people in your targeted area would be interested in.

However, while you need to keep your geographic region in mind, you can still be open to producing content that's shareable — such as "best of" lists.

To post a publication:

• Go to Publish;
• create a new publication or select a pre-saved template;
• select a type of post;
• select where you'd like it to be posted;
• enter title and content of the post;
• take a look at the preview on the right;
• post immediately or postpone a publication.

You may also save your template and use it for publications another time.

Local SEO can be both simple and complex. It's simple in that it doesn't require you to massively deviate from your existing SEO campaign, but it's complex in that it still requires a lot of work to get up in the SERPs. Local SEO tool saves you lots of time allowing you to make changes on the go across dozens of directories.