Local SEO is the practice of enhancing your website’s visibility in local search results. Nearly half of Google users conduct searches for local information. This demonstrates the importance of the local search for small businesses.
If a company implements local SEO best practices, it will see an increase in organic traffic from local clients. Signals like local content, social profile pages, links, and citations help search engines give users the most relevant local search results.
Local SEO is all about increasing a company’s online and physical presence. The phrase “car dealership in St. Charles, Illinois” is an example of a local search. Customers ready to buy in your area may not find your business if it is not optimized for local search.
By optimizing their websites for local search, businesses in Aurora, Illinois, can reach potential customers in their area. They can hire a reliable SEO agency in Aurora, like Aguilera Web Design, that can help them generate leads, boost sales, and bring foot traffic.
Why Local Search is Important
- According to Google, in response to a local search on their smartphone, 76% of people visit the business within 24 hours, and 28% make a purchase.
- 30% of all searches Google processes are location-based.
- A consumer survey on local search found that 61% of users did local searches daily.
- Another local SEO survey found that 82% of consumers spend at least 14 minutes of their search time reading online reviews of local businesses.
- Yelp ranks in the top five SMB search results 92% of the time.
- Over half of the Internet users worldwide use mobile devices for local searches.
- 83% of people looking for local businesses use Google Search, 55% use Google Maps, 44% use Apple Maps, 39% use Yahoo, and 31% use Bing.
What determines how long Local SEO takes?
As a business owner in Illinois, you know how crucial it is to establish a solid online identity.
A website, social media profiles, and SEO-friendly content are important in today’s digital age. However, local SEO is also essential for businesses focusing on drawing clients from their locality.
To improve your website’s visibility in local search results, you should use local SEO. This ensures that your company is front and center whenever a local user searches for goods and services similar to those you offer. The following factors determine how long Local SEO takes:
Your website’s history
One of the primary factors determining how long it takes to see results from SEO is whether or not you’re working on a new domain.
Given that it hasn’t had time to establish its authority or earn backlinks, a new domain will typically take longer to show success than an already-established one.
A well-known domain, in contrast, will likely have built up some credibility and incoming links.
New domains can expect to see returns in nine to twelve months rather than the standard six to twelve months.
But don’t assume that because your domain is well-known, you’ll get results any more quickly.
If the domain has ever been hit by a Google penalty or one of their major algorithm updates, or if it has ever had SEO is done that goes against Google’s webmaster guidelines, you should not expect to see immediate results.
Competition in the local market
The time it takes to see results from local SEO efforts can be heavily influenced by the competition in your local market. It takes more time to achieve a higher local search engine ranking if your industry is competitive.
Your resources
You cannot control the age and competition of your website. But you can control the amount of time and money spent on its SEO. It’s crucial to grasp how this factor significantly affects the time required to see results from a campaign. The more time and money you can put into SEO, the better.
Keyword selection
For local SEO, finding the right keywords is essential. It could take more time to rank for highly competitive keywords. You can get results more quickly if you focus on long-tail keywords unique to your area.
Quality and consistency of local business listings
All of the details about your company’s presence on the web must be correct, consistent, and up-to-date. Your local SEO could suffer if your listings don’t match one another. To ensure everything is on the right track, you can take the services of Aguilera Web Design. It is, without a doubt, the best SEO company in Aurora, IL.
On-page optimization
When you optimize your website’s content and structure for search engines, you engage in on-page optimization.
On-page elements that you can improve include title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and the content itself.
User experience and engagement
In local SEO, user experience and interaction are paramount. Your site needs to be user-friendly, quick to load, and compatible with mobile devices. In addition, you should make content that keeps people on your site for longer.
Your business reviews and ratings
Positive user feedback can have a major impact on your local SEO. Consistent positive reviews and star ratings improve search engine rankings and exposure in the local community. On the other hand, negative reviews have adverse effects on online reputation and local SEO.
Social media presence
You can boost website traffic, name recognition, and SERP rankings by using your social media profiles to promote your business in Illinois. If you do not have enough time to do this, consider hiring an Aurora, IL, digital marketing company.
How long does local SEO take to show results?
Now, you might be wondering how long it will take for your efforts to pay off. Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the timeline for local SEO results can vary depending on various factors.
Factors that influence the timeline
Six to twelve months is a reasonable expectation for SEO to bear fruit. What we mean by “results” is an increase in visitors and the number of people converting. While this doesn’t guarantee success, it is reasonable to anticipate positive results from an SEO campaign within this time frame for any given business.
The best an SEO can do is make an educated guess based on evaluating the website’s current performance and the proposed strategy because there is no universally applicable figure.
There’s no way around the fact that improving your SEO takes time. Google (and other search engines) aim to display the most relevant and useful results for any given query, and this takes time to achieve. Top search engine rankings aren’t given out freely.
However, if you have a solid plan in place, you should be able to see the results of your SEO efforts within six to twelve months. Local search engine rankings can be affected by a wide variety of variables, such as:
- website authority
- duplicate listings
- NAP consistency
- link profile
and the list goes on.
How to rank for local SEO: 11 Expert Tips
This section covers the key factors that can help you rank for local SEO.
1. Optimize for Google My Business
When it comes to local search, Google My Business is now the gold standard. It is a great way to ensure that your company satisfies Google’s standards because Google generously backs, verifies, and shares its own material.
You should do the following to get the most out of Google My Business:
- Make sure your Google My Business page is verified.
- Take advantage of Google Posts by logging in.
- Get your consumers to write online reviews and spread the word.
Give genuine responses to reviews, mentioning where you are.
For example, you could say something like, “Please rate our [product/service] in [city, state]. We appreciate your feedback and hope to collaborate with you again in the future. The entire [business name] thank you for your support.”
If Google can confirm that your company is legitimate, it will prioritize you in the local search results.
Due to the impending changes in buying habits and company practices in 2020, it is more important than ever for consumers to have access to up-to-date information.
Don’t just do it for the search engine rankings. Potential clients will have an easier time locating your business if you encourage feedback, maintain accurate contact information, and publish up-to-date business hours.
2. On-Page SEO
Local SEO naturally begins with your website’s content.
High-quality content is a major Google ranking factor because it improves the relevance and usefulness of your website’s search results. Because of this, content marketing has exploded, with 89% of B2B companies now employing the strategy.
Verify that the website’s content is properly written, informative, and appropriate for its keywords.
Use the keywords throughout your website, but they should flow naturally. Incorporate them in your permalinks, page titles, meta descriptions, headings, alternative text, and anchor text. Don’t be afraid to use variations or similar phrases to strengthen the bond further.
Next, include contact information like an address and phone number on each page of your site. Put them in the header or footer so that Google can easily find them without forcing them into the main content.
A large number of websites use blogs to add relevant, high-quality content to their pages. Local SEO is bolstered when content is created around regional news, events, and customers.
3. Take Advantage of Online Business Directories
These four map data aggregators in the United States supply a wide variety of map data to American corporations like Apple, Yelp, Bing, Google, TripAdvisor, and more.
- Express Update
- Neustar Localeze
- Foursquare
- Factual
Facts matter, so double-check that your citations are uniform and comprehensive throughout all four resources.
Problems arise when there are discrepancies, such as a wrong phone number, an incorrect suite number, or a misspelled name.
Incorrect information about your company could prevent Google from including it in search results.
Last but not least, if you find any duplicate entries in search results, delete them.
4. Get High-Quality Backlinks
While the content of your website is important (and far easier to manage than external elements), it is not enough to ensure the success of your SEO strategy.
The days when any old links would boost your rankings just because you had more of them are long gone.
Google gives more weight to sites with high-quality, relevant links, so getting any suspicious links can hurt your rankings.
Use the helpful MozBar Chrome plugin to assess a link’s potential value quickly.
Focusing on local links can help with local ranking considerations.
Including articles from the local media, becoming a sponsor of the city’s sports team, or writing a blog post about your company’s philanthropic efforts are all wonderful ways to give your site a sense of place.
Exchanging links with other relevant local businesses might assist in boosting your ranks in the local search engine results.
A wedding location may recommend local flowers, photographers, and dress shops to their clients. This will improve your local results and give Google a better idea of where your business is in the Internet world.
5. Online Citations
Verify that your company’s name, address, and phone number are consistently shown online and that they are the same as on your website.
If your website and Yelp listing both indicate your business’s address as 123 Example Street, customers may become confused.
For local searches in particular, you’ll want Google and your potential consumers to have as much confidence as possible in your precise location.
In addition to hurting your local SEO, having incorrect or inconsistent contact details or business names online causes most customers to lose faith in local businesses.
Always carefully verify your work before submitting it, especially if you’re creating your own citations.
Inaccurate citations may exist without your knowledge because they are made by a third party or a robot crawling web data.
Make it a habit to check for new site listings and claim or edit incorrect ones. A fantastic approach to keeping track of fresh citations is to utilize one of the many available tools for monitoring your incoming links.
6. Behavioral Signals
If your site has a history of providing useful information, Google is more likely to feature it in search engine results. Google considers metrics like click-through rate, click-to-call, and check-ins to determine whether or not a given result is relevant and beneficial to users.
Your visibility will increase as more people engage with your content. Optimizing your website for local SEO is a fantastic approach to increasing your behavioral signals.
If the material is not optimized, visitors will look elsewhere. You will lose potential customers, and they will tell Google that your site is irrelevant to their search.
If you want to rank highly for all of your most important keywords, you should create landing pages for each. Each page’s content should be optimized to provide the best possible results for the desired search phrases. As a result, users will have a better time on the website, and Google will learn that it is a valuable result that deserves a high position in search results.
7. Search Personalization
In the past, while using the same search query, users worldwide received the same set of results. The results of a local search using this method are not ideal.
More than a decade ago, we created search personalization to return the most relevant results for each user. In 2011, personalized search made up around half of all Google queries. Now they all are.
Some generic results will be the same no matter who searches or where they do it, but other results will be affected by factors like location and the user’s browsing history.
Google will learn that a user prefers to see a specific result in the search engine results pages (SERPs) by how often they click on that result.
While increasing your click-through rate for a specific user may be challenging, you can make their time on your site more enjoyable and encourage them to return.
The more favorable search results tailored specifically to each user, the higher your site will rise in the local search results.
8. Social Media
Google pays special attention to popular social media platforms because of the trust its users have placed in them. Any given business’s social media profiles and main website will likely rank highly in organic search results.
Social media buzz about your brand might help boost your visibility online. Remember that Google’s algorithms are sophisticated enough to tell the difference between positive and negative mentions, so it’s important to keep an eye on the web and respond to comments to protect your brand’s image.
While social media should be a part of your overall SEO strategy, it won’t produce benefits overnight. Social media should be used with the other factors we’ve mentioned for local SEO.
9. Optimize Your Website for Mobile
Since smartphones are already commonplace, it stands to reason that many people will use them to look for nearby services and resources.
A survey commissioned by Uberall indicated that 82% of respondents have performed a “near me” search via a mobile device. This demonstrates how widespread the use of mobile devices has become for locating relevant information in a given area.
It is vital, then, that you accommodate these users by making your site mobile-friendly. Make sure mobile site users can locate what they’re looking for and navigate your site easily.
Add click-to-call buttons on your website and Google My Business listing. You should do it because 60% of smartphone users have contacted a business directly through search results.
10. Hone in on Local Keywords
To rank for local SEO, it’s important to focus on keywords specific to your local area.
This means conducting research to find the phrases and terms that people in your region are using to find businesses like yours.
You can use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to identify local keywords relevant to your business and industry.
Once you’ve identified the right keywords, you’ll need to optimize your website to ensure they’re included in key areas.
11. Optimize for Voice Search
Voice search is becoming increasingly popular. Optimizing your website for voice search can help you reach more customers and improve your SEO rankings.
People often use voice search to find local businesses or services.
When people use voice search, they use more conversational language than they would when typing a search query.
Use natural language and long-tail keywords in your website’s content to increase your chances of appearing in voice search results.
Ensure your website includes your location and other relevant local information to increase your chances of appearing in local voice search results.
Have structured data. Structured data helps search engines understand the content of your website and can improve your chances of appearing in voice search results. Use schema markup to provide information about your business, products, and services.
Other Considerations
After putting your plan into action, you need to keep an eye on your website to see if anything changes. SEO is not a quick fix and requires constant monitoring and updates.
When SEO is viewed as a long-term strategy, the time and effort required to maintain it become more understandable.
Every website is different, but the more resources you can devote, the quicker you’ll see benefits. Success timeline projections require careful consideration of technical concerns, content quality, and link profile strength.
Frequently Asked Questions
Still, have questions in mind? No worries, we have got you covered.
Who needs local SEO?
Using local search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, you can raise your company’s profile in Google’s local search results. Local search engine optimization (SEO) is useful for any company with a physical location, or that serves a specific area.
Why is my SEO taking so long?
Because modern search engine algorithms are so complex, SEO processes now take a long time. Simply cramming a page with keywords used to get you on the top page of a SERP. However, the success of a page’s SEO strategy today depends on various elements.
Your SEO is also taking time because you are not following the right strategy. If you are a busy person in Illinois, you maybe cannot be able to dedicate time to SEO.
Therefore, consider working with a company like Aguilera Web Design that provides Local SEO in Aurora. They have SEO experts with years of experience that work efficiently to bring expected SEO results.
Is doing a local SEO worth it?
Search engine optimization for local areas enhances search engine results for users looking for local businesses.
Having a higher position on these results pages increases your company’s exposure, which could lead to more sales.
Which is better local SEO or paid search?
Localized searches benefit more from SEO, increasing your online visibility over time with SEO.
In contrast, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an acquisition approach that involves spending money to have your content displayed during a user’s search for a certain keyword.
We recommend local SEO because it can bring you long-term results.
Conclusion
If you are a small business owner in Aurora, IL, you cannot afford to overlook the importance of local SEO in order to stay ahead of your competitors.
Partnering with a reliable Aurora, IL, SEO service provider like Aguilera Web Design can help you achieve higher rankings in search engines, drive more traffic to your website, and ultimately increase your revenue.
Don’t wait any longer. Let’s work together to grow your business and take it to the next level. Contact us today to learn more about our Aurora small business SEO and Aurora IL search engine optimization services.