Tips to Help You Choose an Agency for Local SEO with Ease

Juliet D'cruz

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You are here because you plan to select the best local SEO services company. You certainly want people in your area to find your business details when they search with relevant keywords. Local SEO helps in doing just that. It’s a set of practices performed to optimize online visibility for your business. 

You should work with a firm that specializes in local SEO as it is a complicated category. There are certain absolutely crucial factors that you should consider while selecting an agency to work for your business.

After reading this post, you will understand: 

  • The difference between organic and local SEO procedures 
  • Why is it crucial to consider the agency’s areas of expertise?
  • Tools used for monitoring local SEO performance 
  • Areas of focus in SEO reports 

Here are the tips, let’s dive in! 

Are there any vast differences between organic and local SEO?

As the name suggests, the geographical component is the critical factor when it comes to differences. Search engines understand the local intent when the user adds location along with the keyword. 

For example, when the user enters “trustworthy carpenter,” it won’t have local intent. On the other hand, if you enter “trustworthy carpenter Surfside town,” the local purpose becomes clear. 

Procedures performed as a part of local SEO 

Search engines detect signals from citations, links, website content, social media profile pages, and local content for finding information about businesses. Thus, companies can reach local customers only if all the aspects of their website are in order. 

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List of local SEO best practices includes the following procedures:

  • Local SEO audit
  • Google My Business optimization
  • Adding location-specific pages to the site 
  • Optimizing online directories entries 
  • Taking internal linking structure to the next level 
  • Optimizing meta description, headers, URL, title tags
  • Ensuring the site is mobile-friendly
  • Google My Business Posts
  • Social media engagement
  • Getting HQ inbound links 

What’s at stake for firms that ignore local SEO?

Roughly 34 percent of total searches performed every day are to find a local business. 

If that’s not important enough to convince you, one in every three searches performed via mobile phone is about location. 

Local searches are growing at an impressive rate. Thus, businesses that have not optimized their website for local search are at the losing end.  

Your goals must match with the agency’s areas of focus

The following are the most appreciated metrics. These have a direct impact on the firm’s cash flow. The local business SEO services agency that you select must focus on these metrics. 

The top metrics for most businesses are: 

  • Google rankings
  • New leads and inquiries
  • New customers
  • Organic traffic
  • Reputation management 
  • Latest reviews for the business 

Consider agency’s industry expertise

Gone are the days when generic blogs with keywords helped in convincing Google. These days, search engines have “passages” like algorithms to analyze the content. If you want your site pages to rank better, you should ensure you publish only well-researched, valuable content. 

Articles, blogs, social media posts, and Google My Business content should be developed by individuals who have ample experience in writing for your niche. Writers and copywriters working for the team should be pro.

Even if they don’t have industry-specific experience, the agency should at least have an understanding of your business. 

Check the tools that the company uses 

Several SEO tools assist in monitoring progress, making the expert’s job easy. 

Check with the company if they can explain how to use these tools. Monitoring stats will help you gain some insights on best practices. 

Local SEO experts use SEM Rush, Advanced Web Rankings, Yext, Moz Local, Google Analytics, GeoRanker, and Synup.

Factors that the agency considers essentials 

There is a thin line between national and local SEO reports. Ask the expert about the aspects that they present in their weekly or monthly reports. 

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A solid SEO report must include: 

  • Rankings for selected locations
  • Location wise traffic, leads, and conversion rate
  • Reviews generated during the period under consideration 

Strategy to get your business in the local-3-pack 

Local-3-pack is a box listing three businesses. The block appears first in the search results, and this is considered prime digital real estate. 

There is no basic formula to get your business on the list. Following local SEO best practices can do the trick. Ask your digital marketing company if they can create a roadmap to get your business in that coveted spot.

KPIs that the agency prefers to focus 

Every agency may prefer focusing on a different metric for judging campaign success. 

Businesses would prefer to focus on traffic, leads, and conversion. On the other hand, the agency may consider rankings and social media likes, followers to prove success. Thus, asking which KPIs they recommend or focus on can be a good idea. Work with the company only if their KPIs are in line with your goals and desired outcomes. 

Action plan for mobile and voice SEO

Local and mobile SEO strategies must go hand-in-hand. Most people use their phones to search for local businesses. Google uses device location to show relevant results, including the local-3-pack. Ask your agency about their mobile strategy. 

 

People perform local searches using intelligent voice assistants like Google’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and other smart speakers. Thus, it is essential to know about the agency’s experience with voice searches.

Reporting and communication style 

The team should be accessible during working hours and willing to accept accountability. 

Remember, you can download Google Analytics performance charts for free. You don’t want to spend on something that you can get for free. Request the team to share sample reports and check how much analysis and insights they offer. 

To sum it up

People want to promote businesses and support the community. You can get the best out of this wave. Work with an agency that can relate to your goals, follows Google best practices, and has handled local SEO projects easily in the past.