2024-08-29 | 598 Print PDF
I have written some evergreen topics on Local SEO in the past, hence I see no reason to repeat myself on the subject, but rather I will like to discuss about the next stage in the methods of improving your local SEO ranking on search results.
Recommended Read: Local SEO Services For Small Businesses
By now we are all familiar with the phrase “Content is King” and to create content you will need to construct eloquent sentences that are made of keyword phrases. So, your key focus here in the content construction will be the “keywords” and how they are distributed in the body of your content.
Even this is executed during your stages of on-page optimization, so talking about this stage is more or less of low value, has it is assumed you have done your on-page optimization already and you are trying to improve on an existing local SEO ranking on search engine.
But in order for you to be able to improve your local SEO ranking search results, you still need to edit both your keyword position and distribution in the body of your content and concentrate your off page optimization on those keywords.
One way to improve your Local SEO search is to introduce the optimization of “Near Me” in your keywords alongside the use of your business location. Eg if your business is located in a certain district you might want to optimize for “Laundry services in Lekki” and ”laundry services near me”.
There is a relationship between this two phrases and I will share that point with you, the keyword “near me” mostly comes in as a recommended end phrase for the major keyword on Google, especially if the user is logged into their Gmail account and have given permission on their Android or IOS phone to use location on their phone.
Furthermore from the image below you can notice that the keywords among the search phrases with the most impression and clicks are those with the near me construct. This is sole evidence that including the near me keyword phrase in your keyword ranking process is vital as leaving it out of your local SEO optimization can result to you not ranking for such keyword recommendation and it's other variances that emphasize on place, location, event and center, even if you are optimizing and ranking for a local keyword targeting these variances itself. With "Near Me" you get more opportunity to rank for these variances but focusing on just the variances means you only rank for what you optimize for.
From the Google search result below without login into any Google account, and giving permission to my location, Google can only assume my location based on my most searched location results and in this case it is AMUWO ODOFIN a.k.a FESTAC, now their was a client we were optimizing for two location placement using a single website but they where not ranking for the near me version of their keywords, but scrolling down we can see the other client we optimized for the local keyword “near me” ranking even though they are not located in this location.
This prompt me to do further query and I decided to use the entire city as the keyword eg Laundry services in Lagos, and to my surprise the website was ranking for this keyword comfortably on Google page one. This is a keyword phrase for local SEO that was not embedded into the keyword or content of the website but yet the website was ranking on Google, this conclude my intuition on the use of near me alongside the local (place) keyword for the business service.
The keyword "laundromat near me" is a local keyword meaning that the keyword is more of location, ie if the user is searching for the exact phrase keyword what they will get as results will be based on their map loaction, thanks to the location and Google search access requirements which is a standard for most andriod phones. Unless the user types in specifics like "Laundromat in Lekki" which is still a variance of the search phrase "laundromat near me".
I can also state that the use of the local keyword “near me” has exponentially increase the LSI keywords that the website is currently ranking for as it keeps growing with local keywords phrases, with over 600 keywords the home page is now driving in traffic to the website with significant click through rates as seen in the image below.
Recommended Read: Importance Of Local SEO Business Listings
Conclusion: The fact that this approach made it easy for the website to rank for only keywords related to its location and city is something of precise result ranking. Because it will be irrelevant for the website to rank for country (ie Laundry services in Nigeria) or other cities (ie Laundry services in Ibadan in stead of Lagos) the business is not located in.
One thing I also need to make reference on is the fact that I didnot include the optimization of "Lagos" rather the optimization of "Near Me", which has brought about a solid pull of traffic from the city ranking location for the term Lagos, but with respect to other areas not specified eg Festac, Ikeja, the website will not rank for them but only ranked for Lekki (and environs, as stated on the website).
So, we can conclude that optimizing for "near me" alongside the office location or business location can help pull traffic whilst the latter can aid in signed in location traffic it can also represent the city optimization for the business.
Alongside this approach of optimization to increase your local SEO search, I do recommend to include your Google Map on the website via embedding, place mentions of your local keyword mentions in your Google my business reviews by customers (You can help them construct what to write), and lastly try to learn how optimize our Google My Business profile
Google CEO Sundar Pichai: Search will profoundly change in 2025
3 Most Important Business Growth Strategies
Top 20 Work From Home Job Skills
SEO Tips and Strategies For Small Businesses
Google is making a major change to Local Service Ads
Why is Google Ads So Expensive a Case Study
Meta Careers Remote Work From Home Jobs Scam
Strategies For Integrating Organic and Paid Web Site Traffic
How to use Google Analytics GA4 Reporting
Digital Marketing Agency Red Flags List