How to drive more local SEO traffic to your website in 2019

Local SEO used to be considered the ‘easier’ sibling of traditional search engine optimisation, but a number of factors have changed this in recent years – not least of which has been the huge search in popularity of mobile browsing. Local search is also becoming more competitive, with fewer spaces available and many more businesses fighting it out to drive that valuable local traffic to their websites.With 2019 just around the corner, there has never been a better time to plan out your local search strategy to ensure your new business website design receives an influx of visitors from local shoppers. Read on to find out what you’ll need to do in local search in the next 12 months to improve your local SEO position and attract more nearby shoppers.

1. Build links According to research conducted by Moz, 35% of local businesses don’t have a link building plan in place, despite it being one of the top three most important local SEO ranking factors. If you have been used to building links back to your website as part of your traditional SEO campaigns, you should be able to transfer a lot of those skills to your local SEO initiative. One of the key things here is to be realistic. Whereas very high quality links, such as those from national news websites, are highly valued in SEO, local SEO is a little different. Google appreciates that websites for a local business are unlikely to have an abundance of links from sources like BBC or Sky News – but you can build valuable links from local sources such as chambers of commerce, local media and other local businesses. 2. Create a buzz Prominence is a big factor in local SEO – essentially this relates to how visible and how talked about your business is. Building prominence means being talked about in lots of different places and being prolific online so invest in more social media posts, consider influencer marketing, write and issue press releases, pursue guest blogging and leverage every PR opportunity that comes your way. 3. Use Google My Business Google My Business signals are consistently named as one of the top one or two most important local SEO ranking factors so if you haven’t created your free profile, now is the time to do so. If you do have a profile already, ensure it is fully filled out, upload images and videos, select an appropriate category and use Posts to publish news and offers frequently. 4. Build reviews Reviews are a non-negotiable tool for local SEO success and in 2019, they are more important than ever. As we noted in our recent post on the importance of consumer reviews , 91% of local shoppers trust reviews they read online as much as they would a personal recommendation and the average consumer needs to read around 10 reviews before they feel they can trust you. In addition to being vital to local SEO success, they are therefore a crucial asset for making sales.