If you're trying to get a business off the ground and build it from the ground up, local SEO is an important part of your strategy. The truth is that in today's day and age, local search engine optimization actually matters more than ever before. Read this blog post for three ways to improve your local SEO.

1. Mapping is the easiest way to get started with local SEO

In order to rank well in Google for local businesses, you have to do local SEO. And, in order to do local SEO, you need a map pack. A map pack is a collection of images that illustrate your business and your location. It contains a single image for every detail from business name, to address and zip code.

Images are what Google uses to rank your page for your purpose (i.e. local business search or local restaurant search).

Google uses a pretty sophisticated algorithm to determine the location-relevant image that is most likely to rank best for the quality of your image. The algorithm also takes into account the surrounding neighborhoods and landmarks in your area. The background of the image plays a big factor too, as background can affect a photograph’s ranking.

In order to properly set up your map pack, you need to know what information you need to include for each image. Before you get started, it’s important to download Google’s mobile app, as it contains additional tools that are perfect for organizing and adding images. According to Google, the best time to put together your map pack is before you actually launch your business.

Before you begin uploading images, make sure that you have a business brief that explains what your business does and how it meets your audience’s needs. Use your essential facts to answer the following questions:

After you have your business brief, input the images into Google’s image mobile app. When you’re done uploading your images, Google will notify you via email if your images rank in the top five locations where queries are being served.

Thus far, you’ve gone over three critical things that are critical for doing your first map pack:

Make sure what you include in the first map pack is relevant and helpful to the site’s audience. The best bloggers understand this value and apply it to every single post they write.

2. Create more content for your site and gain backlinks to help your site rank higher on search engines

The more content you create for your site, the more likely you are to rank higher on search engines. Search engines rank websites based on how much content a site has, so the more content you have, the more likely it is that search engines will rank your site higher. Naturally, a website that’s lacking in some area will be ranked lower, while a strong site with plenty of content will rank higher. Find out more about 10 ways to make your content stand out and your SEO strategy today!.1.1. Optimize for local audiences

By now, the majority of businesses have a website and they’ve optimized it for local audiences. This means that by creating relevant content – now and in the future – you’re giving yourself the best chance at ranking for targeted keywords for your local area. Head on over to the Keywords by Site tool to easily find keywords for your local section.

Rewrite old articles and optimize them if they’re from a while ago, but use the new, relevant keywords. Once you’ve made changes, contact the webmasters and let them know that you’ve updated and are willing to be a reciprocal link. If they don’t accept your offer, contact each of them and see if they’d be happy for you to be a follow link instead. Don’t be afraid to ask for a connection; it just takes a minute.

Frequent discussions and questions on relevant sites can also provide opportunities for links. A site like SugarRae is very active in the Communities Forum where people are sharing information and links to the sites they “love. Smaller business sites can be helpful, too, such as Business.com.

This is an excellent opportunity for beginners to build a reputable brand in their local market. Don't just focus on keywords; local content, reviews, images, forum discussions, and videos create excellent links for your site that will help your business.

Get started by joining the Communities Forum and participating both online and offline.

3. Get reviews from customers who have already purchased your products or services

Reviews are important for your business. Not only are they a great source of word-of-mouth marketing, but they also help customers to feel more confident about buying your products or services. It’s important to get reviews from customers who have already purchased your products or services. Home Depot has an amazing recommendation system for online shoppers. They recommend things that other online reviews say are good or bad. It helps customers make a buying decision. That’s why they have a 4.4 out of 5-star rating on Amazon.

How do they do this? They give a 100% money-back guarantee. For every 1,000 customers who purchase a new home or purchase a service at their store, they give a free $100 towards the purchase and installation of their product or service.

The company doesn’t just partner with well-known review sites and websites automatically. Instead, it partners with experts in its industry. They hire a team of local SEO experts to look at reviews of local hardware, home improvement stores, and companies like Home Depot.

The process works a little like this: every story on a relevant site that addresses a home improvement or home improvement product or service from a source like Google Images, Yahoo! Images, Facebook Marketplace, or Reddit receives a content writer from the local SEO team as a part of the content moderation.

Reviews that violate the rules receive a warning, but the content still remains visible to the audience. So it’s easy for you to see a handful of these reviews and act accordingly.

You can’t make a sale, but you can boost your online presence with testimonials and reviews.

Local SEO is essential if you want to start a business in your area. It’s easy to fall into the trap of relying on backlinks, but local SEO is more strategic. Don’t rely on a backlink to rank well on Google. Focus on local search engines instead.

Conclusion: Local search engine optimization is important whether you're an online business or a brick-and-mortar business. Use this information to help raise awareness of your business in your hometown and beyond!

Local search engine optimization is the process of optimizing a business’s online presence to rank higher in search results for local keywords, such as “dry cleaners in San Diego” or “pizza restaurants in Los Angeles.” The process of implementing local SEO involves various web development elements, including:

Review management

On-site content building

Domain migrations

On-site link building

Social connection building

And a ton more

Even though local search engine optimization might seem simple at first, these are very challenging tasks. When I started doing local SEO over a year ago, I considered it easy compared to now.

Business owners and SEO marketers have really gained a lot more knowledge over the past year, but many of us still haven't hit home runs with our local SEO campaigns.

So, what are the problems you need to fix, and how can you fix them? Well, it turns out that there are two particular issues that tend to plague local businesses that aren’t implementing any type of local SEO strategy:

Review management

Managing the reviews that already exist on a local business’s site has never been (and probably won’t ever be) as frustrating as when new reviews start rolling in. This happens because so many of us, including many local companies, are held to an overly lax standard for customer service.

With so much on the line, owner responses are nothing short of national competitive advantage, so businesses simply aren’t held to the same rules as customers (for whom free stuff is a real perk). If a publication like the San Diego gay community had a problem with your business, your company literally has more customers than the next biggest competitor—and that’s before you get into the negative reviews being left by unhappy customers about your policies, employees, and location.