Not only do they play a big role in local SEO, but consumers consult online reviews more than ever before. 86% of consumers read reviews of local businesses and 57% of consumers say they will only use a business if it has 4 or more stars. Each year, local SEO company Whitespark polls a bunch of local SEO experts and puts together the Local Search Ranking Factors survey. In short, they ask around 50 of the top local search experts what factors they’ve noticed impacting local results most that year.
It increases visibility, fosters engagement by resonating with local consumers, and results in higher conversion rates. This is because users are more inclined to take action when they find content that addresses their specific location and needs. When businesses include location-based keywords, they enhance their chances of ranking higher in search results.
Link Whisper is a useful WordPress SEO plugin designed to speed up the internal linking process in order to rank better in the SERPs. Every SEO wants to find keywords that are easy to rank for and KeywordChef helps to identify keyword opportunities where you can rank fast. Moreover, the credit-based system means you only ever pay for what you need, when you need it, avoiding the need to pay a recurring monthly fee. Ahrefs is a very useful tool because it comes with a complete SEO toolkit.
Building a Strong Backlink Profile
Having accurate and complete business information on GMB boosts visibility in local search results, making it easier for potential customers to find you. Despite the many changes made to its ranking algorithm by Google, one proven way to move the needle and increase your visibility in search is backlinks. Pay close attention to your mobile site when considering page experience, too, as that’s the version Google uses for indexing and ranking. Google’s pushing toward mobile-first indexing to ensure high-quality results. Always check whether your site’s optimized for mobile devices using Google’s mobile-friendly test.
Google allows a few different options for creating a mobile-friendly site. One of the most common methods is using responsive design to display your website content appropriately for the device’s screen size. While ads are a part of the internet and are meant to be seen by users, don’t let them become overly distracting or prevent your users from reading your content. For example, advertisements, or interstitial pages (pages displayed before or after the content you’re expecting) that make it difficult to use the website. If you’re open to a little technical challenge, you could also submit a sitemap—which is a file that contains all the URLs on your site that you care about. Some content management systems (CMS) may even do this automatically for you.
User experience (UX)
This is mainly because it’s more likely to be informative with in-depth insights backed by credible research. So in terms of Google trust signals, long-form content will have a much bigger impact. So whenever there’s an opportunity, make sure that you link out to high-authority websites that are relevant to your industry. But that doesn’t mean you should stuff your pages with outbound links. Too many dofollow links to other websites will leak your PageRank and have an adverse effect on your page rankings.
- While this doesn’t impact SEO in the keyword way, it does factor in.
- The trick here is to make sure that you have top-notch, non-promotional content on your own website—content that people can’t get anywhere else.
- Regular updates to your GMB profile can boost your business ranking by enhancing its prominence.
- With search algorithms ever-changing, staying updated on the latest strategies to improve your search ranking is essential.
- To audit your site for broken links, use tools like Google Search Console or Screaming Frog.
- Poor website structure and information architecture can doom even the best SEO campaigns.
Unlinked brand mentions, instances where your brand is mentioned without a hyperlink, are low-hanging fruit for backlinks. When you find an unlinked mention, reach out to the author or site owner with a polite, friendly email. Express gratitude for the mention and suggest adding a link to help their readers access your site more easily. To improve readability and engagement, prioritize simplicity and structure. Use concise, active-voice sentences to communicate your message clearly. Break up long blocks of text with subheadings, and use bullet points or numbered lists to highlight key information.
Selecting the proper section heading tag is SEO Anomaly easy to do using WordPress. Avoid using larger font style and bold in lieu of the section heading tags. Google uses the heading tags to identify what you feel is relevant in the article.
Optimizing your Google Business Profile (GBP) and using location-specific keywords are essential steps. We knew it when I started working on Search in 1999, and it’s still true today. We had to make sense of this explosion of information, organize it, and present it in a way so that people could find what they were looking for, right on the Google results page. The work then was around PageRank, the core algorithm used to measure the importance of webpages so they could be ranked in results. We’ve tackled these problems, and others over the years, by making regular updates to our algorithms and introducing other features that prevent people from gaming the system.
This system reinforces the importance of earning links naturally through high-quality, valuable content rather than relying on manipulative tactics. Google places significant emphasis on delivering high-quality, trustworthy content, and part of that effort involves minimizing the presence of spam in search results. Over the years, Google has implemented advanced spam-fighting ranking systems to protect users from manipulative and low-quality content. These systems ensure that deceptive practices, like keyword stuffing and link schemes, do not succeed in gaming the ranking algorithms.