Local SEO strategy for 2024

Local SEO is constantly changing. And if earlier local companies have often neglected the latest learnings and trends in local search, today it is absolutely necessary to get ahead of competitors and be there for potential customers using instruments of local marketing.

Almost every company is now online and customers expect that they can easily find local businesses in the search results. Thus, we can say that nowadays local SEO is one of the main parts of online marketing.

In this article, we'll refer to the ReviewTrackers Report* and talk about local SEO trends and statistics that can help your company to overview the current local search situation, understand how it influences the ways people search and how you can implement this knowledge in your overall marketing strategy.

Today people search for places to learn where they are and what is nearby. So, they make their searches mostly according to their current locations. Moreover, customers' local search behavior differs from what it was earlier — being always on the go, they are not interested in general information. Now they need specific information that brings them use. Specifically: address, working hours, phone number, menu, etc., as well as reviews about the company and ratings. It means, they need the information on contact data and reputation that we can easily find in business listings we see when we do a local search.

User behavior has really changed over time. So now local SEO became more important than ever cause it helps businesses to give their customers the desired information.

Why do we need this information? These trends should help business owners, digital marketing specialists, and managers to improve their local marketing strategy, optimize their online presence and reputation as well as improve customer loyalty and connect their businesses to their target audience. So what are the trends?

According to Report, 57% of local searches are made from smartphones or tablets.

As we've already noted, today almost everyone is on the go. So it's just convenient for users to use their smartphones to search for local places to find a product or a service.

What is interesting, local searches are primarily done in browsers: 88% of local searches are done through a web browser and only 11% are done through map apps. Apps may seem handy, but it is still easier for customers to simply open a browser and search.

Life is fast, so modern customers find quick solutions to satisfy their needs. In most cases, millennials are the ones who search to shop or at least visit a company. The statistics show that 42% of millennials who search locally more often visit the places they find.

Compared with people from other age groups, they are 50% more likely to search locally on the go, cause they often want to visit a company immediately just while they are passing by.

So if you want to attract millennials to your business pay thorough attention to your company's online presence and reputation to get to the top of local search results and catch their attention. And that is why…

There are ranking factors that are important for Google as the search engine to rank you up and there are signals which your potential customers pay attention to at the very moment they see local search results. These signal influence their decision to visit your business and buy a product or a service.

Statistics on local SEO states that users tend to pay attention to good photos in local listings. So it's important to be sure your business listing profile picture, as well as the photos in the description, be of high quality and relevant to your business.

We at BrandWizard, developed a Photo Management Tool specially for your business to keep an eye on your visual online presence. With its help, you can easily collect all the photos in a single dashboard and manage those which are unattractive or irrelevant for your business.

The majority of customers with purchasing power now are people with strong visual perception. Therefore, photos are simply necessary to hook the user and attract him as a client to your company.

Today, it's already common knowledge that users apply rating filters when they search, cause 79% of customers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends or family. To add more, they don't trust companies with rating lower than 4 stars.

So, it's not a surprise that reviews are in the top-3 influential factors for customers to choose a business they will turn to. By the way, 63.6% of customers state they usually read reviews mainly on Google Search and Google Maps before their visits to stores or restaurants.

This information makes it obvious that review management is very important for brand promotion and visibility in local search results. BrandWizard has a set of tools for your business to manage, generate and analyze the reviews customers leave in your business listings. All these you can do with less time and in a single account to make it more convenient for your employees.

The higher position takes your business listing in local search results the more trust your company evokes from customers. Nearly 21% of users think that the position in local search results is very significant and it has a great influence on their decision to address a business.

This corresponds with Google algorithms that interpret local search intent and work "for" customers showing them businesses with the best ratings. Your top position in search results implies your business is worth trust.

To rank high in location-based services you need to be sure that all company's listings in popular search engines, maps, online directories, and social media are consistent, have full information, and are verified. Moreover, pay attention to whether there are duplicate or fake listings if your company. If yes, don't panic, you can solve this issue by hand or with the help of BrandWizard. We have a number of solutions to manage your online presence and make the work with your company's listing easy and effective.

Defining how you rank online and the decision to thoroughly manage your online presence can bring a lot of good to your local SEO strategy and business as a whole.

We've already discussed that reviews are one of the most important areas to keep an eye on while implementing your local SEO strategy. But it can be hard to "catch" all of them across the Internet. Statistics show that 4 sites are gaining 85% of all reviews:

• Google — 73%
• Yelp — 6%
• Facebook — 3%
• Tripadvisor — 3%

To add more, 75% of new companies are greatly influenced by review sites like Google, Yelp, Facebook, Apple Maps, Tripadvisor.

Thus, integration of online reputation management and systematic review generation to your local marketing strategy can play a great role in attracting customers and being the best choice for them.

It might be surprising, but 58% of businesses don't optimize for local search and therefore miss such a great opportunity to promote themselves in the online world.

Local statistics show that only 30% of companies have some local SEO plan to implement and take care of such an easy-to-use way to get traffic to points of sale. So, it's high time to say that you shouldn't neglect the opportunity to attract customers to your business. You can do it yourself or with the help of such services as BrandWizard that automate your work and spare time for your employees.

The higher your business in local rankings the more chances you'll increase your traffic and sales. So, take these local SEO statistics and trends into account and make a step toward a more successful business performance. While BrandWizard is here for you to help you be where your clients search for you.

It might be surprising, but 58% of businesses don't optimize for local search and therefore miss such a great opportunity to promote themselves in the online world.

Local statistics show that only 30% of companies have some local SEO plan to implement and take care of such an easy-to-use way to get traffic to points of sale. So, it's high time to say that you shouldn't neglect the opportunity to attract customers to your business. You can do it yourself or with the help of such services as BrandWizard that automate your work and spare time for your employees.

The higher your business in local rankings the more chances you'll increase your traffic and sales. So, take these local SEO statistics and trends into account and make a step toward a more successful business performance. While BrandWizard is here for you to help you be where your clients search for you.