Regional SEO or local SEO is one of the branches of SEO that is becoming more important day by day. Regional SEO is an SEO strategy that helps local businesses target audiences based on geographic location. Therefore, local SEO can be very important in realizing the marketing strategies of a business. If you also want to benefit from the benefits of regional SEO, join us:
What is regional SEO or local SEO?
To better understand the concept of regional SEO, consider this example: Imagine you are looking for a restaurant to prepare food. Most likely, you first grab your phone and search for the food or restaurant you want on Google. What do you expect from Google?
No doubt you expect Google to recommend a restaurant with the food you want near you or at least in your city. If Google introduces you to a restaurant in another city, the search results will undoubtedly be unusable. Google has also identified this user demand and need and created regional SEO.
In other words, Google tries to introduce local businesses to its users in searches. Google gives more importance to this issue daily, and the reason is clear. The search for local businesses is increasing day by day. With Google’s new algorithms, you can expect to be introduced to a restaurant in your city if you search for one.
What is the importance of regional SEO for businesses?
Undoubtedly, one of the most important steps for the success of any business is to identify the target audience and reach them to introduce services and products. Regional SEO helps you reach your target audience more easily and more accurately. Imagine you want to identify those looking for food in your restaurant area in one hour of the day. Do you know a better way to reach your target audience than regional SEO?
Regional SEO is more important for which businesses?
Local SEO can be very important for all businesses, especially local businesses. Local SEO can be very important for restaurants, stores, beauty salons, etc., which mainly target people living in a certain area.
Google my business and similar tools
Now that you have realized the importance and benefits of regional SEO join us to share with you some important and effective steps in this type of SEO. One of the most important steps to take advantage of local SEO is registering your business with tools like Google My Business. By registering your business profile through these tools, you geographically introduce your business location to Google so that Google can introduce it to its users.
Of course, it should be noted that Google my business is Google’s exclusive tool for registering local businesses and is very important in local SEO. This service is not active in Iran due to sanctions, and you can introduce your business location to Google through Google Maps and the add a missing place option.
Is it necessary to have a site for local SEO?
If you want to use the benefits of local SEO, you don’t need to have a website. You can also use an email from different services to register your business. Of course, our advice is to have a website for your business because the competition in the local SEO world is getting more complicated daily, and you need to take several actions to be at the top of the search results.
Content strategy for regional SEO
One of the most important strategies for regional SEO is content creation. You can improve your regional SEO by producing good content and choosing the right keywords. For example, imagine you are looking for a good lawyer in Tehran. Most likely, the phrase you want to search on Google will be searching for a good lawyer in Tehran. One of Google’s criteria for recommending a good lawyer to you is content that is related to this phrase. Note that it is unnecessary to put exactly this phrase as a keyword and create content. Google will also consider good relevant content in recommending a lawyer to you. Choosing the right keywords, titles, etc., can be very important.
Prioritize mobile SEO!
If you want to improve your business’s local SEO position, you need to pay a lot of attention to mobile SEO. This is because most audience searches for local businesses, products, and services through mobile. Therefore, having a responsive site displayed well on the phone can play a vital role. Having a user-friendly site is also very important. The user should be able to use your site and find what he wants easily.
The difference between mobile SEO and desktop SEO
There are many differences between mobile SEO and desktop SEO. But both ultimately follow the same goal. Some of the tactics used for desktop SEO are also applicable to mobile. But the way of using them is completely different. In this type of SEO, you should focus on the following three principles:
- Website functions
- Website Content
- User experience
Mobile SEO focuses on local SEO, while desktop SEO targets the general public. Users searching for something on mobile or desktop may encounter different results. Other factors also affect mobile search and its results. One of the most important is the location where the mobile owner is searching. That is, to get a better ranking of products or content for a website on the desktop, the user will not get the same result on the mobile. When a website evaluates its performance on mobile, it should look at mobile SEO and search results.
Website owners should regularly check Google to see what it is doing and to consider their position. Google always enriches the results using structured data, and this data is more prominent on mobile. It is better to detect negative SEO early and keep your website safe to achieve more lasting and effective results.
Google and mobile SEO
Google has mentioned the importance of mobile SEO in a statement. Even in recent years, it has given priority to the mobile index. That is, the ranking is based on the quality of the mobile version of the website compared to the desktop version. After crawling the mobile website, the mobile version of the Google bot determines how the user experience, content, and overall performance are and whether it is worth visiting or not. If Google determines the website’s value, it will assign a better ranking. If there is a weakness, the website will be ranked lower, and other websites will surpass it.
Even when a website is not focused on its mobile version, Google will check and rank it. For this reason, working on mobile SEO is important. Google has announced page speed as one of the ranking factors. Updates are considered equal across all pages, regardless of the technology used to create the page. That is, if a page with low speed has good content, it may be able to get a good rank.
Solutions to improve mobile SEO
Like regular SEO, mobile SEO improves a website’s crawl ability and findability. A website must perform well, generate unique content, and have a flawless user experience. To achieve the right results in these areas, first of all, the website’s current state should be checked and made aware of it. You need to know what users are doing on the website. They may change their search methods when using mobile.
It is important to clarify whether users use the same keywords when searching on mobile and desktop. Another important issue is whether they change their search method when working with the mobile version, and you should look for what they do. Directing them to the closest eatery to their residence while working with the desktop version is inappropriate. But it works for mobile. Mobile SEO seeks to bring out the best in smartphone users.
Site speed and its importance in regional SEO
One of the most important points in regional SEO is site loading speed. Most people looking for local businesses expect to find the business they are looking for as quickly as possible and have limited time. So if Google recommends your site, but the loading speed is slow, they will most likely go to another business. Of course, don’t forget that loading speed is one of the most important factors affecting the SEO position and user-friendliness of the site. If your site is slow, you will likely not rank high in search results.
Look for external links!
One of the most important measures to take advantage of regional SEO is to get external links. For example, getting a link from a well-known site in your desired neighborhood can improve your regional SEO position. Therefore, planning to get links from reputable and well-known sites in your desired neighborhood is recommended. You can also consider advertisements to get links.
Do not underestimate social networks!
Social media activity is one of the actions that affect your regional SEO position. Identify the social network used among your target audience and engage in activities in this network. By attracting an audience in social networks, you can also improve the regional SEO position of your business.
Audience polls
If you want to witness the prosperity of your business and improve your regional SEO position, it is better to prioritize audience polls regarding your services and products. When the audience visits your site and reads other customers’ opinions, they will better judge your business. This action can have a great effect on gaining the trust of the audience.
Relational sites also check customers’ opinions regarding various businesses, such as restaurants. To improve the position of regional SEO, it is better to get help from these sites as well. For more information, you can refer to the local SEO article.