What are your top tips for local SEO in your country/city/region?
Posted: Sat Dec 07, 2024 8:50 am
Some businesses don’t care that much about maintaining their GMB presence, so we’ve seen examples where a single review can vault a company’s website into the local pack for related searches the same day. It’s rare to see SEO make such an impact this quickly these days, but we’ve tested many angles and seen businesses jump right into the local pack the same day and stay there with minimal effort and a little TLC.
What tactics have you found to be less effective in your country/city/region compared to general recommendations for local SEO?
This isn’t necessarily a case of it being ‘less effective’, but there is a lot less spam on Google My Business compared to the US or UK, probably because Ireland is relatively small and none of the big Local SEO aggregator tools like Yext, Whitespark or MozLocal have entered the market with a good offering here.
Cases where a ‘business name’ contains all possible keywords are not something we see very often here, thankfully!
What are some of the best examples of local businesses in your country/city/region that are really doing well in the Local Pack/Finder results?
We are proud to work with Maldron Hotels list of france cell phone numbers a large international hotel group that truly understands the value a locally focused SEO strategy can bring to a variety of search marketing strategies. At one of their locations , we have members of different teams who take the time to respond to positive and negative reviews, and we can see that this proactive approach is paying off. We roll out any new features or improvements to the ever-evolving GMB landscape as soon as possible, such as check-in and check-out times that have recently been released on GMB but are not yet available to the public.
One business we have no affiliation with, but who are doing really great work locally, is the Epic Immigration Museum in Dublin . Google Posts haven’t exactly taken off here, but the marketers who manage the account at Epic seem to be fully embracing everything that’s available on GMB, like videos, posts, business description, and events (using data from Facebook), which is great to see.
Luke Fitzgerald is SEO Manager and Gustavo Pelogia is SEO specialist at Wolfgang Digital , a digital marketing agency based in Dublin, Ireland.
Rasmus Himmelstrup Jørgensen
Group Director of SEO, CRO and Analytics at Resolution Media
What are your top tips for local SEO in your country/city/region?
Don’t underestimate the power of local search! The value you can get from local searches is huge and very few companies focus on it. Creating reviews for optimization purposes is probably the most overlooked feature, next to GMB Q&A.
Also look beyond GMB – there’s much more to local optimization than focusing entirely on that.
What tactics have you found to be less effective in your country/city/region compared to general recommendations for local SEO?
While citation generation is still valuable, it doesn’t seem to be as effective as it once was.
What are some of the best examples of local businesses in your country/city/region that are really doing well in the Local Pack/Finder results?
There is a fierce war raging in the takeaway industry, with many competitors fighting for the same listings and many tricks being used to achieve the best possible results.
Rasmus Himmelstrup Jørgensen is Group Director of SEO, CRO and Analytics at Resolution Media, an online marketing company based in Denmark.
Suganthan Mohanadasan
Founder of Basic Gravity and Digital Marketing Expert
‘Nearby’ and ‘nearby’ searches are becoming increasingly popular, with growth mostly seen on mobile devices, but there is also a significant increase in desktop searches. Optimizing for ‘nearby’ searches is essential for local businesses like dentists, florists and restaurants.
Especially for the latter, it is very important to do page optimization to make sure it reflects the type of service offered, for example: Thai restaurants want to appear in local searches such as 'Thai restaurants near me'.
The best way to do this is to optimize your GMB pages as well as your mobile sites. This can be done by attracting attribution and ensuring your name, address and phone (NAP) are consistent – for example, with a review from a reputable local newspaper. Getting customer reviews is also important, but remember: reviews aren’t everything – Google needs to understand your site!
What tactics do you think are less effective in your country/city/region compared to general recommendations for local SEO?
Google is getting better at understanding overall context as well as search intent, and as they use multiple signals to assess your authority, citations alone won’t be the main ranking factor for local terms – so I don’t think it’s as effective as it used to be.
To rank higher, I would focus on creating localized landing pages and creating multiple GMB pages for localized services, for example 'service+city keywords'. It's also an idea to focus on building more authority for your business and optimizing your GMB pages for 'near me' and 'around me' searches.
What are some of the best examples of local businesses in your country/city/region that are really doing well in the Local Pack/Finder results?
From what I can see, Local SEO is not widely practiced by most small businesses in my area. I think this is mainly due to lack of awareness and the fact that Stavanger is a relatively small city.
However, Mester Grønn and Interflora (Florists) are two companies that do effective local SEO in my city. Both have multiple GMB pages, including localized landing pages that link to the appropriate GMB pages. They are able to rank multiple GMB pages for the keyword 'nearby', increasing their chances of getting clicks.
Suganthan Mohanadasan is the founder of Basic Gravity and a Digital Marketing Expert based in Stavanger, Norway .
That’s it. From something as simple as updating your Google My Business profile to creating dedicated pages for cities where your company has branches, all of these approaches contribute to stronger local SEO performance.
Have you followed the advice above but are not sure if it is working? SEO is a long-term game and it can be hard to know if your efforts are paying off. That’s why AccuRanker allows you to track your keyword performance on your website and better understand SERPs on both desktop and mobile devices. AccuRanker also allows you to filter local results and get notified about changes in rankings.
What tactics have you found to be less effective in your country/city/region compared to general recommendations for local SEO?
This isn’t necessarily a case of it being ‘less effective’, but there is a lot less spam on Google My Business compared to the US or UK, probably because Ireland is relatively small and none of the big Local SEO aggregator tools like Yext, Whitespark or MozLocal have entered the market with a good offering here.
Cases where a ‘business name’ contains all possible keywords are not something we see very often here, thankfully!
What are some of the best examples of local businesses in your country/city/region that are really doing well in the Local Pack/Finder results?
We are proud to work with Maldron Hotels list of france cell phone numbers a large international hotel group that truly understands the value a locally focused SEO strategy can bring to a variety of search marketing strategies. At one of their locations , we have members of different teams who take the time to respond to positive and negative reviews, and we can see that this proactive approach is paying off. We roll out any new features or improvements to the ever-evolving GMB landscape as soon as possible, such as check-in and check-out times that have recently been released on GMB but are not yet available to the public.
One business we have no affiliation with, but who are doing really great work locally, is the Epic Immigration Museum in Dublin . Google Posts haven’t exactly taken off here, but the marketers who manage the account at Epic seem to be fully embracing everything that’s available on GMB, like videos, posts, business description, and events (using data from Facebook), which is great to see.
Luke Fitzgerald is SEO Manager and Gustavo Pelogia is SEO specialist at Wolfgang Digital , a digital marketing agency based in Dublin, Ireland.
Rasmus Himmelstrup Jørgensen
Group Director of SEO, CRO and Analytics at Resolution Media
What are your top tips for local SEO in your country/city/region?
Don’t underestimate the power of local search! The value you can get from local searches is huge and very few companies focus on it. Creating reviews for optimization purposes is probably the most overlooked feature, next to GMB Q&A.
Also look beyond GMB – there’s much more to local optimization than focusing entirely on that.
What tactics have you found to be less effective in your country/city/region compared to general recommendations for local SEO?
While citation generation is still valuable, it doesn’t seem to be as effective as it once was.
What are some of the best examples of local businesses in your country/city/region that are really doing well in the Local Pack/Finder results?
There is a fierce war raging in the takeaway industry, with many competitors fighting for the same listings and many tricks being used to achieve the best possible results.
Rasmus Himmelstrup Jørgensen is Group Director of SEO, CRO and Analytics at Resolution Media, an online marketing company based in Denmark.
Suganthan Mohanadasan
Founder of Basic Gravity and Digital Marketing Expert
‘Nearby’ and ‘nearby’ searches are becoming increasingly popular, with growth mostly seen on mobile devices, but there is also a significant increase in desktop searches. Optimizing for ‘nearby’ searches is essential for local businesses like dentists, florists and restaurants.
Especially for the latter, it is very important to do page optimization to make sure it reflects the type of service offered, for example: Thai restaurants want to appear in local searches such as 'Thai restaurants near me'.
The best way to do this is to optimize your GMB pages as well as your mobile sites. This can be done by attracting attribution and ensuring your name, address and phone (NAP) are consistent – for example, with a review from a reputable local newspaper. Getting customer reviews is also important, but remember: reviews aren’t everything – Google needs to understand your site!
What tactics do you think are less effective in your country/city/region compared to general recommendations for local SEO?
Google is getting better at understanding overall context as well as search intent, and as they use multiple signals to assess your authority, citations alone won’t be the main ranking factor for local terms – so I don’t think it’s as effective as it used to be.
To rank higher, I would focus on creating localized landing pages and creating multiple GMB pages for localized services, for example 'service+city keywords'. It's also an idea to focus on building more authority for your business and optimizing your GMB pages for 'near me' and 'around me' searches.
What are some of the best examples of local businesses in your country/city/region that are really doing well in the Local Pack/Finder results?
From what I can see, Local SEO is not widely practiced by most small businesses in my area. I think this is mainly due to lack of awareness and the fact that Stavanger is a relatively small city.
However, Mester Grønn and Interflora (Florists) are two companies that do effective local SEO in my city. Both have multiple GMB pages, including localized landing pages that link to the appropriate GMB pages. They are able to rank multiple GMB pages for the keyword 'nearby', increasing their chances of getting clicks.
Suganthan Mohanadasan is the founder of Basic Gravity and a Digital Marketing Expert based in Stavanger, Norway .
That’s it. From something as simple as updating your Google My Business profile to creating dedicated pages for cities where your company has branches, all of these approaches contribute to stronger local SEO performance.
Have you followed the advice above but are not sure if it is working? SEO is a long-term game and it can be hard to know if your efforts are paying off. That’s why AccuRanker allows you to track your keyword performance on your website and better understand SERPs on both desktop and mobile devices. AccuRanker also allows you to filter local results and get notified about changes in rankings.