Our SEO agency’s top 7 local SEO tips
Millions of businesses start improving their local SEO every year. This is often a significant undertaking that cannot be completed in just a few minutes.
For example, there’s a lot to think about, such as content creation, link building, improving your Google Business Profile, and much more.
So, we thought we would write one all-mighty-long blog post—not to send you to sleep! Well, we hope not, but to give your business some super helpful tips on how you can improve your local SEO.
Author: Ryan Walsh
Date: 19/02/2025
Subject: Local SEO
17-minute read
You’ve heard this all before, haven’t you?
That is the old selling tactic: If your business is not ranked high on Google, you are handing a massive competitive advantage to your direct competitors.
Yet we all know that.
Now, it’s just a matter of how you close that gap.
You’ve come to the right place because we are not some new start-up agency; Ryan Walsh has been advising Welsh businesses for a decade.
So do put that kettle on and slowly start to digest our advice. If implemented correctly, your business can start to climb up Google’s first page.
Create a Google Search Console and Google Analytics account.
Just as you wouldn’t drive a car with a faulty dashboard, neither should you start to work on improving your local search engine optimisation without the correct tools in place.
So, why do we compare Google Search Console and Google Analytics with the dashboard of a car?
Just as a dashboard tells you vital stats about your vehicle, such as road speed, this is similar to Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and other tools such as Moz Pro.
These tools are essential for monitoring the following:
– Backlinks
– Number of organic visitors
– Number of visitors from social media
– Number of direct visitors
– Bounce rates
– Time on site, which is also referred to as dwell times
– Keyword Position
– Number of clicks
What is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a marketing tool that we use at our agency practically every hour of the working day.
It’s an amazing tool because, if you want to know where your website ranks in Google, you can quickly see over the last 24 hours, 7 days, or perhaps even longer.
You can even type in a keyword to improve your SEO and track its movement in the SERPs.
It’s also a brilliant tool for seeing which pages are indexed or which might not have been indexed. For example, there could be a range of different reasons why a page cannot be indexed. This must be rectified and fixed if you want that page to appear in Google’s SERPs.
What is Google Analytics?
It’s crucial that you set up a Google Analytics account. This tool allows you to quickly determine where your visitors are coming from. For example, are the bulk of your website visitors coming from organic traffic? Or are they coming via social traffic?
This allows you to ascertain how you obtain your daily, weekly or perhaps monthly visitors in a pie chart.
Here are some of the tasks your SEO company is likely to carry out once they obtain access to your Google Analytics and also your Google Search Console account:
First, set up your Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 account.
You need to set up both accounts and then link GSC and GA4 to your website; if you have a WordPress website, this is easy.
Are there any manual actions?
Are there any manual action messages in your Google Search Console account? If so, ask your SEO agency for help and advice on rectifying these issues.
Upload your XML sitemap to Google Search Console.
Do not be deterred; this is a lot easier than it sounds. If you have a plugin such as Yoast SEO, you can upload the URL where the pages you want to be indexed are mentioned.
Page index report.
The next task that we highly recommend is obtaining a page index report. This can be obtained from your business’s Google Search Console account. You can then see which pages are getting indexed and whether there are indexation issues, such as a “no-index” tab switched on, that might need fixing.
Local Keyword Research
Relevance
A key part of Google’s algorithm is making sure that the content marketing—that is, the page or blog post that’s offered—is relevant to the query.
So, for example, if somebody’s looking for a wedding venue locally, they won’t want to see results for venues over, say, 100 miles away.
So, how do you make your page more specific and tailored to what a particular customer wants?
If you run a wedding venue in Cardiff, how do you get your website to appear for such terms?
You can use on-page SEO; however, you need to know which keywords you should optimise the page for before you do this.
For example, a good agency will ask these questions:
– Which keywords are most relevant for this business?
– Which keywords have the highest search volume?
– Which keywords are the right level of difficulty for our marketing budget?
Performance
Google Search Console offers a fantastic report, and it’s free!
So, head on over to your Google Search Console account.
Select the “Overview” button.
Then select the “Performance” tab.
Then click full report.
So, how do we most often use this report?
We use the “impressions” tab and the “position” tab.
When you use these, you can get an idea of a keyword’s position over the last seven days, for example.
The impressions give you an idea of how many impressions were generated for that keyword.
Which keywords would you like to improve?
Google Search Console will offer you a truly massive list of keywords that your website ranks for. For example, you may have over 1,000 that your website ranks for.
However, there are likely to be several keywords that mention your local city. Alternatively, you may well be appearing for “near me” searches.
These may have a high search volume, so you may wish to optimise your website for them better. Therefore, you may want to create a content calendar that allows you to create content marketing related to the keywords you wish to improve.
So, for example, let’s say you run a drain-cleaning business.
You may notice that the domestic side of the business is ranking on page 3 of Google and, therefore, needs to be improved. Therefore, what you could do is write a series of helpful and well-written pieces of content marketing, offering advice about domestic drain cleaning services.
Combine this with on-page SEO and good off-page SEO, and slowly yet surely, you can start to improve your business’s ranking for these domestic drain cleaning services.
Set up your Google Business Profile
It’s a really good idea to set up a Google Business Profile. It doesn’t take long, but ensure you complete all the fields. A well-optimised Google Business Profile can help you attract more visitors and give your business another opportunity to appear on page one of Google.
It’s not uncommon for the leading businesses with superb SEO in any given city to appear in the Google Map results and the Organic results.
Although many agencies believe that two totally separate algorithms calculate which businesses are shown in the map and organic listings, there are some overlapping ranking factors.
For example, a business with superb, excellent backlinks and business reviews, these companies will naturally have the advantage of stronger SEO in both organic and Google Business listings.
How to best optimise your Google Business listing:
Firstly, claim your Google Business profile
You might have a Google Business profile floating around on the web but haven’t claimed it.
But you should.
Why?
Well, it’s not been claimed. You don’t control that Google Business listing, which means a rather spiteful competitor may suggest an edit to
Google that says your business is closed Monday through Friday.
Yep, we have seen that done before.
So, instead, make sure you claim your listing is claimed, or if it’s not in existence, create a new one.
However, don’t rush this. Many businesses rush to set up their Google Business profile or Sya on their phone or lunch break. However, a
Google Business profile is a massive asset to your business if it ranks in the top 3 results.
Why?
Well, because the Google Map results tend to be correct at the top of the results, above the organic results, just below the Google AdWords results, if you can get your business ranked there, say in a major capital city, it’s a massive advantage. However, that’s easier said than done.
Why is that?
Well, take a local electrician, for example. There could be 700-odd electricians in a city, such as Cardiff, and there are typically just 3 Google Business results. Granted, the results change based on where the person is in that city, yet you get the idea that it’s massively competitive and very hard to get any business ranked in Google Business results.
However, it’s not impossible.
To give your business a fighting chance of appearing in the Google Business results, the account must be set up correctly, which means adding as much detail as possible.
So, don’t set up on your lunch break in the van while chatting to Gary. It needs your full attention and as much detail added as possible, such as a unique business description, obtaining Google reviews, and pictures of your business.
Nap must be super accurate.
Your NAP details must be super accurate.
What’s NAP? We hear you cry.
Well, NAP is just the company name, the business address, and the main landline number. If you have no choice but to use a mobile number, use that, but ideally, use the main landline number.
Now, why must all this information be super accurate?
Well, the reason is simple:
Googlebot likes clarity- clear signals.
For example, if the company’s backlinks are all good, that’s a clear signal that you’re moving up Google’s ranks.
If the content marketing has an extremely high Google E-EAT score, that’s another clear signal to Googlebot that you know what you’re talking about.
Regarding NAP information, if all your NAP citations are accurate and consistent, this can help you move up Google’s ranks.
However, this is where many companies fall down Google’s organic results and out of Google Map results by switching addresses and having “conflicting citations”.
Citations with two different addresses confuse the customer and Google’s algorithm. Because of this confusion, Google swaps that business out with a company with consistent NAP information.
Update your hours
Keep your Google Business account up to date.
Imagine this scenario: your pet pooch (dog) has run out of luxury dog food.
You can check the details of the opening hours of your local pet shop on their Google Business profile.
And it says open until 7 pm.
So you hop in the car, shout to Brian, the Dalmatian, and do not fear—you will be munching on organic crunchy bites before you know it.
Yet the shops closed at 5:30.
This is when a shopper often suggests an edit to the opening hours via the Google Business listing, suggesting an edit feature. Yet, this also tells Google two things: one, that a customer thinks the shops closed earlier, and two, that possibly the business is not keeping on top of updating its listing.
Now, sure, we all have emergencies and unexpected events. When we slip down the stairs carrying a box of stock, well, often, we don’t automatically think, “I must go to the hospital, yet prior to that, I must update my Google Business opening hours.” That would be silly.
However, if your opening hours change and this change will be ongoing for some time, we need to update our listings to reflect this change.
Otherwise, you might see frustrated looks on customers’ faces as you exit through the back door!
Upload pictures of the business.
Customers like to get a sense of a business before walking a mile to get there. So show pictures of the inside and outside and your team looking happy or trying to crack a smile outside the shop.
Why?
Well, this shows you have gone the extra mile to add more detail to your Google Business profile. If, say, you run a business that has videos and a picture of your shop front that none of your direct competitors have, this could give your business the edge over the competition, so Google’s algorithms may choose it to rank in the Google map 3-pack rather than the direct competitors.
Business reviews
Google Business reviews can have a massive impact on your business enquiries.
Firstly, businesses often search your “company name + reviews” before purchasing. So sometimes, no matter how good the SEO agency is, even if they are the best in the world if you have negative reviews, it can cause people to skip to the next business.
However, as with all stories, there are two sides, so do make sure to add your side of what occurred or show how you plan on putting the situation right. With that said, we would recommend you do this after a cup of tea and a long walk.
Why?
Because far too many people leave passive-aggressive responses, which can cost you business again.
Each page should have a purpose, then add the on-page SEO
You know, when you buy super hot sauce, you splash that on a dish to give it some kick, a bit of a punch, and then the expression of “o my, that’s hot”.
Well, on-page SEO is chilli sauce.
If you get it right, it complements the page and clearly indicates to Google and other search engines, such as Bing, what that page is about.
If you get it wrong, it’s like splashing too much chilli sauce: You overpower it, overdo it, and it doesn’t have any benefit.
So many businesses overdo their on-page SEO. It doesn’t read naturally; it’s overdone, forced, and rubbish.
So, when improving your on-page SEO, such as meta titles, descriptions, alt text, page titles, anchor text, etc., think of it like splashing chilli sauce: You need just the right amount; don’t overdo it.
Be a thought leader (or at least be original)
Some social media channels can feel like everyone is pretending to be high and mighty.
Opening a new packet of biscuits in the office means a post should be made about it on the business’s social media channels.
However, your blog, your company blog, is your opportunity to shine.
Use your blog in the following ways:
– Show you know your stuff
– Explain why your company is on the bee’s knees
– Should you have superior and better knowledge of your products or services
– Be as helpful as you possibly can
Why?
It helps to draw in more visitors, who should appreciate the effort through higher dwell times, lower bounce rates, mentions, and backlinks. And what’s the benefit to the business?
Higher rankings
More visitors, and it goes on.
Yet many businesses slap 500 words of waffle on and get disappointed when it doesn’t draw in new business.
Quality work attracts quality visitors.
Spam attracts lower rankings and sales calls because they know the business is probably in dire need of new customers.
So, quality, engineer this into everything you do, from creating your business’s Google Business account to writing your blog posts.
Build quality and local links.
Of course, if you run a national business, you don’t need to build local links.
However, if all your customers or the vast majority are based in the city of Cardiff, then build local links. For example, add your business to the Welsh Government’s business directory and on Wales Online.
This way, you can start to build local links, which send a clear message to Google and the other search engines that your business serves that area again.
However, if you run a national business, you can build links from national websites, such as The Guardian Newspaper.
However, the golden rule of link building is to make sure the links are quality and relevant to your business.