A lot of online services these days rely on your location to serve you. Uber, Postmates, Google Maps all need to know your location to do their job.
These services are so necessary that according to one eMarketer survey, nearly 90% of American smartphone users have their location settings turned on.
You know what that means? Search users also rely on location sharing to get pertinent results for their search queries. Take a look a these examples
The top query for any local business is a “near me” search. Keywords like “Plumbers near me” or “Churches near me” show how modern day search users expect Google to know where they are and deliver relevant results.
The Problem With “Near Me” Searches
The trouble with such queries that have a “near me” in them is that traditional SEO techniques break. You cannot simply rely on regular SEO hygiene factors like good keyword density or backlinks to rank for these terms.
Simply publishing a page titled “Plumbers Near Me” and optimizing it to the hilt is not going to bring you traffic from the millions of people searching for this term from around the world.
The Google algorithm is smart enough to understand that when a user searches for a term with “near me” in it, they are looking for businesses that are physically close to them.
What To Know Before Optimizing For “Near Me” Searches
First things first – Optimizing for a “near me” query is not a replacement for regular SEO. You must still invest in proper keyword research, content production, distribution, and link outreach campaigns.
This is because “near me” searches are only a small part of the overall traffic potential of your website.
If you have mobile analytics installed for your website, you will notice that there is still a lot of topical and industry focused search happening for your industry.
So while ranking for a “near me” keyword is great, you will be leaving a lot of money on the table if you are not optimizing your website in the general sense.
Another point to note with these types of searches is that it restricts your visibility geographically. If you are based in a region with high density of consumers, then you are likely to attract a ton of them. However, if you are present in a distant suburb, you are going to be missing out on a lot of these searches.
So it’s important to understand how much you can possibly rely on these searches.
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the strategies that will help you rank on top of Google for “near me” searches.
Tips To Rank For “Near Me” Searches
Ranking for “near me” searches are based on three factors:
- The specific product or service being sought
- The specific area it is being sought from
- The specific time of the day it is being sought at
It all boils down to how well you have managed your Google local listings. If you are not listed yet, this is what you do:
- Sign up for Google My Business
- Follow the guidelines to create a business profile. Most importantly, enter your business address, zip code, phone number, business open hours, and product category to utmost precision
- Click on the ‘Products’ and ‘Services’ sections of the business profile and add every single product or service that you offer. This is extremely important to cater to the wide spectrum of searches related to your business
At the end of your application, Google may require a postal verification from your end. This is a way for them to make sure that you are who you say you are, and that you have access to the address you claim.
Once the business has been verified, and your listing up, reach out to your customers and get a handful of honest reviews published on Google.
Ensure NAP Consistency
One of the biggest mistakes that business owners can make while optimizing for “near me” searches is ignoring NAP consistency. NAP stands for “Name, Address, Phone” and is the list of the most basic details that you find about a business on directory listings like YellowPages.
Make sure that you use the same naming conventions, address and phone number across all these different platforms.
Add structured data to your website
Your website carries a ton of different information about your business. Hire an onsite SEO consultant who can help you mark up this content with structured data (also known as Schema markups) that teach Google everything it needs to know about your business.
For example, if you run a salon, you may have this odd customer searching for something very specific like “Brad Pitt haircut near me” – yeah, totally random and not something worth optimizing for.
However, if you have a blog post about movie star haircuts (and you happen to offer services like this as well), you could markup the keywords “Brad Pitt haircut” with the schema ServiceType – this way, Google understands the context of this content and adds this to the long tail of services you will be listed for.
Get geographically relevant backlinks
One of the most relevant off-site ranking strategies for “near me” keywords is to get backlinks from geographically relevant websites. This is primarily websites of businesses that operate in the same neighborhood as you. Also, this includes directory listings that have clear geographical markup that helps Google understand your location and geographical relevance.
You could start with your own website by highlighting your neighborhood and geography while embedding Google reviews on your website. You could also look up local directories and provide Google Maps link to your business location in the address section. These directories are commonly optimized with metadata that indictates business location and all this can help Google understand your geographic elements better.
While at it, invest highly in curating legitimate reviews from your customers. This indicates to Google that your business has good reputation in the local community and it is likely to help with your ranking.
The tips mentioned here are fundamental hygiene factors for all local businesses. In addition to what is mentioned, you must also invest in a responsive mobile-friendly design.
Also, thanks to apps like Siri and Alexa, searches are getting more and more conversational. People no longer search just for “plumbers near me”, they get more conversational with queries like “Ok Google, find the best plumber near me”. Make a list of all these different questions and optimize your website for these terms.
