So you own a local business, isn't it time you owned the sales on your street?

One of the best ways to make sure that people in your area find you online is through effective local search engine optimization (SEO). Whether you primarily serve people at a brick-and-mortar business or online, your local business won't be able to thrive unless you know how to develop a successful local SEO strategy.

As you head through the year, it's important to know what to expect in local SEO trends and the steps you need to take to implement them in your efforts. While some trends remain essentially the same, some are evolving rapidly and making it necessary for local businesses to adapt accordingly. If you want to maintain a competitive edge and ensure your business appears at the top of search engine results for your audiences, the following are 10 of the top local SEO trends to follow in 2021. Keeping these trends in mind can help you develop the perfect long-term strategy.

1. Mobile Optimization

In today's environment, nearly everyone uses a smartphone, tablet, or another mobile device to perform searches on Google and other search engines. Many of those mobile searches are local searches, with people looking for goods or services nearby. Whether on the go or at home, many mobile users are actively searching for queries that your business should target, which also means that you need to make sure your website is mobile-responsive.

If your website doesn't look or perform well on mobile devices, this lack of responsiveness can be what turns people away immediately. If you want to keep people on your website when browsing on mobile, test your web design on a smartphone or tablet to see how it looks and feels before launching.

2. Voice Search Optimization

Extending from mobile use is the increased use of voice search. Devices like Google Home and Amazon Echo, along with their respective voice assistants, are making it easier than ever for people to simply ask a question and have these devices return relevant concise answers.

As you optimize your content, make sure it accounts for voice search. You can do so by thinking about how people might search for something verbally, which is likely different from a text query. You can also consider the readability of content when a voice assistant reads it back to users. If you can optimize certain content with quick locally relevant questions and answers, you're more likely to be the first result that a voice assistant finds when a user asks a particular question. In turn, these users are more likely to find your business, particularly if they want to learn more.

3. Local Content Creation

General industry-relevant content can help you draw more general traffic and customers, but if you want to appeal to locals in your area, you need to create well-optimized local content. Local content can consist of many different types of content.

For instance, you can write blog posts about certain local events or tips for finding the right products or services you offer in a specific area. Other locally targeted content could include social media posts about local news or events, location pages that provide details about each of your physical locations, or video content showing you and your team active in the community. The more involved you are in your service area and show this involvement through content, the more local customers and clientele you'll be able to attract.

4. Local Keyword Optimization

To help boost the performance of your local content, you need to optimize it with local keywords. You can identify the best keywords to rank for by conducting keyword research using the right tools. Based on this list and the search volume and competition for each keyword, you can naturally incorporate them into your content. The key is to avoid stuffing your content with keywords, which doesn't help with rankings and will only make your content unreadable.

Make sure your content uses relevant local keywords in headings, title tags and meta descriptions, and the body of the content. In addition, try to optimize your URLs accordingly.

5. Link building Strategies

In addition to well-optimized content and websites, you need to build a large network of high-quality inbound links through link building strategies. A link building campaign consists of outreach to industry-relevant blogs, online magazines, and other digital platforms for which you could write a guest post that includes a link back to your website.

Another way to approach link building is to contact businesses you currently work with, including suppliers, contractors, or distributors, and look for places on their websites where they can link back to you. Google loves relevant and high-quality links that appear all across the web, which indicate that your site is authoritative and trustworthy. Keep in mind that both quality and quantity are equally important regarding inbound links.

6. The Use of Directories

To extend your business's reach online and make sure that people can find you, you need to use the directories out there that are available to you. Some online directories that can help make sure your business gets found include:

• White Pages
• Hotfrog
• AussieWeb
• Womo
• Search Frog
• Local.com.au

You may also be able to find other directories that specifically target your area. Like inbound links, the more your business appears on other directories, the better your business looks to Google.

7. Consistently Accurate NAP Details

While having your business appear on a lot of directories can be invaluable, you also need to make sure the information about your business is consistently correct. Your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) should be accurate regardless of where people find you. Other details should also be correct, including location-specific details like hours of operation and particular products or services offered.

You can appear on hundreds of directories, but if Google notices any inconsistency of NAP or other details, this could hurt your SEO performance as it becomes unclear which details are correct.

8. Acquiring a Google My Business Listing

While other directories are always ideal to have, the most important place to feature your business to perform well on Google is a Google My Business (GMB) listing. With a GMB listing, you'll have the chance to attract many more prospects and perform better with your SEO efforts.

It isn't difficult to obtain a GMB listing, either. All you need to do is provide Google with as much information about your business as you can to create a complete profile. From there, you can verify your address by confirming via a phone call, text, or email through Google Search Console or having a postcard sent from Google to your physical business location, which contains a code you will use to confirm the location.

9. Monitoring Online Reviews

Online reviews remain one of the most important aspects of local business reputations. If you have poor reviews on Google, Yelp, or other websites, this can not only deter potential customers, but it can also hurt your local SEO rankings. Google always prefers to rank reputable businesses with plenty of good reviews.

While it's unethical to drive fake reviews, you can increase the number of good reviews by providing consistently great offerings and encouraging people to leave a review. You can also respond to bad reviews in a polite and understanding way with promises to improve or investigate incidents, which can help counter those negative reviews by showing that you truly care about your customers' experience.

10. Optimizing for Technical SEO

To further improve upon people's experience with your website and boost SEO efforts, you need to optimize your site's technical SEO. Certain technical aspects include page speed, structured data, URL structure, schema markup, the use of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), optimizing 404 pages, enabling HTTPS for added security, and registering your website with Google Search Console.

Ultimately, well-optimized technical SEO can help search engines crawl and index your website in Google, while also making sure it's user-friendly.

By following and incorporating each of these local SEO trends in 2021 and the years ahead, you can appeal to local audiences and make sure you stay above competitors in search engines. Taking the time to develop a good local SEO strategy can mean the difference between success and failure for your business, particularly if you're just starting out.

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