Local SEO for E-commerce: How to Optimize Your Online Store

The globe is round, and we always reach where we started. E-commerce is no exception. A couple of decades ago, people used to visit physical stores to buy stuff; then came online businesses, and now, somewhere, we are again on the verge of those brick-and-mortar stores—very prominently, if not completely.

Shoppers, especially baby boomers, still prefer buying from sellers from their neighboring area. This is due to certain reasons; first, they like to see and touch the product, and second, they want their seller to be physically reachable. This trend has brought a new marketing strategy into sight known as local SEO. In this blog post, we are going to discuss the ins and outs of local SEO and everything that revolves around it.

The importance of local SEO can be understood from a simple statement: Many customers still prefer the physical touch before buying anything. Touching, testing, and seeing the product gives them a little more confidence in the quality of the product. This is more common in baby boomers, who still prefer shopping at brick-and-mortar stores to buying online. Local SEO can help you reach out to such customers, attracting them to your store and eventually increasing your customer base.

On the other side, there is still a long list of products and services that still require someone to visit the service provider or the service provider to visit the customer. Consider, as an example, someone looking to buy marble tiles or handicrafts would prefer to see and touch the product to examine the quality of the product. The same happens when someone hires a tile installation expert. They want to hire someone from their neighborhood to ensure they can reach out to him effortlessly in case of any concerns. To help such customers reach the right business, Wytlabs curates the best marketing plans.

What is Local Ecommerce SEO?

As the name suggests, local SEO is search engine optimization done for the audience of a specific region, city, or state. The process remains quite similar to basic SEO, especially when it comes to organic SEO, but with a small tweak.

In the case of local SEO, your ecommerce marketing agency would prefer adding a region (like Brooklyn), a city (like NYC), or a state (like New York). Therefore, the keywords or search terms become a little more specific, like “Handicrafts Manufacturers in Brooklyn,” “Marble Tiles Installation Services NYC,” or “Travel Agencies in New York.”

The process starts with on-page SEO, where webmasters optimize their websites for location-specific keywords. Search engines honor these locations in their results when people search for a location-based keyword like the ones mentioned above.

The other and more important aspect of local SEO for Google is the GMB (Google My Business) profile. Have you seen the array of rich search results showcasing addresses, phone numbers, directions, reviews, and photos when you search for a location-specific keyword? These results allow you to contact the service provider directly without having to visit their website. This is provided by Google My Business profiles.

How Does Local SEO Work?

For a novice user, local SEO works the same as basic SEO. You choose your keywords, you choose your offerings, and you start promoting your website.

However, advanced professionals would understand the core difference. Unlike normal SEO, local SEO works for a geographical area, which they have to suggest to search engines through on-page SEO, keywords, GMB profiles, and choosing domains to create backlinks that belong to a specific location.

Essentially, when it comes to local SEO, search engines consider many things, the GMB profile being the most important. Along with that, they consider the physical location of the business, their targeted keywords, and the audience they target. When someone searches for a query like ”best handicraft manufacturers in Brooklyn, search engines prefer businesses that have their physical appearance in Brooklyn, which is primarily decided by their Google My Business profile. Yet, if a website targets Brooklyn in their keywords, they are also considered.

How to Optimize Your Ecommerce Website for Local Search?

Optimizing a website for local SEO requires several added steps compared to organic SEO. This starts with optimizing for location-based keywords—both on-page and off-page—along with the GMB profile. Let’s examine each step in detail:

Claim and Optimize Google My Business (GMB)

First and most importantly, you need to tell Google that you have a physical presence in the targeted location. This is done by creating a Google My Business (GMB) profile.

A GMB profile is nothing but a virtual or digital visiting card for your business where you provide the search engine giant with some details that prove that your business is located in the mentioned area. There are certain details that you may need to provide and verify in order to get the most out of your Google My Business profile.

While creating your GMB profile, make sure you mention your business name, address, and contact details. Google these days requires verification of these details, which may include sending a code to your location, or you may need to submit a video showcasing your physical location.

The same may go with other details, such as your phone numbers or email ID. You may need to validate these contact details via a one-time code, which would be sent to these IDs.

When it comes to websites, Google is usually a little considerate. However, in some cases, you may need to add a tracking code to your website to prove your business identity.

Once these details are submitted, your business gets verified, and you start appearing in local search results. But that is just a small part of the process, as you’ll only start appearing for queries related to your business, e.g., when someone searches your business name online. To appear for category- or service-related keywords, you need to optimize your profile, get reviews, and provide additional information.

Optimize for Local Keywords

Next is optimizing your business with local keywords. This is done in multiple ways—the first one being optimizing your GMB profile for the services/products you offer and the category you belong to. Mention these details in your listing as well as reviews, and your chances of appearing higher in search results will increase.

Another way is optimizing your website for local keywords—on-page as well as off-page SEO. As discussed before, Google takes these signals very seriously. So, if your website’s on-page details are optimized for local keywords and if you target location-specific keywords in your off-page activities, you start ranking higher in search results.

Ensure NAP Consistency Across All Platforms

NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone Numbers. While providing these details, you have to be very careful.

Remember, search engines like Google fetch data from multiple sources. This means if you provide different NAP signals at different places, you are simply confusing search engines. Make sure your name, address, and phone numbers are exactly the same on different profiles like your GMB, LinkedIn page, social profiles, websites, and business directories. This not only encourages search engines to use the appropriate contact details but also increases your chances of ranking higher in search results.

Create Location-Specific Content

Now, let’s come to the real SEO part: the content marketing segment. Since you know that content is the king in the digital world and it is the biggest influencer for rankings, you need to take this part very seriously.

While creating your SEO content, ensure your ecommerce content marketing agency is implementing location-specific keywords. This does not only mean you use keywords that contain a location; your content should also address the pain points, requirements, characteristics, and expectations of the people residing in that location.

For example, if you serve the Brooklyn area of New York City and you sell handicrafts, you must address the expectations and tastes of the people residing in the Brooklyn area of New York City. What kind of handicrafts they prefer to buy, what kind of pieces they generally search for, and what their spending habits are some traits that you must address through your content.

In short, make sure your content does not just mention your locations; your content must cover every aspect of the location and the products/services you are targeting. Feel yourself like someone residing in that location, and think about their perspective. Now, you have the real issues to address.

Build Local Citations

Building a local citation simply means proving your presence in that local area online. NAP we have already discussed, but there are many more ways you can build a stronger local citation that Shopify SEO services offer. Make sure to list your business in local business directories, events, online magazines, or anything else that promotes local businesses in that area.

As mentioned before, keep your contact details the same for different places. These details are going to impact your local search results significantly, so it’s your responsibility to provide the search engines with precise information about your business.

Create Local Backlinks to Improve Authority

Now, let’s discuss a highly overlooked part. People think building backlinks is sufficient to rank any business. The truth is that search engines take into consideration the IP addresses and the location of destination websites while ranking any business in local listings.

Understand this concept in a simple example: a person residing in some other location is suggesting a business in your area to be great. On the other hand, a person living in the same area as the business is located is suggesting the business. Who would you consider more authoritative?

Needless to say, you would trust the words of the person living in the same area. This is because you believe that the person must have had some experience with the mentioned business, and his words have personal experience to back them. On the other hand, the person residing miles away from the business can just be assuming or might be influenced by some online reviews or other sources.

Search engines behave the same way. They treat backlinks as testimonials. So, a website linking to your business, if located in the same area, is considered more trustworthy than a website located miles away.

Partner with Local Businesses for Link Building

Continuing the previous point, acquiring backlinks from websites in your local area is important because local websites hold more authority when it comes to local SEO.

Contact local service providers and ask them to link to your website. You can contact other businesses in your industry or with related products or services. For example, if you sell musical instruments, you can reach out to businesses that sell online music classes. This mutual collaboration would be beneficial for both businesses.

Implement Structured Data on Your Site

Now, let’s move to the technical aspect of local SEO. When you connect with us for ecommerce SEO services, before we start anything else, we ensure your website is ready for local SEO optimization. This starts with sending search engines the essential signals that you want to target a specific geographic location.

Fortunately, Schema.org allows us to create local business schemas and markup structures that you may implement on your website. Search engines honor these signals quite significantly if they find these markups on your website. You may mark your location, phone numbers, website, directions, and other important details through these markups, and you can certainly increase your chances of ranking higher in local search results as well as in featured snippets.

Use Social Media to Engage with Local Audiences

Let’s address the elephant in the room: social media. With the change in user paradigm, partnering with the right eCommerce social media marketing agency can give you an edge. Honestly, there can be no better sales driver for you than social media if you do it properly. This is because social media channels allow you to target your locations very precisely, even for a radius of 1 mile or less.

Start optimizing your social media profiles for local users. You may start with building a page that targets local customers by giving your page a specific name like “Handicrafts in Brooklyn” and may even narrow it down to the streets.

Along with organic social media, you may also heavily target your paid campaigns by narrowing down your audience to a specific reason or a radius around the reason, interests, demographics, and much more. Be very precise about who your target customers are, and you have immense potential with social media if you do it well.

Encourage Customers to Leave Reviews

Reviews and feedback play a very crucial role in the success of your local SEO campaign run by your Shopify services or other platforms. One of the most important factors that define the rankings of GMB profiles is the number of reviews and aggregate ranking, as well as the reviews left by the users. Take this thing very seriously.

Encourage your users to leave a review on your GMB profile, your social profile, or your website, if possible. You may simply request some freebies from them in return for a review or may simply request a review from them. Happy customers would love to leave a positive review for your business.

Equally important is addressing negative reviews with decency. If a user is not satisfied with your product or service and leaves a negative review, you may resolve it by speaking to that customer. If not physically possible, you should simply leave a reply on the review addressing the actual concern. This gives search engines and other customers a positive impression of your business.

Conclusion

Charity starts from home, and business starts from your local area. While you may dream of serving customers from across the globe, make sure you serve your local customers first. And here comes into the picture a technique called local SEO.

We have discussed several aspects of local SEO that would help you build a stronger presence in your neighborhood. And trust me, once you win the trust of people in your neighborhood, you can gradually expand your business to a larger area.

Follow the steps mentioned above and start building a strong local SEO strategy. Everything starts from there only.