Welcome to our comprehensive guide where we’ll delve into the intricacies of local SEO for 2024. In this era of digital dominance, understanding and implementing local SEO is crucial for topping Google’s local search results. Let’s explore the key factors that not only align with traditional SEO but also uniquely impact local pack rankings.

 

Google has identified three primary factors for local pack rankings in 2024:

1. Relevance Redefined.

Staying relevant in search queries is vital. In Google’s perspective, relevance is the degree to which a local business profile aligns with a user’s search intent. Achieve this through meticulous on-page SEO and by establishing geo-targeted relevance.

2. Proximity and Precision.

Google now considers the proximity of each potential search result to the user’s location or the location mentioned in their search. Businesses need to be strategically located to optimize for targeted local searches.

3. Prominence and Presence.

Google measures prominence based on a business’s renown. In competitive niches, achieving prominence is key. Enhance your local brand’s prominence through these four strategies:

A. Review Impact: Increase your Google My Business (GMB) listing’s star rating and review count, focusing on gaining reviews from the target area.

B. Backlink Brilliance: Acquire niche-relevant and geo-specific backlinks from authoritative sources.

C. Citation Consistency: Ensure accuracy in your NAPW (Name, Address, Phone, Website) across the web, then expand your citation network.

D. Organic Search Synergy: Excelling in Google’s organic search can bolster your local pack performance.

 

5 Methods to Elevate Your Local SEO Ranking in 2024:

a. Optimize your Google My Business listing.

So you go into your Google My Business listing and benchmark performance which means looking at all the data and setting the Benchmarks to improve upon then go through and optimize the information section and then respond to every single Review that you currently have and this is the easiest action that most businesses never do. 

 it actually adds depth to your GMB listing so just keep it simple, reply to all good and bad reviews then add at least 10 unique images to your listing. Once again, do everything in your power to add depth to your listing because most competitors won’t do it and the key is to use unique images. 

 

 

b. Create a GMB posting schedule.

So gmb posts are not a direct ranking factor however they can indirectly improve the performance of your listing because they can lead to more engagement. So a GMB post expires in 7 days so you should aim to publish at least one new post a week. 

Google has a free tool you can use to create assets for your local business that’s worth checking out.  however you should create content on your GMB that hits each part of the sales funnel. 

c. Clean up your citations.

So go to seemrush, click on local SEO, and go to their listing management tool and just enter your company name and Semrush should populate the location and then run the scan. It will then show you all of your existing listings and other opportunities that you are missing out on right now. Semrush also gives you the ability to clean up your listings which you should take advantage of because it is super time-consuming. 

d. Get more reviews

Now there is overwhelming evidence that reviews are critical to local SEO but they are critical for business reasons as well. According to review crackers, 63.6 percent of consumers say they are likely to check online reviews on Google before visiting a business and more than six in ten consumers look to Google for reviews. 

Customer reviews can increase conversions by 270%. So reviews are super important and the first step to getting more reviews is to establish a target so open up Google enter your most important local keyword, now get the average total reviews for the top three competitors. This becomes your Low end review count target. 

e. Optimize your existing pages.

So at the most basic level, your primary keywords should be in your URL title, H1 tag, first sentence, and last sentence. You should also use Semrush on the page SEO checker. Make sure you benchmark your performance today and then execute on all of these recommendations in addition to that you should also prominently place your address on the target page and use schema markup.  There is some evidence that it may help to embed a Google Map on the target page as well. 

 

 

Conclusion

So the ultimate goal of link building is to build page and website authority which will increase rankings. Equator