[MUSIC] Hi there. Let's discuss Local SEO. We will cover what local SEO is, how it's both similar to and different from regular SEO tactics and some local SEO best practices. Let's start out by defining what local SEO is. Local SEO is the act of optimizing your website in any relevant business listings. This would be something like google my business so that they appear for search queries related to the to the location of your business and relevant keywords. Some examples of potential searches that would be identified as local SEO searches would be something like florists near me. Where to buy a fishing license. Or a coat whatever you're looking for near you. Just something like a food in particular like ramen or burgers. Just that word alone will generally trigger local search results. And also a profession, something like tax accountants, lawyers, many professions without any other keywords. So you don't even need a type your city name, a lot of the time it will return local search results as well. As you can see from these examples, local SEO includes a lot of search queries and types of searches. For local SEO you generally will add location specific keywords to your search result, such as the city name or the phrase near me. But Google has become really advanced and is able to recognize your intent of searching and that the intent is probably local without necessarily having to add these extra words. Now, let's quickly cover Google My Business. This is really closely related to local search. Google My Business is a place Google has reserved for businesses to add their business listing and information, so that this will then appear in the map as well as what's dubbed the local search box. Often times these are now integrated into one listing. As you can see in this example where we search for Tailor, Austin, Texas and it has both a map and local search result listings. In addition to giving your business the opportunity to appear in the map and local search results, Google My Business has a host of other features. Google is constantly adding and changing features so this isn't a definite list and may change by the time you read this. Some examples of current features they have are the ability for users to leave reviews. The ability for you to add the opening hours for your business. Google will identify busy times and they do this for you based on how many people are on a certain device and you're proximity within a certain time. You can add products that you saw, your business can add posts and announcements. You have a Q&A section where customers can ask questions about your business or services and you can answer those. And you can also add a variety of images around your shop products and more. Now, it's important to note, Google is constantly changing Google My Business pages as well as how local search performs and functions. This relates to how things appear in search, new features are adding or removing and more. Because Google is constantly testing local search results to see what works best and what features both paid or organic can be added. The appearance of results can change over time, so they may not always align with what you're seeing here now. But the concept of what you need to do for local SEO, we'll remain the same. So it's really almost impossible to include specific examples that remain relevant. But when looking at my examples, just don't be alarmed if they look different than what you see live or if there are new features or some of them aren't there. For the ease of learning due to this rapidly changing environment, I'm keeping this more at a high level and covering the best practices that will stand the test of time and help you succeed in this space. With local SEO, your goal is to acquire as much visibility as possible. You can do this in two ways. The first way is through what's called the Local Pack, which is that list of local businesses, sometimes with the map that appears at the very top of organic search results. And then the second is in Organic search results themselves. So you can see in this example there's this business that is ranking in both the local pack and in the first position of organic results. So being able to do this really allows you to take up more real estate on Page 1 and that can push competing sites and pages off of the page so you get more visibility. Now, in order to appear in both the local search pack and organic listings. This will involve optimizing both your Google My Business listing and optimizing your website with local search in mind. The first step, if you don't already have one is to grab your free Google My Business listing. All you need to do is sign up and verify your business with Google. These are free and you can just sign up at the link included in the reference notes. The process of signing up is pretty self explanatory, but do note that you will need some way to verify your actual physical presence before Google will launch your page. Generally this is done through a phone call or a postcard mail to the physical address. Once you have your google my business listing set up, this will enable customers to better discover you and find out more about your business. You will also be able to rank in the local pack as shown before and if a user clicks on your local search results, they'll be taken to a map that shows a lot of the extra detail from products and reviews to more. I'll go over an example here of the example Brooklyn florist we saw in the previous search pack. If I click onto that result and go to the the Google businesses page on maps. We can see a lot of different features that they've added here from images to store, opening hours, reviews and more. To help your business appear in these searches, it's best practice to make sure all of the information you have available to you is included in your Google My Business listing, fill out as many areas as possible. The most important areas are your address, your opening hours, images of your store and social media and website links. Now, when you add your contact information, I'm referring to this as NAP, or Name, Address and Phone Number. It's critical to ensure that these are accurate. What Google will do is verify that your legitimate business by checking for relevant existing addresses and phone numbers related to your business online. So it will cross reference online mentions of your business with the data you provided. If there are a lot of discrepancies with information found on your website, other business listings around the web and your Google My Business listing, this will impact your ability to rank highly. If you have outdated business information around the web, it's a really good idea to go back and correct it and make sure everything reflects the same business name, physical address and phone number. And that way Google will know that your legitimate business, this is actually where customers can find you, and that'll help you rank better.
