Local SEO Houston
Affordable Local SEO Services That Get Results.
If you imagine the internet as an ocean, Local SEO is a very crowded fishbowl...
What is Local SEO?
So what is local SEO and why do you need it?
Local SEO is the process of optimizing your website and other digital properties like local listings for a specific geographical area. If your business has a storefront, physical location, or you provide services to a geographic area, then your business needs local SEO.
For many companies, especially small businesses, the majority of our business comes from local customers.
So, for illustration, we will use ourselves here in Houston, TX, and look at the difference between searching for a broad keyword like SEO and then narrowing it down to a local search like Local SEO Houston. Let's stick with the ocean metaphor we used above for the internet.
For traditional SEO, we would be targeting a national or even international audience. So, we might optimize our website for common keywords like SEO.
For local SEO, we would be targeting a local audience, be that a city, metro area, or in some cases a region. We would then optimize our website and content to identify with that geographic area. In this example, our keywords would look more like local SEO Houston.
"SEO" on the internet
About 648,000,000 results
That's Houston
Local SEO Houston
About 6,410,000 results
As you can see from the illustration above, the internet is a really big place. A local city, even a big one like Houston, is still a tiny spec on the internet when you look at the differences in search volume. Another important aspect of local SEO is that it takes a holistic approach to optimize your presence for both online and offline business, but more on that in a bit.
SEO vs Local SEO
Is local SEO different than regular SEO
The short answer is, yes and no. Local SEO is really a subset or niche discipline of SEO. So yes, many of the same guidelines of regular SEO still apply to local SEO, but with a focus on local search intent. To understand why local SEO is different and why you need it, it is important to understand how local SEO works.
How does local SEO work?
Local SEO is all about local search intent
Local SEO works by optimizing your website and online profiles like Google My Business (GMB) for local search results. Now, on search engines like Google, these local search results are broken down into 3 main categories: The Local Pack, People Also Ask (PAA), and Organic Search Results.
Let's run a local search for "custom home builder" and see how these 3 categories work.
Local Pack Results
The Local Pack – These 3 results are the ones Google deemed to be the most relevant to your local search query. They will appear at the top of the page next to the map and will have corresponding red data pins on the map to show each of their locations.
How do I rank in the Local Pack? The most important SEO process to ranking in the Local Pack is to claim and fully optimize your GMB profile. It's also worth noting that if you do not have a GMB profile, you can't show up here - period.
People Also Ask (PAA) Results
People Also Ask – Also known as the PAA Box. These results have been steadily growing in prevalence over the past few years. In fact, according to a recent study by Ahrefs, 43% of SERP's now have a PAA box.
How do I rank in PAA? There's an awful lot that goes into PAA, but the most important factor in ranking is to have a well-optimized web page, formatted correctly, and features schema markup for rich snippets. We recommend that you don't focus on these until you rank in the Local Pack and top 3 organic search results.
Organic Local Search Results
Organic Local Search – This section everyone is already familiar with. The exact number of organic local search results shown on page one varies depending on a number of factors like the number of ads, placement of PAA box, etc. However, in most cases, it will be between 8-10 results.
How do I rank for organic search results? So, here, you want to focus on traditional SEO practices, but with a strong focus on local search intent. That means, traditional keyword research and targeting, page optimization, and link building, but focus on the geographic location. So, focus on writing good local, relevant content, and building links from local, authoritative websites.
Local SEO Services Houston
As we outlined above, we employ many of the same processes and strategies for our local SEO campaigns as we do for traditional SEO. The exception is, that there are additional SEO services required and additional assets to manage.
Our Local SEO Services
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Local Competitive Analysis
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Website Optimization
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Local Link Building
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Local Citation Building
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Online Profile Optimization
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SEO Copywriting & Content Creation
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Local Reporting & Analysis
Ready to take your SEO to the next level?
Get your
Free Local SEO Audit
If you have been struggling to get your website ranked locally, we are here to help. Start by filling out this short form to get your Free Local SEO Audit.
After we are done, we will send you a detailed Local SEO report with a custom checklist on how to improve your rankings.
No strings attached. Did we mention it's FREE?