What Is Local SEO & Why Your Business Needs It

“What is local SEO?” is a common question we get all the time here, and while we could give you a quick answer – it’s better if we explain it thoroughly.

When 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to search for local businesses and their details, it’s easy to understand why local SEO is necessary.

Any business that has a store or physical location can make use of local SEO. It’s not just important; it’s vital for any brand trying to grow and prosper in their area.

Local SEO is no longer a strategy that companies with a big marketing team can do.

On the contrary, working on your brand’s local SEO has been the easiest it has ever been.

Below we’ll go over everything you should know about local SEO, from what it’s all about to how to implement it in your business.

Looking for ways to improve your SEO but don’t know where to start? Let us help.

What is Local SEO

So, what is local SEO?

Local SEO helps you improve your visibility on search engines, especially Google and Google Maps.

You do this by focusing on keywords that target what people around you would search for when looking for a business like yours near them.

Normal SEO personalizes its approach to target countries most of the time. The idea is to reach the biggest group of people possible. With local SEO, you’re hyper-fixating on a city or state at most.

This type of targeted SEO helps businesses that rely on clients visiting their locale to grow. This includes restaurants, clothing brands, dentists, car mechanics.

That being said, local SEO doesn’t only benefit businesses with a physical store. Businesses that provide a local service can also take advantage of local SEO. These include tutors, plumbers, gardeners, etc.

Local SEO is a lot more versatile than it seems. At first glance, it may seem limited, but local SEO helps nearly every business that values its local customers.

Should You Care About Local SEO?

The short answer? Absolutely!

SEO is vital for any business, and local SEO is just a different strategy tied to it. Without local SEO, your business would be very difficult to find for people in your area.

Not to mention that it is generally easier to rank for a specific location-based keyword compared to one for the whole country.

Google will show users some local results when it knows that the user is looking for a place, service, or product near them.

Google will treat something like “Thai food restaurants” differently than “Thai food near me” when someone searches for them. Your goal with local SEO is to appear in their results when they use local keywords such as “near me” or the name of the state or city you’re in.

Any business with a strong local SEO strategy will be higher up the search results list, which makes it a lot more likely for people to click on it.

A strong local SEO strategy is crucial in 2025. It helps you connect with nearby customers and reach your local audience.

What Does Google Look For in Local SEO?

Before we dive into some actionable steps you can take to improve your local SEO. We should go over how local SEO works and give a brief overview of it.

For the Thai food restaurant example, searching that keyword will show you the top website in your country. When searching for a Thai food restaurant near me, you will get the most dominant website in your state and city.

This is because Google understands that location is the most important part of said keyword. You don’t want to find a Thai restaurant that is twenty hours away from where you are; you want a place you can drive to and eat in less than an hour.

Google ranks business websites based on key factors. This applies to both Google Maps and traditional search results.

For traditional search engine results when ranking web pages, Google looks for:

• Is the quality of the page good? This means that the website is useful, provides value, and is trustworthy.

• Is it relevant to the search the user did? The closer the page is to the exact search a user does, the more likely they are to see that page in particular.

• Is the page easy to navigate and use? If the page isn’t mobile-friendly or takes forever to load, then Google will take note and prevent users from seeing it first.

While for Google Maps, Google looks for:

• How far away from the user is it? Google will always prioritize this for local searches. They want to make sure the user finds what they’re looking for as close as possible.

• Does it have good reviews? If the place has hundreds of fantastic reviews, then Google will rank this website above others.

• Does it match the search? Same as with a traditional search, the keywords need to match what the user is looking for. The closer it is to the exact search, the more likely it is to show that specific website.

So the question “what is local SEO?” is answered; what now? We now go through some simple local SEO tips that you can start implementing in your business this week.

Top 4 Pro Tips About Local SEO

Pro Tip 1. Work on Your Local Keyword Research

This is the first step in creating a local SEO strategy. It’s hard to guess what local keywords you need for your business without any research beforehand.

Start by creating a detailed list of keywords clients would use to find a product or service that you or a similar local business sells. This will help you understand what type of keywords you should be looking out for.

Stuck on your keyword research? Let us help.

Pro Tip 2. Optimize and Work on Your Google Business Profile

This is a must for any local SEO strategy. Without a Google Business Profile, you’re practically invisible in local search results. Make sure you follow Google’s step-by-step process to claim your business site.

Once you complete this, make sure to add all the relevant information related to your business. From opening and closing times (if you have some) to your exact address.

This not only helps people know when they can contact you or go to your locale, but it helps Google understand your business a lot better.

Make sure you add photos of both your locale and the products or services you sell.

Do not take quick pictures with your phone and call it a day. Take your time to take high-quality photos that make your brand stand out.

Don’t forget to write a good introduction that explains who you are and what you sell or what services you provide. Put some good thought into this since it’s the first sentence most people will see in their Google search results.

Pro tip 3. Work on Localizing your Website and Content

Don’t think that you’re done once you have your Google Business optimized! That’s just one of many steps in this local SEO journey. Now you have to start working on your website and its local SEO.

There are several things you can do to improve your local SEO without removing your hard-earned SEO that you’ve been working for.

The first step is to make sure you have your locale’s address all over your website. Ideally in every page.

A great way to do this is by adding your address to the footer of your website. This ensures that your address is always on every page.

Another fantastic way to work on your local SEO is by creating blog posts related to the city or state your locale is based in.

Let’s say you have a local restaurant in San Francisco, providing Thai food and you want to create a blog post that helps your local SEO. You would make sure you add the city or state you’re targeting in the title of the article and throughout the article itself.

A title could be “Top 5 Thai dishes to try for Valentine’s Day in San Francisco.”

The idea is simple but effective.

Pro Tip 4. Focus on Voice Search

With Google pushing its AI assistant more and more each year, it is becoming pretty mandatory to start working on voice search.

On paper, it might seem like your normal keywords would work, but that’s not the case. The way we type when searching for something is different from how we search for it with our voice.

When voicing a question, we tend to add more words than when we type. This means that creating longer-tailed keywords is important if you want to target voice searches effectively.

People often search like this: “Thai restaurants open near me.”

But if they use their assistant, they might ask, “Are there any Thai restaurants open near me?”

The difference may seem small, but remember that Google shows web pages with keywords that match the search query best.

Voice search optimization will become more important as AI advances.

To prepare your brand, start focusing on it today.

Increase Your Local Rankings with Blacksmith’s Local SEO Services

We answered what local SEO is and gave you some actionable tips you can start working on this instant.

But we know how much work you need to do if you want to see any sort of improvement SEO wise.

It takes a lot of planning and SEO understanding, which might take time out of your day that you could be using to focus on other aspects of your business.

But don’t worry, with Blacksmith you’ll be able to completely focus on your business while we do all the local SEO heavy lifting.

With our local SEO service and our team of seasoned SEO professionals, we’ll get you ranking locally with a practical SEO strategy, providing tangible results.

We’ll help your brand stand out from the competition in your area and ensure that both your Google Business and website are perfect SEO-wise.

Still unsure if this is the right decision? Click here to schedule a call with us so we can audit and explain all the areas where your website could improve SEO-wise. Don’t let 2025 be the year you lose clients locally because you didn’t care about your local SEO.