Part 1 of the guide discusses optimizing a business's website and Google My Business listing for local search visibility. It recommends creating individual pages for each physical location that include the city or location in titles, headings, content, and metadata. It also suggests including details like address, phone number, hours and maps. The guide stresses the importance of a mobile-friendly site and complete, optimized Google My Business listing to appear in local search results.

1. A THREE-PART GUIDE TO INCREASING YOUR ORGANIC LOCAL VISIBILITY
WITH THE AIM OF DRIVING FOOTFALL TO YOUR STORE, SHOP OR BUSINESS.
TO
PART 1: Website – Local Optimisation • Google My Business
Andy Robson
Senior Search Marketing Consultant
CLICKS BRICKS

2. Okay, so you feel like you’ve either cracked SEO and your website
is getting great traffic, or you’ve got the hang of it and it’s
certainly heading in the right direction, BUT your actual in-store
footfall has either dwindled or become stagnant.

3. Put bluntly, those who didn’t survive
became victim to their own websites –
or worse, they didn’t take their digital
presence seriously enough.
A perfect recent example of this was BHS, who were not only late to
the ‘digital era’ but their digital strategy did very little to support their
physical stores. In today’s modern age, increasing your SEO visibility
on a local level is crucial if you expect your physical store to survive
and complement your whole retail offering.
Fortunately, an increasingly large number of our retail clients are
beginning to see the benefits of long term Local SEO strategies,
and the benefits of turning those digital clicks to visited bricks.
CLOSED
we’re
At one point a few years ago,
retail stores shutting up shop
was certainly something that hit
headlines almost monthly, and
whilst this was largely down to the
recession (and I’m not knocking
that this was a significant factor),
I believe our buying habits have not
only forever changed the way we
live our lives, but changed the way
retail businesses are run.

4. SO, WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT LOCAL SEO?
Well… whilst a large number of elements used in search engine optimisation
are also applicable to local, there are a few unique elements.
We’ve developed this short guide, split into 3 parts, with the aim of
guiding you through the ‘must-haves’ of any Local SEO strategy.
The guide is very much a top level view of any local search strategy, so if you need
to go a little deeper to achieve very specific goals, talk to us for further information.

5. Now, before I get stuck in – a bit of data to support
why this stuff is so bloomin’ important:
Consumers search with their
location and proximity in mind
• 4 in 5 consumers use search
engines to find local information.
• They search on smartphone and
computer/tablet for: store address,
business hours, availability and
directions
Local searchers take action
• 50% of consumers who conducted
a local search on their smartphone
visited a store within a day, and 34%
who searched on a computer/tablet
did the same.
• Local searches lead to more
purchases than non-local searches.
18% of local searches on smartphone
lead to a purchase within a day vs.
7% of non-local searches.
Consumers prefer and act on
location-based ads
• 4 in 5 consumers want ads
customised to their city, post / zip
code or immediate surroundings.
• More than 60% of consumers have
location information in ads. They say
it’s important to have store address
and phone number in ads on
computer/tablet, and directions and
the call button in ads on smartphone.

6. OPTIMISINGYOURWEBSITEFORLOCALSEARCH
So, if you hadn’t already noticed, Google* (and yes, Bing* too)
have become pretty good at detecting your location when you
conduct a search, both on mobile and desktop.
That means if your website isn’t locally optimised for your
products or services, then you’re going to struggle to stand out to
Google.
At worst, you’re not appearing in these searches at all, and at
best, you got lucky and will most likely be providing a very poor
experience for your website visitor, who probably has to dig
around for the right information.
Not good enough in this day and age, I’m afraid.
*Other search engines are available.
INDIVIDUAL PAGES FOR EACH LOCATION
If you have access to create pages on your website then
I highly recommend creating an individual page for each
physical store location. This gives you a greater chance to
optimise said page for each location, creating unique and
relevant information for that store/shop.
I have seen instances where some clients have 3 or 4 stores
so decide to bung them all on one page, and whilst this
does achieve some level of success, I would still recommend
separating them.
And of course, if like one of our clients, you have 97 locations
then a page for each location is a must.
A B

7. Include the city/location in the
title tag of the location page
Sometimes this is super obvious and other times, it’s surprising how
easy it is to forget but title tags still carry a lot of weight when it comes
to signal for local relevancy
Include the city/location
in your H1 heading
Don’t get carried away here, it still needs to be natural, but including the
city/location in your H1 tag adds to the local relevancy
Include the city/location in
your optimised on page content
Okay, so I say this with trepidation but this will obviously add to the local
relevancy of a page, but if you’ve got more than one location, don’t just
change the city/location in the content then use it on every page. Ensure
the content is unique to each location page
Include the city/location in the meta
description of the location page
Again, this might seem super obvious, but not only can it help local
relevancy but don’t forget it’s title tags and meta descriptions which can
be the call to action which means a user clicks on your website rather
than a competitors
Include the city/location in
your alt text on images
Okay, you can be forgiven for forgetting this one, but it’s still surprising
how many people don’t include alt text on their location imagery – but
remember Google can’t see what’s in your images so alt text helps
provide better understanding of your pages content
WHEN IT COMES TO OPTIMISING YOUR STORE/SHOP PAGES, ENSURE THAT THE
‘CORE LOCATION’ IS INCLUDED IN THE FOLLOWING ON-PAGE KEY ELEMENTS:
TITLE
H1

8. CREATING A DIRECTORY
All location pages should be accessible through
a traditional store directory such as ‘Find a Store’.
Ideally, this should be linked from your primary
navigation, or sub-navigation. Whilst it is okay to
use ‘fancy features’ such as search by postcode,
it’s still best practice to provide an alternative
hard coded path for each one of your location
pages, as otherwise Google will unlikely be able
to crawl it.
A UNIQUE URL FOR EACH LOCATION
The website structure of, one location = one page
is essential if you want any chance of achieving
organic local visibility, but by ensuring that each
location has its own unique URL can also positively
impact your search results.

9. Include opening hours (where relevant) on each individual location page.
Include an embedded Google Map of the location, and no, a screenshot won’t cut it.
If you have locations which are close to one another, try linking between them to provide additional
options: i.e., were you looking for our other London branch?
If possible, include your brand name in the title tag of each location, along with locality based info.
The full address, and phone number, known as a NAP (covered in Part 2 of this 3-parter!) should appear on
the page and be appropriately marked up with Schema.
TECHNICALLY SOUND
There are a number of things that - if you get them right -
will certainly go a long way to providing more strength to your Local SEO campaign.
OPEN
YOUR NAME HERE
+

10. MOBILEFRIENDLY
Thanks to Google’s roll out in April 2015 and
the subsequent media attention it drew, most
people have now heard of ‘Mobilegeddon’
although, honestly it really wasn’t as exciting/
bad as people made out it would be.
But for those of you in need of a refresher;
Google rolled out an algorithm update, which
essentially meant users conducting a search
on a mobile device, i.e. an iPhone, the search
results they see, will be influenced by whether
or not a website is considered mobile-friendly by
Google.
So, in a nutshell, if you’re looking to make an
impact on your local rankings, if your site isn’t
considered mobile friendly then your rankings
will suffer. You can check whether Google deems
your site mobile friendly with their PageSpeed
Insights.
Sites ticking the mobile-friendly
box look like this in Google search:
Top Google points
for us, as you can see!

11. GOOGLE MY BUSINESS
OKAY – YOU GOT ME...
*Technically* a Google My Business listing can be
classed as a citation, (something we’ve covered
in more detail in Part 2) but I consider Google My
Business as THE local directory, and given the sheer
volume of users of Google I decided to dedicate
a singular section just to this, and why getting it
right can have a huge impact on your organic local
visibility.
You may well already have a listing in place, but GMB
has gone through many re-brands over the course of
the years and you may well know it better by Google
Places for Business or Google+ Pages Dashboard –
and all previous accounts have been upgraded and
migrated to GMB now.
SO, WHY JUST GOOGLE AND NOT
YAHOO BING TOO?
You’re right, they are important but if your time is
limited (or even just valuable) then I certainly suggest
focusing your energy with Google. Trust me, it’ll have
a far better impact.
If you want to appear in Google’s Pack listings (see
below) then the only way to do this is by having a
Google My Business listing, and whilst you may still
achieve organic rankings for the long tail key phrases,
which will lead directly to subpages of your website,
having a GMB listing is THE only way to appear in
pack listings.

12. GET VERIFIED
Like, seriously! Get verified! Once you create your listing, you’ll then need to be verified, and remember there’s a lot of
stuff we’ve listed below that you can’t do, i.e. respond to reviews and add extra photos etc., until you’ve verified your
location.
If you have 10 or less locations, you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way – Google send you a postcard with a unique 5 digit code, to the
address you have entered. Once you receive the code, pop it in and voilà you’re verified.
Imagine doing that for potentially hundreds of locations! The stress, the hassle, the horror!
Thankfully Google saw the light, and for those of you with multiple locations (in this case 10 or more), your account can become verified,
which means you can verify your locations without the need for snail mail.
In this case you might want to consider
using Google My Business’s bulk upload
function, using their template, you can
upload a mass amount of data about a
number of different locations, then at this
point you’ll see this;
Fill it in, and go through
the verification process to
have yourself anointed.
Google have provided more
information about the bulk
verification process.

13. Add a phone number to your listings (the same
one as your website and the ones you’ll use in the
citations too).
Add/ensure the physical address of the location and
ensure it matches the website and local directories
(citations).
Upload hi-res photos, you can now segment these by
including your logo, identity photos, photos at work,
team photos, interior and exterior shots, and your
products.
Choose as many categories as possible, although
ensure you use the pre-filter option by Google which
generates the options as you begin to type.
Add a unique description of your business, and
make sure it’s optimised accordingly, but this really
is the chance to sell your business, and using a few
carefully chosen keywords might be smart too.
OPTIMISING THE LISTING
It seems really obvious to say it, but simply setting up a Google My Business listing with nothing but the basics
won’t get you far. There’s a ton of information you can provide to Google so grab this opportunity and maximise it.
Add the types of payment you accept – it may not
seem important but the more complete your profile,
then the more you’ll look like teacher’s pet to Google.
Add your opening times (and be sure to add special
hours for things such as Christmas and bank
holidays).
Add a virtual tour of your business – essentially this
is an indoor version of ‘street view’ which lets you see
a location through a 360-degree photography. You
can add a business view by hiring a Google-approved
photographer.
Get reviews! (I cover this more in Part 3).

14. USING THE CORRECT
LANDING PAGE
When you optimise your Google My Business listing,
ensure that the website link URL for each store, goes
directly to the individual store pages, it makes for a
better user experience and will be favoured as such
by Google.
GOOGLE+
I know. Don’t shoot the messenger, but Google+
and Google My Business have a lot of overlap, but
because of that it’s not bad practice to post to your G+
page every now and again, as a rule of thumb I try to
do it every week.
So I’ve covered off the first stepping stones to
increasing your local organic visibility, but how do you
now step it up a notch and become an authority for your
products or services locally?
In Part 2 I discuss more about putting meat on the
bones of what you’ve built out with your on-site local
optimisation and the creation/optimisation of your GMB
listing.

15. CONTACT US FOR TAILORED ADVICE ON BUILDING A BUSINESS CASE FOR DIGITAL INVESTMENT, OR ANY OF THE OTHER TOPICS COVERED.
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Now you’re well on your way with the basics of bossing
Local SEO, check out the next titles in our series:
PARTS 2 3 COMING SOON