Lampo

Local SEO

Local SEO

If you have a brick and mortar local business it is crucial to have a strong local SEO strategy. Nearly everyone begins their search for a product or service with an online search and naturally you want to ensure that you are at the top of those local search results, such as Google Maps, to reap the full benefit.


The correlation between a local search for a product or service and an action such as a purchase or a booking is extremely high. When someone searches for "pizza near me" or "dentist Stockholm" they are most likely prepared to take the following action of buying a product or visiting a location.


Therefore, appearing at the top of the search results can have a very drastic impact on your sales totals. At Lampo, we love providing local SEO!


All of the other actions from on-page, off-page and technical SEO apply here too but there are also several other actions you'll need to complete in order to improve your rankings in the local search results. 

Our Tips to Win at Local SEO:

A finger pointing to a location on a map.

Local SEO Key Points

  • Optimize business info for local search
  • Claim and update all relevant business listings, especially your Google My Business (GMB) listing
  • Acquire backlinks from local sources
  • Acquire customer reviews and interact with them
  • Create content optimized with local keywords
  • Mobile friendliness
  • Use proper schema markup


"Local SEO delivers the highest conversion levels of all local advertising channels."

-HubSpot

A woman leaning on her car and reading a map.

Why is Local SEO important?

More than any other search queries, local searches have the highest conversion rates. When someone searches for "lunch restaurant downtown" they aren't searching to see if it exists, they're searching because they plan to have lunch downtown in the near future.


In addition, working to build trust with your local market is very important, as local customers tend to be the most loyal.


“"Where to buy” + “near me” mobile queries have grown by over 200% from 2017 to 2019."

-Think With Google


A close-up of a Google Maps app icon on a smartphone.

Google My Business (GMB) Listing

A smart Local SEO strategy will include claiming all your relevant business listings (also called citations), but the most important one is your GMB listing. Be sure to:

  • add all relevant information so your profile is complete
  • ensure all of your information (especially name, address, business hours, phone number) is accurate
  • optimize using local keywords such as city and neighborhood
  • upload lots of good photos and optimize them


"Google My Business listings are 70% more likely to attract location visits and 50% more likely to lead to a purchase."

-BrightLocal

A laptop computer placed on a table.

Keep Your Website Updated

With as busy as you are running your business day in and day out, it's easy to overlook keping a focus on your website, especially if you don't need to interact with it on a daily basis. But, doing so can give you big Local SEO gains. Here's a few:

  • Google loves fresh content. Why? It signals to them that your site is active and more likely to be relevant.
  • Keeps your customers coming back to see what's new which is great for traffic, loyalty and improved customer experience.
  • Regular updates means that most likely the information on your website is accurate.
A hand giving a thumb's up.

Welcome Customer Reviews

Customer reviews are very powerful at building customer trust. You want to encourage them and even feature them on your website. 


In addition, you should always respond to them no matter if they are positive or negative. Anyone can have a bad day and everyone understands that less than ideal experiences are going to happen. But a sincere response can go a long way in negating a negative review.

A person holding up a mobile phone with a view of a city in the background.

Mobile Friendliness

More and more often search queries are made on mobile phones instead of a desktop computer. But in terms of local searches, more are made while on the go using a mobile device. What do you need to do to take advantage of this opportunity? 

  • Make sure you use responsive design when building your website.
  • Make sure your navigation, buttons, text size, etc... are just as useable on a small screen.
  • Optimize images for fast loading speeds.
A computer that is open and on Google's homepage.

Google Search Console

Google provides every website owner to free access to a behind the scenes view of things. There are technical benefits to using GSC, such as uploading a site map, addressing any error notifications Google has discovered and checking your Core Web Vitals. In addition, you can also see search metrics such as search traffic, clicks, top search queries and much more.

A close-up of a paper in a typewriter with the word

Local Backlinks

Backlinks (links from another website that link out to your website) are a powerful ranking factor that act as a vote for your website. Backlinks from local sources aid in your Stockholm SEO strategy. A good way to obtain them (and improve brand awareness at the same time) is to participate in local events and organizations. Another way is to encourage business reviews with a link back to your site. 

A picture of chess pieces on a chess board.

Track Your Competition

One way to go about building your Local SEO plan is to track your competitors and see what is working for them.  You know you need to use local keywords and put them in key places like your meta description, title tag, heading tags and GMB listing: Which ones are they using?

What gaps do you see in their strategy that you can use to your advantage?


This chrome extension from Detailed makes it really easy to check what keywords your competitors are using in their meta descriptions and title tags.

A screenshot of various social media app icons on a smartphone.

Social Media

Although social media is not used as a ranking factor for search engines like Google, that doesn't mean you should not include it in your Local SEO strategy.

A strong social media presence is great for brand awareness and for building relationships with your customers, both of which can good for generating more sales. On top of that, it can also aid in increasing your  search traffic , and that is a ranking factor.


Further reading:

Why Your Business Needs More Than Just Social Media

A computer screen with lots of html code.

Structured Data

Schema markup is code used by search engines and it is very important in helping them to not only understand your content but also to display it. Special features in the search results like rich snippets and knowledge panels are made possible by structured data like schema markup. 


It is advised to have a developer code your schema markup. However, an easy way to see what you currently have is to use a schema validator like this one from schema.org.

A woman using voice search on her smartphone.

Voice Search

It is becoming more and more common for people to use voice search ("Hey Siri!") while on the go for local info. Here are some simple tips to make sure you are optimized for it:

  • first and foremost, use conversational style phrases with your local keywords
  • set up local schema markup
  • be mobile search friendly
A view down a pedestrian street in downtown Stockholm around Mood Gallerian.

Are you located in Stockholm? Looking to boost your online visibilty?

Check out our SEO Stockholm page!

Interested to learn more?

Check out these other pages!

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