Episode 486: SEO With Warren Laine-Naida , Local SEO

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Show Summary

Warren Laine-Naida talks about why Local SEO Matters.

Show Highlights:

1. Bing Places.

2. Google Business Profile.

3. What services companies have.

Show Notes

Hey, there, it’s Warren Laine-Naida. Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for having me back again, Rob. I’m going to talk about local SEO today. And for those of you who don’t know me, you can find me on Twitter X. It’s Warren L neida. SEO is one of the things that really interests me. I’ve been I’ve been doing online marketing for a few decades and yeah, I still find it very interesting and I’m hoping that that I can interest you or reinterpret you in local SEO this time. Time it’s, you know, it’s it’s one of those parts of SEO we might not like. You know, things near us. Things that are local small businesses, bricks and mortar. It might not be the most exciting part of SEO but it’s really effective and and local businesses. Rely on us to help them out. So yeah, if you’re new to local SEO, this is going to be great. If you’re an old local SEO. Hack I want to touch on a couple of really sort of interesting things I find about local SEO. So let’s get right to it. You know, local SEO as we know for Google, for Bing for most of us, we’re talking about three things. We’re talking about relevant local businesses, so these are businesses and services that we can get to, you know within 10 minutes. So you can imagine if if we’re on foot or on a bicycle, it’s gonna be shorter than 10 minutes in a on a in a car. You know, we’re looking at maybe like 10 kilometers, 8 kilometers, 7 kilometers. You know it’s not going to be really any further than that. So is the business within accessible distance and so distance is really important for the search machines as it is for us. If we’re looking for local services and. And. Rugs also relevant. So when we’re looking for something, is it relevant to our search? So if I’m looking for a haircut, you know, that’s that’s my, you know, my explicit search. If I’m looking for hairstyles, this is probably not going to be so relevant for local search. But you know. Haircut with no waiting time is going to be implicit or haircuts near me will be implicit. And so that’s the second part. And how relevant is this search to local? And then the third things that’s really important for the search machines is prominence. So how well is your company is your business, is your service known locally and social media plays a big part in this. The Barber down the street, he has no visibility on search. He has no website. It doesn’t even have a business. A Google business profile or Bing place, but. He is on TikTok and TikTok shows up in the rating in the rankings so people talk. You’re gonna find this guy but you know that’s that’s a difficult case that’s let let let a little less organic SEO search well off page off off page SEO search but. You know what I mean? A business needs to be found. They could be within one of the search engines. They could be off on social media. They could have their card pinned to the supermarket. You know, Pinboard, they need to be found. So one of the more exciting, interesting things about local SEO is hyper local SEO and you know, sadly the economy is might not might not be so good. You know where we are. So we’ve got some empty storefronts and these are taken advantage of by by restaurants, by artists, by fashion designers. Now, if they’re going to have an event in one of these pop up areas. SEO is not going to help them. SEO takes time, so they can really rely on social media for getting the word out for local events and engaging in that local area. So I think you know if we’re thinking as CEO for local, we should also never. Never forget social media. This is very, very important. Social media is not a nice to have. It really is a must have. So if it’s not part of your local SEO mix, get it in there. Because it’s not just about your. Website So you know when we talk about local SEO, I think also one of the newer things that’s very important is voice search. People use Siri, they use Alexa in interests Alexa, where is a pizza sale near me.

I found it. Nearby options there’s element and narrow on one.

Thanks very much Alexa. Alexa, stop. So that’s exactly what I mean. You know, local SEO means voice search and voice search connects us. And we talked about this before. If if our content is optimized for voice search, it’s also optimized for AI. Search so we can get into those AI citations. Maybe this isn’t, you know, important right now for local search, but it’s going to be really, really soon. Social media, TikTok, other hyper social media platforms. They’re already very relevant for search for social selling and our voice assistance are going to be much more important for local search than they might now be. So use natural language queries. You know, if we’re doing organic SEO, you know, we might be typing in, you know best. Margarita pizza. And then you write in your whatever your hometown is, you know. But if you’re thinking voice search or AI search, you’re gonna be saying, hey, where’s the best pizza near me open right now. You’re not going to use this for a regional or organic SEO, but you will use this for local SEO, so local intent. Is really, really important. I don’t think I need to mention that local SEO means your content is available on your mobile device. Local SEO means mobile SEO. It means shopping SEO. It means really understanding the intent of those people looking for your product. Right now they’re not looking for the best doughnut recipes, but they are looking for the doughnut store that delivers. To their office or where they can drop off their dry cleaning and it’s like 8 hour turn around. Out. So it’s very clear the difference between our organic SEO and our local SEO. Local SEO means right now it means personalized at a very hyper level. OK. So yeah, focus on that voice search. Think about AI citations, you can connect. Your local offerings with your organic AI citations think exactly what the people want. It’s very connected with your bricks and mortar with your e-commerce. Local SEO is the grab and go of SC. Ohh so I mentioned Google business business profile. I mentioned Bing places. If you don’t have them, get them. If you don’t have both of them, get both of them being places connects directly with Google Business profile. It’ll just migrate it over. OK and this is really important. Optimize your online shops with your bricks and mortar with your pop-up stores. This is. As well, very, very important. All right, what what’s your e-commerce offerings for local a different than for people 300 miles away from you. If they are, make this very clear for people, OK develop, you know, develop a local content strategy. Not just for keywords, but for exactly what you’re offering, where in the customer journey do you have a bricks and mortar store use? Use what people are thinking in a natural way. Really understand what your. What your local local customers are looking for? Schema Markup Schema Markup is available in local format. Use it rank math out-of-the-box you don’t even. Need to use. The pro version. They have a very, very good schema markup which you can use for your local business for your products, for your events across the board. This will serve you very well if you’re not using schema markup. Use it for your organic. O if you’re not using it for local get in there, get your opening hours in there your location. Do you have parking? Are you wheelchair accessible? Which Metro station are you close to all of these things think that people aren’t going to know the street name, but they are going to know that you’re 100 meters away from their favorite. Grocery store. All right, be also proactive when it comes to local reviews. Everything that’s relevant from Yelp, TripAdvisor, Google. Your local newspaper, your, your blackboard, your your free business wikis. Get in there. I already mentioned and I wanna get back to this. I wanna get back to the local keyword research. Think explicit versus. Implicit. OK, again your shoes. Your haircuts. What are people looking for? Alright. And and think what terms are they going to be using because they want it right now. All right, if they’re looking for a dry cleaner. They don’t want to pick up the stuff next week, you know. Are you able? To. Inform them that your service is is very granular that appeals and to their needs and not just the people who are living in your area, who are the people passing through your area? Are they commuters? Are they tourists? What are the what are the micro and the macro intents here? OK, itemize everything. Use. Every possibility to think very, very local, I said. AI was very important for local because it connects with your your natural language with your voice search, OK? Don’t forget that AI is replacing and will completely replace search engines for getting found. OK, this isn’t fantasy, this is happening so get very comfortable with understanding the type of content that. That AI and your digital assistants want, alright, if you’re not finding yourself when you’re when you’re making a voice search, listen, who is and connect with what they’re doing. See which keywords they’re using. How long are their sentences? You know. Be very dumb, it really down. You know, I don’t want to be offensive, but. We scan, we hear every 3rd word. OK so. Write and think and expect people to be very busy. They are too busy to listen to your 500 word blog post. OK, you are the you are the Billboard on the bus. You are the bus advertisement. OK, So what did you pick up on that? Last bus ad that went by. Start with that. It’s very, very local. Learn from the buses, OK. And you know, don’t forget. That sea Google ads are a black box. They love our money, but. Google ads can be very, very effective for local SEO. They help when we have a lot of competition. They help when we have no time, but they really help if we’re the only ones offering. The service, if you’re the only one offering no weight, haircuts. If you’re the only one offering two hour, turn around for shoe repairs. Any of these local needs use an ad. They connect with your Google business profile. They’re very easy. They are smart, they are not expensive and I still stand by the $1.00 a day will give you usable learnings and will very, very likely get you a customer, OK. That’s all I have to say. I like local SEO. All of my clients are small. Many of them are local and I like what can be done so help the local community. They say think Global Act local and this is a great way to think about SEO. If you’re growing your local SEO clients and your local SEO strategy, you are creating a global organic SEO strategy and you’re helping local businesses at the same time. So do it and good luck.