Как поднять свой бизнес на первое место в поисковых выдачах по регионам

What is Local SEO

Local SEO is a promotion strategy aimed at optimizing a company’s website for user queries from a specific city or area.

The main goal is to attract customers located in a particular geographic region. The strategy provides businesses with maximum visibility for potential customers who are searching for goods or services in their immediate vicinity.

The main difference is that traditional SEO covers a broader audience and is not tied to a specific location. Search results for «local» queries differ from traditional ones: blocks with maps, company profiles are added. Therefore, special attention should be paid to working with services, reviews, and regional websites.

Which Businesses Need It

The following industries are considered «local» companies:

1. Food service: food delivery, grocery stores, cafes, restaurants.
2. Service sector: auto repair shops, beauty salons, medical clinics, and other service directions that can only be provided offline.
3. Entertainment segment: quests, cinemas, nightclubs.

In other words, businesses whose activities are tied to a location.

What is not considered local companies in terms of local SEO:

1. Online services, education.
2. Informational websites: news platforms, article directories, and other resources that are promoted through geo-independent queries, meaning their search results are not affected by the user’s location.
3. Niche B2B topics. For example, the production and sale of medical equipment.

What Search Engines Say

Yandex and Google use «wizards» in the search results. «Wizards» are special elements that provide quick answers to user queries directly in the search results. These can be dates, word translations, weather, and more.

For local search, there are separate «wizards.» In Google, there is the Google Local Pack, a special block that displays information about organizations above the search results in the form of a Google My Business profile card. Example:

A similar feature exists in Yandex — enriched answers about points on the maps (list of local organizations):

According to Google’s official local ranking guide, getting into the special block depends on several factors:

1. Having a profile on Google My Business.
2. Relevance: how well the profile matches the user’s query.
3. Distance: the proximity of the location to the user who entered the query.
4. Prominence: how popular your company is, how many reviews are in the profile.

Yandex does not have separate documentation regarding local organizations, but there are various mentions in the help section. For example, about enriched answers, regional factors, which indicate that Yandex takes these factors into account when ranking and forming regional search results.

Read more on the topic:

Drop domains: what it is and how to find them?

How AI-written texts affect SEO?

How to Optimize Your Site for Local Search on Google and Yandex

Search engines take into account the presence of information in their services, so let’s start with key factors — creating and optimizing organization profiles.

1. «Yandex.Business» — a directory of organizations with descriptions of activities, contact information, and reviews about the company. Data from «Yandex.Business» is displayed in «Yandex.Maps,» «Search,» and mobile maps of Yandex. «Yandex.Business» also allows you to link your site to a specific region.

After registration, you will have access to a personal account, where you can fill in the information:

It is worth filling in all the fields: the more information you can provide, the higher the chance of appearing in the «wizards.» The interface is intuitive, but for convenience, there are instructions in the official «Yandex» guide on how to add a company and what data can be filled in.

2. Google My Business — a similar directory of organizations with descriptions of activities, contact information, and reviews about the company, but the data will only be displayed in Google services: in search results and on maps.

For business owners, Google has an official guide on how to fill out a company’s profile.

However, there are currently issues with adding and moderating new companies. Since 2022, Google does not allow creating new profiles in Russia.

It is important to note that adding profiles to Yandex and Google does not guarantee inclusion in special blocks. Just like in organic search results, search engines rank organization cards. The position of the profile may depend on:

1. The number of reviews and overall rating.
2. The completeness of information in the profile: photos, videos, information about activities.
3. The positions of the site in search and the popularity of the company in general.

Therefore, simply creating a card is not enough to get local traffic. Equally important will be the following tasks:

Setting up regionality in Yandex.Webmaster

• You need to log into the service and enter your website’s credentials (login/password).
• Next, go to «Yandex.Webmaster.» If you do not have access rights to view accesses for your site, contact your supervisor or the specialist who tasked you with assigning a region in «Yandex.Webmaster.»
• Information about regionality can be found in the «Presence in Search» section of «Yandex.Webmaster.»

• If the region for your site is not automatically set, the service will display «site region not set.» You need to manually indicate the region.

• To add the site’s region, select the region to which your site belongs and enter a link to the page that contains information about the site’s regional affiliation (e.g., «Contacts» page). Then click «Save.»

If your site is promoted in multiple regions, in «Ya.Webmaster,» you need to add the most competitive region. For example, when promoting regions like «Samara,» «Yekaterinburg,» «Tula,» «Ryazan,» «Orel,» «St. Petersburg,» «Moscow,» you should add the region «Moscow» for regionality.

In this case, for the St. Petersburg region, the site with the region «Moscow» assigned in the webmaster will have the same priorities as the site with the region «Russia,» but it will have an advantage in the «Moscow» region. This is due to the nested structure of regionality. A site with the «Moscow» region is part of the «Russia» region.

Important! If the region in «Webmaster» is not specified as a specific city but a region/district, country, etc., it is also considered incorrect (the city and region also fall into this category, for example, Moscow and the region — incorrect, the region should be Moscow).

The specific region of promotion must be indicated. The exception is when there is no address in the promoted region on the site and in the directory.

• After clicking «Save,» the service will display the following information: «The changes will be applied. After the next search base update, your site will be assigned the region [region name].»
• After the next search base update (usually within 3-5 days), the service will display the following information:

Presence of Address and Contact Information on the Site

To place the necessary information, you need to create a «Contacts» page and add the following parameters:

• Organization address with zip code.
• Interactive map with the company’s address indicated (you can create a map using Yandex’s service).
• Information about working hours.
• City phone number. Having an additional 8800 number is a plus.
• Information on how to get there. Necessary for users.

Using City Names

Use the city name in meta tags, headings, and content of promoted pages. Inclusion of toponyms in content increases the page’s relevance.

Creating Pages for Narrow Locations

When promoting sites in large cities, queries related to districts or metro stations are often encountered. For example:

If you have points of sale or representative offices throughout the city, focus on such queries.

Optimizing Regional Subdomains for Local Search

To effectively work with regional sites, it is necessary to consider local SEO factors. This means that all the above points are important not only for the main domain but also for a separate subdomain.

Links in Regional Directories of Organizations and Aggregators

The most popular and trusted sites where you can add an organization for free:

Benefits of Local SEO Tools

The key tool of the strategy is working with Yandex and Google services; without them, further actions and site work will be ineffective. But the services offer many opportunities even apart from SEO work:

1. New traffic source. With «Yandex.Business,» you can launch advertising campaigns.
2. Users can find you not only through organic search but also on maps. This helps increase the flow of live offline customers.
3. Building a reputation and image. The higher the rating on the map, the more views can be obtained in search results. Working with reviews and objections is one way to communicate with the customer.
4. Improving CTR. Local «wizards» show sites above the main results. Therefore, even if you are not in the top five positions, the site can still appear on the first page of search results.

Read also: Business in 2024: Promising Business Ideas

Conclusion

Local SEO is a kind of branch of traditional SEO, and both search engines have ranking factors that they consider when forming local search results.

1. Creating and filling out organization cards in Yandex and Google is a key ranking factor in local search.
2. Do not forget about traditional SEO: the task of search engines is to provide users with relevant and quality answers, so it is necessary to work with the site comprehensively.
3. Increased interaction with local media, organization directories, and guides.
4. Increasing the rating and number of reviews — one of the factors that affect the position and number of impressions of the organization card.

Photo on the cover: Unsplash

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