Do You Need Local SEO for E-Commerce?

Table of Contents:

• The Connection Between Local SEO and E-commerce
  • What Are the Benefits of Local SEO for E-commerce?
• How Do I Optimize Local SEO for e-Commerce?
• The Importance of E-commerce Local SEO – Takeaways

The Connection Between Local SEO and E-Commerce

Any business with a physical location that customers visit, any business that caters to a defined area (like a parcel delivery service), or any business that travels to customers (plumbers, handymen, etc.) is exactly the types of businesses that benefit the most from local SEO optimization. While there are many tools available for those interested in their SEO optimization and while there are many trends that you need to follow regardless of the style of business you have, learning the importance of local SEO for e-commerce is crucial if your business needs it.

What Are the Benefits of Local SEO For E-commerce?

Being able to quickly connect with local customers is an integral way to improve your sales if your business requires in-person operations. With local SEO for e-commerce strategies, you can:

With these in mind, optimizing your e-commerce local SEO strategy will pay off huge dividends if you stick with it! Your local customers will thank you for being so accessible.

How Do I Optimize Local SEO for e-Commerce?

There are a variety of methods used to determine your website’s ranking, but the ones to understand for local SEO all have to do with location and proximity-based data, and total engagement on sites like Google and Facebook. Many of the attributes that a properly-optimized local SEO business has been driven through the site itself, so let’s first analyze what you can do to your own site and business to improve its visibility:

Optimize Value Propositions and Naming

Having a recognizable name for your business helps assist the search result ranking as it will be what most people search for. Not only that, but having a value proposition (or similar brief meta-data write-up) will easily allow people to find you in your area.

Add a Site Map

Having a comprehensive site map – a section of the site where you can show every individual page to visit – allows people to not only gain all the information they need about your products, service, and history, but the search algorithm will be better able to allow people to find your business.

Use optimal SEO keywords for products and descriptions

Including relevant keywords for your business is one of the most important aspects of SEO management and local SEO practices are no different. Having proper keywords placed near the beginning of original content is always the best way to drive performance.

Complete SEO fields for product pages

Make sure your individual product pages have keywords and metadata as well! Adding in region-specific information to a page’s metadata alongside relevant keywords and phrases is a powerful tool to improve ranking.

Connect with Google Webmasters

Google Webmasters is one of a variety of services that is excellent at allowing you to optimize sites, especially sites that you want the best Google results for. Doing your SEO work on them and following their recommendations is a great way to a better Google ranking.

Google ‘My Business’ Listing and Other Optimizations

Google’s ‘My Business’ listings are an essential component for rising the ranks of Google’s search to be available to everyone in your area. By connecting your online presence directly to Google’s database, you will immediately find yourself easier to access for people in your region. By telling Google “Hey, my business is in Las Angeles!” it will immediately be able to better cater to anyone in LA searching for products or services that you specialize in. This will greatly increase your local store traffic and allow for better word-of-mouth.

Local Keywords are Essential

In addition to optimizing keywords for your site in general, adding location-specific keywords will also allow you to make your presence more available for local customers. Being able to add “Los Angeles” to your barbershop’s keyword profile will make it much easier for anyone in LA to find you if they need a barber, for instance. Using a keyword analyzing service like Semrush to see what local keywords rank the highest in your area is a great use of analytics for your benefit.

Area-Specific Content

Whether your company has a blog about living in the Arizona desert or whether it’s a doughnut shop in Austin, being able to link your products, services, and content directly to a region will massively increase your search ranking. This means that you should try to interact with your community as much as possible – making a free doughnut day at a doughnut shop, for instance – so the search results will not only see your company, but the event you’re hosting as well!

Review Sections and User Rankings

Lastly, allowing your public to interact with your site directly is another great way to gain referral information that is heavily founded on location-specific data. Search engines very often use reviews in your profile for calculating your search position, so neglecting them can have serious drawbacks. Reviews and SEO are carefully linked because at the end of the day, search engines are attempting to provide the best results for anyone looking – meaning that local 5-star reviews from patrons will make your ranking skyrocket!

The Importance of Local SEO for E-commerce. Takeaways

If you’re a business that requires a location to function, you need to optimize your online presence to support customers looking inside and outside your area. Both general SEO and local SEO practices become essential so you can gain customers from inside and outside your area. This will have dramatic effects on your e-commerce and real-world transactions, so paying attention to both strategies is extremely important!