40 Common Local SEO Mistakes & How To Fix Them

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1. Starting With Inadequate Research

SEO has become super competitive, even when it is local. It is because of the large number of brands that are competing in the same market. So the market research has to be on point for a majority of the niches.
Inadequate research can result in several problems for your SEO process.

• It brings in non-targeted traffic, which results in a high bounce rate.
  
• Keeping a bounce rate below 40% is considered better for any site. You can view bounce rates in Google Analytics, Alexa, and other SEO tools.
  
• It also means you're spending time and effort on keywords that are irrelevant to your brand.
• It results in a far more serious problem, like drops in ROI and revenue.

How To Fix This Mistake?
These days it is common to see brands spending a lot of time on the research phase. The key is to find the right components that work with your niche.
Your aim as a brand should be to trigger intent in your audience. That will help you sell your products much easier. There are a lot of AI-assisted tools that can help you out with this. You can even opt for Google's Keyword Planner.

2. Having a Slow Loading Website

Slow loading is perhaps one of the most critical ranking signals today. While it has been around for a long time, it has gained a lot of importance with SEO currently.
About five years ago, the ideal page load time was 10 seconds; in 2020, it is 2 - 3 seconds. That is a drastic reduction and shows how vital page loading speeds are.
Page loading speed of a website can be checked freely on GTmetrix or Google Pagespeed insights. Here’s an example of how fast the lamborghini website loads.
If you want to rank on the first page, a slow loading website is the first thing you need to fix. And even if customers find your website, high loading times will turn them off as well.
How To Fix This Mistake?
There are several reasons why your website speed is low.
Google page speed insights provide you with the necessary suggestions to implement to increase your website speed.
About 53% of visitors click away if the page takes more than 3 seconds to load. The probability of bounce increases by 123% from 1 second to 10 seconds.

• The first thing you should do is minimize HTTP requests. A high number of requests slows down your website.
• The next thing should be to Minify your javascript and CSS. Minifying means removing non-essential formatting visual elements and code.
• Choosing the right hosting can also improve your website speeds.

3. Not Having The Right Local Keywords

Keywords are one of the most powerful resources an SEO campaign has. It is essential to get it right for local keywords. Google has been pushing localization for all niches. The local 3-pack is a part of that strategy.
With plenty of businesses competing in a niche worldwide, it’s vital to use local keywords to reduce the global competition and increase chances of ranking in the local 3-pack.
With all the competition around, every brand is optimizing their keywords. It makes it difficult and expensive to choose the right keywords.
There needs to be considerable research involved to choose locally relevant keywords. Getting a boost with local keywords can also help when you're going national.
How To Fix This Mistake?
Run an analysis for keyword gaps in your niche. One way to do this is to make a list of all your competitor keywords.
You can use SEMRush or The Hoth keyword gap analysis tools to compare top-ranking local competitors to analyze the missing keywords on your website.
You can compare this list to niche relevant keywords which will reveal 'gap' keywords which you can use. You get much better results, and it is a lot cheaper too. You can also use quicker turnaround times for your SEO pipeline.

4. Expecting Quick Results from SEO

Something that a lot of people go wrong with is the timeline for results. Regardless of local or national SEO, it takes time for results to show. It is an inherent factor of the system itself.
Back in the day, you could have a website ranking for the keywords you want within the month. These days it's just not possible or feasible. If you gain ranks too quickly, chances are it won't stay there long.
As a service provider, you need to be aware of the time limits on rankings.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The solution to this is pretty simple - temper your expectations. Understand that results will take time. It is something that you have to educate your clients with as well.
The times of rankings quickly have passed. Algorithms are much more complex now, and there are no "hacks" that can get you ahead.
Ensure to follow the Google algorithm updates and maintain your website accordingly to help Google prioritize your business for local searches.
You will just have to keep putting in the effort till you make it.

5. Not Considering Local Ranking Factors

Several factors are critical for local SEO. Google My Business, Reviews, local on-page optimization, and backlinks are some of them.
You need to focus on these local elements first before you begin to see any meaningful results for your website. Most times, we take these for granted, and this is why our results are lacklustre.
For example, GMB has been growing in importance. To rank on the local pack, you need to make sure your GMB information is in good shape. In addition to that, most of your other elements need to include local factors.
Also, adding structured data to your site provides crucial information about your business that helps you rank on the first page.
How To Fix This Mistake?
When the aim is to rank locally, the straightforward solution is to include local elements into the process. It is something that most people overlook.
For example, if you want to rank locally for the keyword "all-purpose flour", create campaigns that include local bakeries. It can give your results a good amount of local presence.
You also need to have a specific landing page optimized for local traffic. It can help increase exposure and improve your local conversions.

6. Lack Of Demand For Product Or Services

Sometimes there is no getting around the fact that some of your services might not be appealing locally. While this might seem disheartening, it is the truth.
With popular eCommerce platforms available by the dozens, most brands are fighting hard.
For example, let's say you are pushing a local boutique vegan restaurant.
The way your business gets positioned is pretty unique by itself. It means that you are aiming for a small piece of the local business. And any amount of local SEO is not going to get you more.
How To Fix This Mistake?
Even though you might be limited to a specific number of customers, you can optimize your profile. Popular ways to improve local traffic include collaborations and improved marketing.
A lot of smaller brands work with bigger local brands to establish a market presence. Another way is to approach social media influencers to improve your brand reach.
There are several influencers out there in the market. Choose your local influencers with the greatest engagement rate on their posts to drive more potential customers.
Even the biggest brands today use influencers as a part of their marketing pipeline.

7. Poor Website Navigation And Architecture

If you want a lot of people to visit your website, then you need to build it to the highest standards. And a prime candidate where people don't pay attention is website architecture.
Today's customers have very little patience, and choices spoiled them a lot. And this is relevant in any domain. It means that your website probably has about 10 seconds to impress a potential lead. And this isn't a lot of time.
That is why navigation is going to be key.
When you have easier navigation, there are good chances of users moving around your site.
For example, here are two images with different types of navigation, the user has an option to click on the blog to explore more while the user will bounce off from the one with dates navigation.

People need to get around your website. And if you don't design it well, they are going to leave.
How To Fix This Mistake?
If you want local traffic, you give them a website worth their attention. Make sure that your website is easy to navigate through. It needs to have proper breadcrumb implementation and intuitive design.
Even if a website has a lot of data, you can simplify navigation. A good example of this is Amazon's website. Even though they have hundreds of thousands of products, their website is still intuitive and easy to use.
Amazon implements proper navigation to offer better user experience and stand apart from the competition.

8. Low-Quality Design Or Images

If you are not getting a lot of local traffic, low-quality images and design could be the cause. While it is true that large images can slow websites down, you need to find the right optimization.
The key is to keep the footprint small and the quality high.
Unclear images not only annoy, but also create a negative impression, which badly affects the business in the long run.
Mediocre images tend to misrepresent the value of the brand. And it is for this reason why local businesses need to revamp their image policies.
How To Fix This Mistake?
There are also techniques that you could use like thumbnails or carousels.
Carousels are multiple pieces of content that occupy a single, coveted space to offer more user worthy information.
These make sure that the user has access to high-quality images if they choose. But the loading times will be kept minimal. Better images have proven to get more traffic for the website.

9. Not Focusing On User Experience

When it comes to getting the most local traffic in your niche, user experience is going to be key.
User experience is not just about adding in images and animation on your website. It is how your average customer is going to interact with your website.

Relevant : The Role of UX in Local SEO

Local businesses tend to not pay attention to UX issues they have on their websites. It is going to be a problem because over 38% of people do not engage a website with bad UX. We've already dealt with one aspect of UX, loading speed.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The key to achieving immaculate UX is to focus on what your visitors want. Get rid of aggressive pop-ups and other irritating elements from your websites.
The problem with these elements is that even if people consider signing on to your services, these things will turn them off.
The same goes for paid ads as well. Make sure they do not detract from the content or important aspects of your website.

10. Not Having a Local Listing On Google

When you aim to rank locally, make sure that you have everything covered. An important part of the local SEO process is to get listed locally.

• It includes adding in all your details like business name, phone number and your physical address.
  
• Mention accurate NAP details in the GMB page and ensure that you add the same in all business directories and listing websites.
  
• It will enable people to find you much easier.
• It is important because your location will be added and verified on Google Maps as well.

Just get this done to have a marked positive impact on your local web traffic.
How To Fix This Mistake?
You should include this step as part of your local SEO pipeline if it hasn't been already.
Verifying and claiming local business listings confirms your ownership of the business. It also prevents any disputes or confusions arising from incorrect data. And this is also crucial to search for bots as well.
Crawlers use this data to link you better to your audience.

11. Not Responding To Google Algorithm Changes

At the earlier stages of internet searches, major search engine updates would be years in between. But with the rise of technology and focus on delivering the best experience, updates are much more frequent.
For instance, the Google EAT algorithm update expects websites to have Author bylines to provide complete information about the writer of a blog. It should include information like experience, social profiles, and expertise. Ignoring this will result in reduced EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) score, thus, losing rank on SERPs.
And these days, updates are not as transparent as before. There are no patch notes and no ways of knowing what this update is about.
Regardless, if you wanted to stay in the game, you had to revamp your strategy. Failing to do so would have disastrous results for local SEO.
How To Fix This Mistake?
Keep your EAT quality score high by providing complete details about the author writing for your audiences. Here’s an example from the Search Engine Journal blog.
If you want to get the best results out of the update, the only solution is thorough testing. Using different use cases, test and record results.
The Google Search Console can help you get the requisite information. It is completely free and powerful enough for smaller businesses. It highlights many metrics on your websites like crawl rate, impressions, CTR and more.

12. Not Having Proper Redirect Loops And Chains

When you are optimizing your website, there are times when you need to use redirects. But some problems arise out of this.
A redirect or a 301 forwards the user to another URL. Likewise, a redirect chain is when there are many URLs involved in the redirection process.
In local SEO, redirects and chains are important. Here there is a problem with redirect loops - one URL in the chain referring back to an older URL. It makes pages not to load at all, or load slower.
Search engine crawlers cannot access your website effectively. It also plays havoc with your internal linking.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The first step to fixing them is to find these redirect chains. A few years ago, you had to look through all your redirects to figure out these chains. These days there are a lot of tools that can help you find them.
Screaming Frog, for example, gives you a report about redirect chains. The key here is to audit your redirects and make them as simple as possible.

13. Not Having a Website Relevant To Local Searches

When you want relevant local traffic on your website, you need more data that people are looking for. It includes product categories and backlinks from other relevant websites.
For a website to appeal to local searches, it needs to incorporate several elements that make it popular. And this is not easy to get done. That's why you sometimes see smaller companies outperforming bigger ones on searches.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The first thing you should be doing is researching categories that perform well locally. Use this as a building point for revamping your website.
Another important step is to turn to outreaching other popular local websites. You could use guest posting as a means to draw links from them.
Fetching links through outreach from renowned sites boosts up quality of your site.
Getting them to link back to your website might be a powerful means to get relevant links to your website. Also, post on popular local business listings for even more reach.

14. Not Focussing On Google Reviews

Something that has gained a lot of traction over the years has been Google Reviews. And this is important because Google heads the list of search engines.
Not many companies took reviews seriously when it first started. It is because people hardly paid any attention to it either. But over time, Google has changed the way it displays the search results.
Google values businesses that respect and respond to client feedback regularly.
Reviews also became a rich snippet. They started displaying it on the side of the search results and could indicate how popular a business was.
Google pretty soon upgraded its importance as a ranking signal on its search. Businesses needed to score well to get people interested in their services.
How To Fix This Mistake?
A lot of companies don't work on their Google Reviews for local SEO. The prime reason is that there are too many disgruntled reviews on there and it is difficult to control. But if you persist with Reviews, you are bound to get good results.
Interact with the people about their negative reviews. If they have a genuine reason to be unhappy, you can address this for them. It might even get them to change their review.

15. Not Fixing Broken Or Misdirecting Internal Links

When it comes to search crawlers, these days, every aspect of your website should be topnotch. It includes your internal links to other URLs. There are chances that you might have changed the linked resources. Or, if you linked to an internal page, which you might have deleted. Or that linked resource might just not fit with your marketing process today.
All said this could cause problems with your local ranking. The reason is the crawlers are going to list your internal links as null.
How To Fix This Mistake?
As a business owner, you need to audit your linking profile and find the ones that don't work. Again, here tools can help you find these broken links within your website.
Here’s how Ahref shows the broken links.
They are not difficult to fix once found. You either replace them with alternative resources or update their URL.

16. Missing Meta Data On Page

Most people think metadata is outdated when it comes to ranking. They think they can get away with having placeholders or poorly optimized tags. It is wrong, and even today, metadata has a huge bearing on local SEO.
Improper meta tags or data can prevent crawlers from properly indexing your website. And this becomes even more important for local businesses. Descriptions and titles are extremely critical to establishing relevance and drawing local traffic.
Install free Moz extension bar and check if your webpages have metadata or not.
How To Fix This Mistake?
You have a variety of options for dealing with missing metadata today. If you're using an open-source CMS like WordPress, you can download plugins. These can check and verify if you've added the requisite meta title and description for every page on your website.
Typically, most WP sites install Yoast SEO to efficiently add metadata. They highlight the color and show if the meta length is right or not.
There are also newer AI-assisted tools in the market these days. These tools can even validate if you've used the relevant metadata for the website.

17. Using Duplicate Meta Tags

Again, there is another problem with creating meta tags - it cannot be a duplicate. There can be two types of duplication, within the website and from an external source. Regardless of where you are copying it from, this is a problem.
Algorithms are hard on duplicity, especially when it comes to meta tags. And this can be hard when it comes to ranking for local SEO. There have even been cases of pages getting deindexed for duplicate content. So this is something that you should take seriously.
How To Fix This Mistake?
There are a variety of tools that can help you highlight these. But you need to fix them yourself. You can get this done on your own, and it won't take too much time. If you don't have the time, hire a specialist content writer to get the job done.
Be sure to let them know about the specific character limits as far as meta tags are concerned. You don't want longer tags that are just going to get lost on search engine results.

18. Creating Low-Quality Contents

Content creation is a vital aspect of the whole SEO process today. There is no better and quicker way to rank in your local results than creating top-quality content. But low quality has a hazardous effect on the rankings of a website.
Your site may suffer from content quality if you have plagiarism issues. Webmasters can check it using tools like Grammarly, copyscape, or siteliner.
With newer algorithms, the focus on content quality has increased dramatically. If the content does not have value or has critical grammar errors, it is going to get penalized. It applies to video content as well.
Short videos that do not offer any value to the visitor are going to be flagged. These can have a negative bearing on your local SEO rankings.
How To Fix This Mistake?
Creating good content is not an easy job. It involves a lot of work, and the execution needs to be perfect as well. You need to research what works in your niche locally and get a few relevant keywords. Based on this data, you can create content that offers value and is relevant.
When it comes to video, you're better off calling the experts. You need help if you don't have an experienced team in-house. Experts can deliver a much better result than you can on your own.

19. Not Having Accurate Contact Information

When it comes to local SEO, having accurate contact information on your profile is mandatory. It is probably the first step most SEO agencies check on your profile. And there is also a good reason why contact information is vital to local SEO. It's because 65% of website visitors are going to look up your offices.
These are the people who want to visit your premises and not just read about them. Also, Google Maps offers to guide visitors to your location. If this is wrong, it could just mislead them. Or worse, send them to your competitors.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The remedy to this is quite simple - check and correct all your pages containing NAP data. It's as simple as that. You have tools that can highlight inconsistencies between your various profiles and listings.
All you need to do is decide on a specific address and make the edits. If you did have inconsistent data, you would notice a huge jump when you get this done.

20. Not Having a Mobile Responsive Website

The way we do business online has changed significantly. These days a majority of the traffic numbers are from mobile devices, as they are getting more powerful. It has prompted users to shop on that instead of computers. And this has shown up in traffic metrics as well.
More than 50% of all traffic is mobile now. For local SEO and business, mobile traffic is critical. And another fact is that people browsing on mobile are more likely to buy products. You need to make sure to optimize your website for mobile devices.
Run a mobile friendly test on Google. If it’s not mobile-friendly, fix the issues to improve the page loading speed.
How To Fix This Mistake?
As a business, you need to make sure that your website is responsive. It means it needs to adjust to a wide range of screen sizes without any issues.
Getting this done can mean huge benefits for your business. Your traffic numbers will increase, and so will your conversions. Most top local brands have stellar mobile responsive websites.

21. No Proper Social Media Presence

Of all platforms, social media has perhaps one of the largest numbers of people. It has over 3.8 billion people logged on to some platform at a given time. And you also need to consider that social media has been important for local SEO.

• It has location-based features.
• It makes it easier for people to find the place of business.

Social media platforms have also evolved when it comes to business. These days social media has incorporated a lot more metrics to its features. It makes using it for ads and gaining traffic a lot easier.
How To Fix This Mistake?
As the number of people on social media is on the rise, businesses are lining up to make use of it. First, you need to set up a social media account for your business.
Create business profiles on all social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, etc. Mention accurate business information such as location, contact number, working hours, etc.

• It needs to have all the locally relevant keywords added to it.
• It can give you a considerable advantage when it comes to local traffic.
You will also begin to see a good number of people engaging with your social media feed daily.

22. Using Long Or Difficult URL Structure

Complex URL Structure is a problem usually associated with older businesses. Sometimes they tend to include a lot of keywords with their URL structure. The reason is that their SEO agency might have directed them. It doesn't have a huge impact on local SEO rankings but still is a factor.
A website which has a long or ungainly URL can be problematic for users. For one, it can be difficult to remember. And if you are a local business, you want your audience to recollect your URL as quickly as possible. It can help you gain more traction in the market.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The solution to this is pretty simple and straightforward. You need to stop spamming your URLs with keywords.
Let's take an example website ABC.com. Here's a bad URL to an inner page selling toys:
abc.com/hc/en-us/page/202006686.
The problem is that there is no keyword related to "toys" in the structure. It is likely to be classified as spam.

23. Not Optimizing Robots.Txt Correctly

It comes under the technical aspects of local SEO. The objective of a robots.txt file is to set boundaries for search engine crawlers. They will only crawl based on the instructions in your robots.txt file.
Setting up a proper robots.txt file is important to the SEO process. Without the right robots file, bots will not crawl your website consistently. It can leave/skip some pages on the website. If these are your money pages, it can affect your revenue and bottom line.
Conversely, it can also be a problem when you don't block certain areas from crawlers. For example, sensitive data that you might find in the /scripts/ folder.
Here’s an image depicting Moz’s Robot.Txt where they have blocked crawling some categories.
How To Fix This Mistake?
You need to audit the robots.txt file whenever you make changes to your website. You need to check if all the directories are categorized as they should be. Discuss with your team about the hierarchy for your website. Use these findings to set your robots.txt file. You'll have a better "crawled" website and fewer chances of errors.

24. Website Built On Older Technology

If you have a website that you haven't upgraded for a long time, you might experience drops in local traffic. It is because the entire architecture of the web has been changing. And if you do not adapt to changes, there are chances of being left behind.
A good example of this when the internet moved from flash to HTML5. The reason is that HTML5 has a lot of metadata to support the content. There was no way to embed this type of metadata into flash videos. It resulted in flash-based websites taking a hit in local rankings and traffic.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The solution to this problem would be to be responsive when it comes to technology. You don't have to change your platform as soon as there is a breakthrough. But major events like we mentioned before need to be taken care of. And this is highly relevant for local SEO.

25. Content Duplication Issues (Canonicalization)

There are instances when you might want to reference content on your page elsewhere. Since you created that piece of content, there shouldn't be any problems, right? Well, not really. Even if it is a part of the content that was originally written by you, search engines do not understand this. And when this is local SEO, duplication issues are more relevant. The ranks drop much quicker.
How To Fix This Mistake?
You can solve this problem by using canonicalization. Using this, you can specify which page on your website contains the original content. It means add all the variations of your website name to the canonical list to prevent confusion. Chances that searches display both variations of your website are remote.

26. Posting Short-form Contents

People always debate about the size of the content. While a lot of people have said short-content is better for pages, they have been proven wrong. If a page has less content or thin content, it will not be able to rank well in local searches. It is because there are not enough keywords that can help it compete. And especially against highly competitive local searches.
The only times short content can perform on a page is probably on a landing or click-through page. The reader does not spend a lot of time on these pages, and so short content is good enough.
How To Fix This Mistake?
If you want to rank higher on local searches, your website needs to have a good amount of content. The average number of words for effective ranking is about 2k words minimum.
With the right keyword optimization, this ensures a good spread without being spammy. Also, thin content is not informative, and people tend to click away from it quicker.

27. Using CDNs Incorrectly

When it comes to local SEO, CDNs are an important part of the strategy. Content delivery systems decide what kind of content they need to display to specific users. It forms a layer of customization so brands can tailor their responses to different users.
The reason why this is critical to local SEO is that you have a lot more varied users at this level. Trends can also change much more quickly locally than globally. But sometimes problems arise with CDNs. It can block topics that are interesting to the viewer. It can lead to falling traffic.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The best way to mitigate this is by carefully auditing your CDNs parameters. Test it thoroughly before it goes live on your website. And also don't forget to check for overlaps between various categories of users. Here as well, use the canonical tag to make sure if you are repurposing content from another page on your website.

28. Putting Design Over Content

It is perhaps one of the most common problems that can affect a website. In the pursuit of superior design and UX, brands tend to focus too much on them.
What happens here is that content gets sacrificed to make room for design. It might be a problem when you want to rank locally. The reason is that you're trying to add in as much value as possible for your local audience.
Focusing on design first approach makes it difficult for content creators. They will not be able to perform to their full potential.
How To Fix This Mistake?
Always make sure to focus on content first. It is through content that you can add value to your website and your audience. Do adequate content research to determine the best assets to include on your website. Depending on your niche, it might be blogs, infographics, or comparison posts. But you should never choose design over content in any case.

29. Overlooking 404s Or Broken Pages

Another basic error which can sometimes go unnoticed is 404s. These are usually indicators that a specific page doesn't exist on your website. There are a few cases when it happens.
When a user searches for a URL that is not on your website, 404 page crops up. Another instance is when there is something wrong with your server or if you are under maintenance.
If you leave this 404s for a long time, Google will index your website as "The site is temporarily down." It can be bad for your business - local or national. And since local businesses are much more agile, this affects them more.
How To Fix This Mistake?
If you are doing any kind of maintenance, you have to plan ahead of it. In this instance, you should be using a 503 code to signal temporarily unavailable. It is a different HTTP code compared to a 404. If you are a bit creative, you can also use 404s for other fun stuff like an animated gif or a funny image.

30. Not Having A Blog Section

When you want to rank a website locally, the first thing a brand does is create content. But the problem is that you just cannot create content and add it to your website. It needs a blog section where you have more control over your content.
Most top local brands have a blog section to help out with SEO. And not just that, it can also help keep your readers informed. On the other hand, not having a blog page can be detrimental to your website's traffic numbers.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The first thing you should do after creating a website is to add in the content through blogs.
A blog can have hundreds to thousands of blog pages that can pull an unimaginable number of audiences.
The advantage of this is that you can create local relevance through categories. It makes it a much more attractive proposition for search engine crawlers and readers alike.
More than 70% of digital marketing experts say that content creation is the best SEO tactic. And this is best exemplified through a blog.

31. Ignoring Spammy Links On Your Link Building Profile

If you want to score high on local SEO rankings, effective link building is an important asset. But to do that, you need legitimate links to your website. Trustworthy links from top sites in your niche can push your ranking numbers high. But there are downsides to this as well.
A lot of times, brands might get drawn into spam links. These spammy links can lower the performance of your website. And because link building is a priority ranking signal, it can quickly show up on your local rankings.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The only solution is to audit your link building profile regularly. You can do it manually, but it is a painstaking task.
There are several AI-assisted tools available that can help you get this done. They can also handle a much heavier load when it comes to the number of links. You will find that they get done a lot quicker than well.

32. Including Intrusive Elements On Website

One of the most irritating and disturbing uses of content is perhaps auto playing video or audio. A lot of websites add this to their website, thinking that it can get more views on created assets. But the truth is they are turning away a lot of people from their website by doing this.
Several studies prove that auto play videos can reduce your monetization capability. It can also increase bounce rates.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The best solution would be to stop using all of these auto play features. You can replace them with other elements that your audience can engage with. These can include a PDF, or a video even.
The focus here is on the element of choice for the user. Just playing something as soon as they log on is not going to be conducive to your traffic numbers.

33. Not Tagging Or Optimizing Images Properly

Something important when it comes to ranking on local search results is to tag images. Search engine spiders cannot process images. To them, it might as well be a blank space. That is where tagging an image can help.
It is a way to communicate with your crawlers about the contains within the image. It can improve your rankings by establishing relevance for your local keywords.
Another aspect you need to pay attention to is optimization. The quicker the image loads, the fewer overheads your website has.
How To Fix This Mistake?
Tagging images is critical to your local SEO performance. These days your CMS has reminders and features that can help you tag images quicker. But still, to achieve the best results, you need to conduct audits of your existing image database.
You may have better tags to attach to your images. Image optimization is also something that is automatically done most times. But if you have existing images that are not optimized, you need to get it done as soon as possible.

34. Ignoring Recommendations From Your SEO Agency

Another problem which manifests a lot of local brands is their attention to the process. Hiring an SEO agency can improve your marketing funnel by magnitudes. But the fact is that it needs to be implemented, not ignored.
First, it is a huge waste of money. SEO agencies are not cheap. So hiring them and not implementing their suggestions does not make sense. And because they have the knowledge and experience, their turnaround times are a lot quicker as well.
How To Fix This Mistake?
Most professional SEO agencies know what they're talking about. And opting not to listen to them is pointless.
If you went through the process of vetting them, then you might as well test their theories. As an experienced agency ourselves, we think you should give your SEO agency a chance to prove themselves.

35. Not Tracking Important Metrics

Local SEO comes with a lot of metrics that you need to track. The problem is with less focus, some of them end up being ignored. Nothing is simple when it comes to SEO these days. The level of competition is at an all-time high. And most metrics need to be detailed and tracked daily.
An example of this is Disney losing traffic because of 404s. People think that big brands do not make mistakes, and yet it happened. A few pages on the Disney website were throwing up 404 errors. It was due to bad maintenance. But Google crawlers considered that the website is down. It resulted in a huge amount of revenue loss for the giant.
How To Fix This Mistake?
The only solution is to keep real-time indicators of all your critical website metrics. You don't have to do this manually - there are tools available that can do this for you. Another important thing to note is that you also need to track progress. Only when you do this, can you figure out improvements that your website has made?

36. Not Focusing On Other Search Engines

While it is true that Google gets a lot of searches, there are other platforms as well. These days, Yahoo and Bing have still a lot to offer local searches.
Businesses shouldn’t overlook these search engines so as to not miss even a single potential customer. Here’s the 2021 stats on how the global searches are divided on various search engines.
Taking Bing as an example, it also has a complete suite of SEO tools like Google. It gives you detailed statistics about your website, which you can use to improve local visibility. And this is just as good as the implementation of Google.
How To Fix This Mistake?
For better local visibility, you need to consider other search platforms as well. Bing and Yahoo can offer a better investment for your money. You also won't have that much competition there.
You get better value and higher ranks, and you might even snag a couple of hundred clients there. The reason is that several people use these searches. And not many people know about this.

37. Not Having Enough Local CTAs

Even the best-performing businesses rely on the power of CTAs to drive traffic. The right CTA can tangibly improve traffic numbers for your brand. Brands continue to revamp their CTA to better adapt to their customer base.
Having a CTA like "Click Here" seems much less attractive than something like "Let's Go!" CTAs are about creating a sense of urgency within the buyer. They are bound to click more buttons when you are creative about it.
How To Fix This Mistake?
CTAs have always been a powerful tool to get more attention from people. While it is a small change to the text, it needs to be carried out correctly. You can do this effectively with a bit of A/B testing. It ensures that you'll have the results you want. Don't be afraid to experiment with CTAs when it comes to local SEO. You'll find that some of them work great with your audience.

38. Using Multiple Websites For The Same Purpose

A problem several brands face is the question of how many websites they should have. There are very few cases where multiple sites can be good for your brand.
Shutterfly is an example where a company handles business on multiple sites greatly by implementing effective SEO and delivering a great user experience.

In most cases it can only result in traffic being split between the two sites, resulting in no advantages for either of them.
Having multiple websites will confuse your audience and handicaps your brand reach. It would seem on paper that you can cover more ground with two websites. It doesn't work that way in reality, in any case.
How To Fix This Mistake?
If you've already split your website into two different domains, you need to revert. Splitting your domain is only good if you have distinct portfolios for your products. And even in that case, your brand names would need to be vastly different. If you haven't separated it, don't do it. It can only cause more problems for you.

39. Content Isn't Topical Enough For Local

All through the article, we've focused on content quality. But something that you need to add is relevance. That is why brands that want better local ranking are creating localized content. It can attract an audience locally while also being informative.
You can see a lot of brands doing this with news snippets or festive offers on their websites. These methods can attract more people to your brand.
How To Fix This Mistake?
A lot of local businesses have started opting for topical content to improve local SEO. You can do this through blogs, short videos, or infographics. What you need to remember is to make it shareable for your audience. Snippets like these are bound to get shared around on social media.

40. Not Using Secure Protocols For Your Website

Web security is a serious issue these days with the growing number of websites. It has enabled security as a ranking signal as well. It means that the more secure a website is, the better chances it has of ranking over less secure websites.
Even if your website doesn't conduct financial transactions, you need to opt for a secure protocol. In the long run, it is a much better option than plain HTTP. And in case you are going to expand your services, you don't have to worry if your website is secure.
Search engines prefer to rank Secure sites over non-secure sites for local searches. It’s because of the fact that secured site’s information is valued more than the non-secured sites. Here’s a restaurant business site who has to opt for Https to attract more customers.
How To Fix This Mistake?
There are several secure protocols available like HTTPS, TLS, and SSL for your use. Using secure protocols ensures confidentiality and data security. And it is quite essential these days. There is a variety of private information being exchanged between customers and businesses.
You can opt for a secure protocol by contacting your service provider. They will provide you with an SSL certificate for your website. You need to install it on your web hosting account. After you've completed all the required steps, you should be good to go.
Fixing these mistakes take a lot of time. Get in touch with our Local SEO experts to take care of this completely.