9 Local SEO Tips To Drive Foot Traffic to Your Business

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Shoppers prefer shopping online, and we are still talking about foot traffic. Sounds crazy?
If yes, this stat will change your opinion — 97% of people searching online look for local stores and businesses.
It indicates that ranking on the search engines for local searches can dramatically boost your sales and visits if done in the right way.
So let's unveil the path of local SEO to escalate your foot traffic.

1. Create Your Google Business Profile

The first step toward local SEO is to build a Google Business Profile (previously known as Google My Business).
Your business profile is the primary factor for ranking in Google and the virtual representation of your physical store. So make sure to maintain a good reputation there.
However, focusing on other platforms like Yelp, Facebook, and TripAdvisor will cover a broad audience.
Read: Step-by-step Setup Guide for Google My Business Set up

Tips And Tools To Maintain Your My Business Profile

• Verification And Information: Verify your business profile by filling in the information and code. The information that you provide in your form should be original and up-to-date, especially your NAP (Name, Address, and phone number).
• Avoid Duplicate Lists: Google is clever, but it still gets confused if you add a different listing for the exact location in your profile.
• Form A Bond: Be genuine with your service and solve your customers' pain. It allows you to form a trust bond that will drive them to re-visit you. Also, keep posting about your business's recent activities and events.
• Keep An Eye On Traffic And Terms: Utilize free tools like Google Analytics, Ubersuggest, and Google Trends to keep an eye on your traffic and locally rising terms. Targeting relevant and rising terms can push up your rankings.

Have a look at this updated Google Business Profile for a San Francisco based Gym containing all the relevant details for their customers

2. Build A SEO-friendly Blog

If creating My business profile is the first thing, building a blog should be second on the list — the leads for small businesses with a blog increase to 126%.

Tips And Tools To Build A Successful Blog

• Find Local Keywords: As you are targeting local visitors, your blogs should serve the searches made by the local audience. Use free tools like Keyworddit, Google Keyword planner, and Keyword Surfer.
• Optimize Metadata: Utilize the term "near me" to optimize your blog for local SEO. Please don't force it! Keep it natural and reader-friendly.
• Keep It Mobile-Friendly: Most searches are performed on a mobile device, so keep things mobile-friendly.

You can use Ahrefs to find local search terms relevant to your business offerings, as shown below
Read: 10 SEO Tips for Your Blog Posts

3. Build An Online Store

You want people to visit your physical store, but you can't force them. So instead, you should build a successful online shop and offer them a hassle-free shopping experience.
In addition, it increases customers' chance to walk in your place.

Tips And Tools To Build An Online Store

• Make It Professional: Your visitors will bounce back if your online store looks messy. So we will suggest you hire a professional for this job — either hop on the freelancing sites like Upwork, Fiverr, Toptal, or contact someone nearby.
• Provide Easy Payment Options: Nearly 15 famous payment options are available, and PayPal is the most widely used option.
• Use Quality Photographs: Human brain understands visual information 60,000 times faster. So it's vital to use high-quality pictures to attract consumers' interest.

You can find qualified professionals to build an online store on Upwork, as shown in the image below

4. Implement In-store Redeems Through Online stores

In-store redeems for fabulous gifts and discounts have a crazy conversion rate.
Imagine giving out coupons on mobile number exchange. It will drive the customers to your door for redemption. This way, you will collect their numbers for SMS marketing and boost visitors optimization.

Tips To Implement In-Store Redeems

• Keep It Time-Limited: Time-limited offers work as a driving force to the consumers. So make sure these are limited-time deals.
• Collect Data: Ask for phone numbers or e-mails for future promotions.
• Form A Loop: Organize monthly contests, offers, coupons, and games exclusively for offline visitors. This way, they will visit the store when they hear your announcements.

You can use tools like Visme to create coupons for your online store, encouraging customers to visit your store to redeem them.

5. Create Better Return and Exchange Policies

Your customers don't want any risk with products. It makes them fall back, and search engines hate that.
The solution here is to modify your return and exchange in a way that makes your customers happy.
By doing so, you are not only giving out good signals to search engines, but you are also winning the buyers' hearts.

Tips To Modifying Return and Exchange Policies

• Encourage In-Store Returns/Exchange: Offer the customers a discount on their next purchase or gifts if they claim in-store returns and exchanges.
• Give Free Returns: Even if the return or exchange is online, make sure you keep it free to optimize the customer's shopping experience.
• Provide Better Customer Service: Return and exchange are problems for customers that need to be solved as quickly as possible to avoid chaos.

Platforms like ShippyPro are great to have in your arsenal to optimize your returns and exchange process and make it hassle-free for your customers

6. Encourage Reviews

Nearly 9 out of 10 people (89%) go through the reviews before purchasing or visiting. That is a massive amount!
Also, search engines take these reviews as an authority factor for ranking.

Tips And Tools To Encourage Reviews

• Ask For Reviews: Ask the consumers to review using e-mail, SMS, website, or in-person.
• Include Stars: We have discussed the power of visualization in point #3, and stars are one of them. You must have encountered the star system on famous sites like Amazon, Shopify, etc.
• Automate The Process: Make review as part of your business by training your staff or automating the procedure.
• Keep The Data: You never know when a customer will pop up with a review — days, weeks, months, maybe even years later. So keep their purchase information saved.
• Solve Negative Feedback: If your customer has a problem with your products or service, you need to solve it ASAP. It not only maintains your faith but even attracts new buyers.

Have a look at how you can get genuine reviews for your local business on Yelp

7. Get Backlinks

No matter what your business is all about, you need backlinks for higher rankings — one of the basic SEO rules.
In addition, backlinks are great to bring new visitors and squeeze the link juice.

Tips And Tools To Get Backlinks

• Collab With Local Business: Reach out to similar people and ask for a backlink. This person can be your neighbor shop owner or someone in your niche.
• Turn Mentions To Links: People might mention you in their posts or blogs. But that doesn't mean they are providing your link. So you can ask them to link.
• Host Local Events: People gather at local events, and you can host them to get new visitors. Also, your site will be highlighted in their event organization websites, offering you a backlink.
• Use Outdated Links: Many businesses shift their links or names, but someone will still be linked to their old URL. Reach out to them with the location of the outdated link and ask them for a backlink. You can use any link-building tool like Ahrefs, Linkody, or Grouphigh.

Here’s a screenshot of backlink analysis showing the total number of backlinks and referring domains for Sunset Gym on Ahrefs
Read: Importance of Backlinks for SEO

8. Use Social Media Strategies

It's a long going debate whether social media influences search engine optimization or not. But you can still use it to generate backlinks and visibility.

Tips And Tools To Use Social Media

Post Shareable Content: If your content is valuable and shareable, it will go viral and viral posts bring more traffic.
Use CTA: Use a clear CTA for visiting your site or store.
Use Relevant Platforms: Each content can't fit every single platform. For example, Instagram is suitable for posting photos. However, articles on Linkedin can bring you backlinks and leads simultaneously. On the other side, advertisements on Facebook perform better.
Have a look at how the content shared by a local gym differs among the two social media platforms, Instagram and LinkedIn

9. Localize Your Online Advertisement

Many platforms mainly offer you local advertisement solutions to target nearby visitors. It's crucial to include local advertisements as a part of your optimization.

Tips And Tools To Localize Your Advertisement

• Use Google: The most used search engine has a tool known as Google Ads, and it offers you a feature to local advertisements.
• Know Your Customers: You don't need to start from those highly competitive top social media platforms. Your customers might be roaming on a local platform.
• Analyze Your Competitors: Scouting your competitors will clarify your path, and you will know what works for your audience without even experimenting. So target their audience and start your ad campaigns. Try out some free tools like Ubersuggest, Mention, and Buzzsumo.

Here’s a screenshot showing the competitor analysis done for a San Francisco based pet store using Ubersuggest

Key Takeaways

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• Affirm Google Business Profile to target Map Pack ranking.
• Establish a store for digital customers.
• Start an SEO-friendly blog to get more visibility on local searches.
• Collab with others to drive new visitors.
• Cheer local events, in-store redeems, and return policies for a smooth user experience.
• Encourage backlinks and reviews to achieve a higher position in the search engine.
• Post valuable content to get better exposure.