Local Search Marketing Strategies

So, what is local search marketing? How does it differ from local SEO? And, most importantly, how can you implement it quickly and easily as a busy business owner? 

Let’s find out.

Key Takeaways

• Local search marketing is vital for businesses targeting specific geographic areas. If you’re not showing up in local search, your competitors are.
• Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is your digital storefront. Optimize it and build strong local citations to boost visibility.
• User experience (UX) and effective use of long-tail keywords all dictate your spot in local search results.
• Online reviews can make or break your business. Actively manage your online reputation to build trust and attract more customers.
• Geotargeting and localized content help you connect with the right audience at the right time.

Table of Contents

• Key Takeaways
• What Is Local Search Marketing?
• Why Is Local Search Marketing Important?
• Advantages of Local Search Marketing
  • Leapfrog Your Competition With Paid Ads
  • Target Specific Markets
  • Align With User Intent
• Local Search Marketing vs. Local SEO
• Tips for Great Local Search Marketing Campaigns
  • Stay Compliant
  • Improve User Experience(UX)
  • Do Not Ignore Core Web Vitals
  • Take Advantage of Local Email Campaigns
  • Implementing Location-Specific Strategies
  • Work on Building Your Local Review Profile
• FAQs
• Conclusion

What Is Local Search Marketing?

Unlike general SEO, which may aim for national or global rankings, local search marketing is all about visibility in a specific area. Even if you don’t have a physical storefront, this strategy helps you attract local customers by optimizing for location-based searches.

Local search marketing works for all industries, even those without traditional brick-and-mortar locations. If you’re meeting customers face to face, at a store, or even in their homes, chances are you could benefit from this strategy.

One of the cornerstones of local search marketing? 

The local pack. This is prime real estate on Google, showing the top local businesses for search results like “best restaurants in NYC.” If you’re in that top section—complete with a map and business details—you’re winning the visibility game.

But here’s the catch: Google keeps changing the game. It’s not just about ranking in the map pack anymore.

Take its recent updates to the search engine results pages (SERPs), for example. Nearly half of all Google searches now feature AI-generated overviews or summaries, giving users quick answers without ever having to click a website.

Google generates these results based on info pulled from customer reviews, location, preferences, search behavior, and more. Check out this AI-generated summary for the search query “What are the steakhouses like in New York City?”

AI overviews show concise, relevant information at the top of the SERPs. It’s the first thing users see. Local search marketing increases your chances of appearing in them.

You want your business at the top when locals search for your products or services. Thankfully, many local search marketing’s best practices—like optimizing your GBP,  earning strong reviews, and other local strategies we’ll cover below—also increase your chances of appearing in AI overviews.

Why Is Local Search Marketing Important?

Local search marketing isn’t just about being visible online. It’s about staying ahead of the competition and capturing your audience’s attention where they’re already searching. 

For local businesses or services, that usually means Google Maps, the most popular navigational app for many users. In fact, almost 60 percent of all smartphone owners rely on Google Maps to find nearby companies.

Remember, if people can’t find you quickly and easily on Google, you risk losing them altogether. And no, we’re not talking about paid advertisements (yet). Sure, they can help, but most users ignore paid ads and skip to the first organic search results. 

That’s why you want to optimize for local search to ensure your business appears near the top where people are most likely to click:

One of the best ways to get your business up there is to rank for specific questions or long-tail keywords. 

Local search marketing makes it easy for customers to find you AND demonstrates your value and expertise. 

Advantages of Local Search Marketing

Marketing to your local audience has many advantages, but these are the main ones that will help you increase your sales revenue.

Leapfrog Your Competition With Paid Ads

The biggest advantage of local search marketing? It pushes your business ahead of the competition. The higher you rank in local search, the more likely customers are to choose you over the competition.

Introducing local paid ads to your strategy takes that a step further. You won’t have to worry about the rest of the competition because you’ll leapfrog them and put your business directly at the front of the line.

Look at the image below, for example. You’ll see local pack results for the search phrase “real estate broker.” Notice how Nautilus 220 shows up first? This is where the “pay-to-play” concept comes in:

Nautilus 220 is likely paying to show up atop the results for the phrase “luxury real estate florida.”

Target Specific Markets

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that you don’t necessarily need a physical location to conduct business locally. You can use local search marketing even if you operate remotely but target a specific local market.

Let’s say you provide online tutoring services via Zoom. You could technically do that from anywhere, but developing a strategy focused on drumming up business in specific local areas can be a great way to increase clientele. 

Following the example above, you could target college students in Boston, a city known for its high concentration of universities and tech-savvy younger population—a good fit for local search marketing. 

Local marketing via paid ads, a buttoned-up Google Business Profile, Yelp, and social media profiles could help you reach this audience effectively. 

This is especially prevalent for businesses with multiple local markets across the country, allowing them to tailor their approach to each area’s unique demographics and needs. 

Align With User Intent

When people search online, they usually have a specific need, like finding a nearby restaurant or hiring a service provider. This is called user or search intent. There are four different types:

When your content strategy matches what people are looking for, it helps your business rank higher on Google and attract the right customers. Here’s how to optimize for search intent:

• Research and understand your audience’s wants by assessing their questions, needs, and pain points. 
• Target location-based keywords. Think “best coffee shop near me” or “plumber in [city].”
• Create content that answers common questions and includes long-tail keywords. For example, a local bakery could write a blog post answering, “What are the best gluten-free desserts in [city]?”
• Make sure you optimize SEO elements like title tags, meta descriptions, and headers to match user search intent.

Finally, ensure your content solves problems and offers value to visitors because Google prioritizes the most accurate and helpful answers. Focusing on search intent achieves that, and that means more visibility and relevant leads.

Local Search Marketing vs. Local SEO

While often used interchangeably, local search marketing and local SEO have subtle differences. 

Think of local SEO as a subset of local search marketing. It focuses on generating organic traffic through strategies like optimizing website content, on-page SEO, meta tags, and Google Business Profile enhancements.

In contrast, local search marketing more broadly covers the full spectrum of strategies including organic and paid tactics, such as running local ads, optimizing listings on directory sites like Yelp, and reputation management. 

Tips for Great Local Search Marketing Campaigns

Here are some actionable tips for local SEO you can use to market your business.

Stay Compliant

Sticking to Google’s guidelines and SEO best practices is essential to make sure your business is represented accurately and prominently in search results. Play by the rules, and you’ll build trust with both Google and your customers.

Staying compliant in local search marketing involves:

• Following GBP guidelines. Provide accurate and truthful information about your business that is in line with Google’s Business Profile guidelines. These guidelines cover everything from how you present your business information to the types of content you can post.
• Keeping your business details accurate. Your GBP must reflect the correct name, address, and phone number (NAP) across all listings. Consistency matters.
• Avoiding keyword stuffing. Use naturally placed keywords within your content, focusing on relevance while providing a great user experience. Google rewards relevance over spammy tactics.

Sticking to the rules helps you avoid potential penalties. It also helps build trust with Google and your customers, translating into better rankings, more local visibility, and a stronger brand presence. 

Improve User Experience(UX)

User experience (UX) plays a role in both engagement and visibility. A seamless, intuitive website keeps users engaged, lowers bounce rates, builds trust, and increases conversions. Google also considers UX factors like page speed and site structure when ranking websites. 

As I mentioned earlier, Google wants to give users the best possible results to satisfy their needs as quickly as possible. Take these steps to help achieve that:

• Simplify site navigation.
• Optimize load times.
• Make your site mobile-friendly.
• Provide quality content that offers value to your readers.
• Provide a clear call to action (CTA) to guide users on what to do next.

Do Not Ignore Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals (CWVs) are crucial for local search marketing. Core Web Vitals are not a direct ranking factor, but improving these metrics can enhance user experience, reduce bounce rates, and improve mobile usability, which have an overall positive impact on your site’s performance. 

Optimized CWVs signal to Google that a site performs properly based on the following metrics:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): LCP measures how quickly your site’s main content takes to load. Aim for 2.5 seconds or less. Slow load times frustrate users and hurt rankings, even if you pay to be at the top. Remember, Google only cares about displaying the best results—and keeping its users happy.

• Interaction to Next Paint (INP): This is Google’s preferred measure of your site’s responsiveness based on the time it takes for the browser to respond to user interactions like clicks or taps. A good INP score is 200 milliseconds (ms) or less. Higher scores can negatively affect user engagement. 

• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): CLS measures the stability of your website. Ever clicked on something, and suddenly the whole page shifts around, and now you’ve clicked something else? That’s CLS in action. A poor score signals to Google that your site isn’t user-friendly and won’t display it above sites that receive a better score. To ensure a seamless experience for visitors, aim for a CLS score of 0.1 or lower. 

Reach out to us if you need help optimizing your site to rank well with local search marketing.

Take Advantage of Local Email Campaigns

Another big plus for local search marketing? You can seamlessly tie it into your email marketing. 

But don’t just blast off emails to everyone. Segment your email list based on location. Tools like Mailchimp or Klaviyo are great for this. You can also:

• Localize your subject lines and personalize your emails. It’s like saying to your subscribers, “Psst! This one’s just for you!”
• Leverage dynamic content blocks to swap out sections of your email based on location. This enables you to showcase different products or events to different audience segments without creating a ton of different emails. 
• Time when you send your emails like a local, so they hit customers’ inboxes when they’re most likely to open them. Think about it: When did you last open an email at 3 AM? 
• Sprinkle in a little social proof. Nothing builds trust faster than seeing that your neighbors love a product. Include things like customer testimonials or user-generated content from nearby happy customers. 

These tips will make your subscribers feel like you’re right there, in their neighborhood, speaking their language. 

Implementing Location-Specific Strategies

Want to deliver content, ads, promotions, or events to people in a specific place? 

Use geotargeting. It’s a powerful tool in your local search marketing kit that connects you with your audience where they are. 

Your starting point here is running hyper-local ads. Platforms like Google Ads and Facebook Ads let you target specific cities, neighborhoods, or even ZIP codes, ensuring your message reaches the most relevant audience.

Work on Building Your Local Review Profile

When was the last time you looked at a product or service review? I bet it wasn’t long ago. Not if you’re one of the 71 percent of people who read them when researching a business. 

Reviews and customer testimonials are essential in local search marketing. Not including them in your content strategy can cost you customers and online visibility. 

Take a look at the star ratings for the three companies below. Which one would you likely choose? 

I’m guessing it’s one of the first two options. 

Potential customers make decisions based on that rating alone. They won’t care where you rank; they want high-quality services no matter what. This factor alone should explain the importance of building your local review profile. 

Here’s how to do that: 

• Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews after a positive interaction with a simple email or in-person request. 
• Reply professionally to both positive and negative reviews. 
• Keep an eye on your socials, Google, Yelp, and other platforms for new reviews and respond to them. 
• Showcase positive reviews on your website, social media, emails, and local ads.

Finally, learn from constructive criticism and use it as an opportunity for growth to enhance your products, services, or customer support. 

FAQs

What is a local search listing?

Local search listings allow search engines to display results based on geographical location. These listings help connect users with nearby businesses, services, or places. Searches can include modifiers such as “in NYC,” but they don’t have to, as Google uses your location to deliver the most relevant results.

What is local SEO in digital marketing?

Local SEO enhances your online presence to attract more customersss from local searches. It focuses on improving your visibility in local search results and map listings,Key strategies include content marketing, search engine optimization, on-page SEO, and meta data optimization.

How to create a digital strategy for your local business?

Create an effective local search marketing strategy by: 

• Claiming and optimizing your Google Business Profile. 
• Using local keywords in your content, meta titles, and descriptions to improve visibility in local search results. 
• Encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews and respond to all feedback. 
• Leverage geotargeting to run location-based ads to target specific audiences in your area.
• Creating content such as blog posts or landing pages tailored to your local audience’s specific needs. 

Combining these tactics helps you increase online visibility, attract more relevant customers, and build trust and authority within your community.

Conclusion

Local search marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. And it’s one of the smartest ways to get more customers through your (real or virtual) door.

It’s all about showing up where your audience is looking and crafting campaigns that speak directly to the people who need your services.

Remember the differences between local search marketing and local SEO, understand the importance of reputation management, and be sure to have a target customer persona in mind when creating your campaigns. 

Get those pieces right, and you’ll outrank competitors, build credibility, and dominate your local market.