What You Need to Know About Hyperlocal SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) has become more targeted over the past few years. The internet has become wider and more intricate than we could ever imagine, which is why it’s no doubt that users prefer to find what exactly what they’re looking for rather than getting a very generalized search result.

This is where hyperlocal SEO comes in. Hyperlocal SEO is a more targeted approach than local SEO, which offers a lot of benefits to businesses, especially startups with a local target audience.

Hyperlocal SEO vs Local SEO

Traditional SEO has two essential goals in mind: (1) to improve a webpage’s visibility and (2) to help people find your content easily. It’s a generalized strategy where your content can rank on search results on a global scale.

Local SEO, on the other hand, targets a specific region or city. It focuses on a smaller territory compared to traditional SEO.

Hyperlocal SEO is somewhat similar to local SEO, but the difference is that it targets much smaller areas, such as streets, towns, neighborhoods, and areas located near popular landmarks.

Compared to local SEO, hyperlocal SEO is much more granular. And while it’s good to reach a large number of people, there’s value in reaching a smaller yet more engaged audience, and hyperlocal SEO makes that possible.

Why Is Hyperlocal SEO Important?

In the past years, when you search for “(business type) near me,” Google will display 5 to 7 business listings at the top of search results, with no other contact information provided.

Recently, however, Google pushed their local 3-pack update, which essentially introduces the following changes:

• Search results will show only the top 3 business listings that are most relevant to the search query — hence, the term 3-pack.
• The 3-pack listing format will also include more contact information, such as the one in the image below.

Image from Google

With that said, it’s safe to surmise that Google is favoring local search results over more generalized ones. Considering as well the increasing trend of “near me” queries, it goes without saying that hyperlocal SEO is very much important now.

Hyperlocal SEO helps you leverage this ongoing trend, as well as optimize your business for the local 3-pack. This brings us to the next point

What Are the Benefits of Hyperlocal SEO to Brands?

Businesses of both international and local scales can benefit from hyperlocal SEO. For brands with a global audience, hyperlocal SEO helps people find specific branches near their area. For smaller brands, hyperlocal SEO helps you gain more exposure, as well as the following:

1. It increases foot traffic to your physical store

As we mentioned before, hyperlocal SEO leverages geographical convenience to help people easily find businesses near them. This leads to more foot traffic to your physical store. This also helps brands acquire new customers.

2. It simplifies the customer journey

Google local 3-pack essentially makes it more convenient for customers to engage with a brand. When you click on a search result, you’ll have several calls-to-action available to you: get directions, visit their website, call their number, share their listing, etc.).

This all results in a more streamlined customer journey, which ultimately leads to higher conversions and sales as you attract more customers to your store.

3. It helps you rank better for niche search terms

As counterintuitive as it may sound, targeting low-competition search terms can be quite beneficial, especially for more niche or localized brands.

Hyperlocal search terms such as “(business type) near Central Park” can help you attract nearby customers who are actively looking to engage with a business like yours. This, in turn, helps your business listing rank better for a specific geographical area.

3 Quick Tips to Optimize Your Business for Hyperlocal SEO

We’ve written in great length about local SEO in our past posts, such as the ways to optimize your Google My Business listing, tips to optimize your business website for local SEO, and the essentials of local SEO for businesses.

Targeting for hyperlocal SEO isn’t much different, except for a few things:

Targeting for hyperlocal SEO isn’t much different, except for a few things:

IMPORTANT: It’s crucial that you have signed up or claimed/verified your Google My Business listing

1. Use hyperlocal keywords

Think as your target audience would when doing your keyword research. What specific search terms will they most likely use when searching for your brand?

For example, while “pizza restaurant near me” is for local SEO, hyperlocal search queries would use “pizza restaurant along Main Street” or “pizza restaurant near the White House” (or other known landmarks).

2. Create hyperlocal content for your website

Whether it’s a local services page or a blog, including content that uses hyperlocal keywords can greatly influence your search visibility. It’s also important to include your target keywords on:

• The title tag
• The heading tag
• The meta description

3. Apply structured data

Structured data, or schema markup, helps search engines understand your content more accurately. Applying structured data to your business website can help you rank for hyperlocal SEO better.

To do this, Google has a comprehensive guide on how to add structured data for local businesses. At the very least, Google requires the following markup properties for local SEO:

• Business name
• Business address

For hyperlocal SEO, we recommend including the following schema markup properties:

• Geo (GeoCoordinates)
• Geo.Latitude and Geo.Longitude
• Telephone

Optimize Your Business with Hyperlocal SEO

Hyperlocal SEO is a good strategy to use for all kinds of businesses. It offers many benefits but the most important benefit of all is making the customer journey easier and more convenient.

If you need any help with optimizing your local business, or with any of your digital marketing efforts, Ilfusion is here for you. We offer a suite of services tailored to your brand’s unique needs.

Give us a call at 888-420-5115, or shoot us an email at [email protected] to get started!

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