SEO
A Map Of Success: How To Improve Your Local SEO Rankings

Table of Contents
While all businesses with physical presences know local SEO is important, it’s easy to lose track of just how important it can be. A useful reminder came a few months ago, when the 79-year-old, Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren caused a stir with her own unique take on why Kurt Cobain’s 1994 death was so tragic. “It’s so sad that he died when he did, because he never got to see GPS… It’s the most wonderful thing, my little blue spot walking down the street. I just find it completely magical and unbelievable.”
Her comment might seem eccentric but it actually reflects what a game-changing invention Google Maps has been, with many people thinking the Maps app alone makes a smartphone essential. Maps has one billion users a month, which captures another important truth about the Internet: though it can connect us with anywhere in the world, it is just as often used to help us navigate our own neighbourhood.
This is why local SEO is the cornerstone of success for any business with a physical incarnation, whether a 5-star hotel in Sydney or a motorbike repair shack in the outback. If you want to be found, local SEO is as important as an attractive shop face or fancy signage, and probably more so. Google My Business remains the heart of the local SEO experience, essential to ensuring your business appears prominently in local search results and on Google Maps… but if you want to really beat your competitors, you need to go further.
Not convinced by the Helen Mirren anecdote? Then check the data. Over the last decade, Think With Google has reported that searches including the term “near me” have soared. At the peak of the pandemic, they were growing at a rate of 500% and while that growth has slowed, local searches are still the number one driver of foot traffic and being on top of them can create a critical competitive advantage when connecting with a “mobile-first” public.
The Growing Importance Of Mobile Search
Mobile search trends increasingly shape how people discover local businesses. According to Statista, mobile devices now account for over 58% of global web traffic, and Hubspot reports that 46% of google searches are directed locally. More importantly, 88% of people who perform a “near me” search on their phone visit that business within 24 hours.
Therefore, if your local SEO is underperforming – particularly on mobile – potential customers won’t find you and your business will end up underperforming. Strong mobile SEO is essential. You need a website that loads quickly (an increasingly important factor in page ranking), adapts to differently-shaped screens, and delivers a user-friendly experience. Features like click-to-call buttons and clear directions can make the difference between a potential customer visiting your business or choosing a competitor. Google’s Core Web Vitals metrics can help you benchmark your success in these key areas.
How National Or International Businesses Can Stay Local
Many businesses operate in more than one location, and that’s when multi-location targeting using multiple landing pages is important. This must be handled deftly, however. If you create too many landing pages which replicate repetitive or low-quality content, that may trigger Google’s spam filters and ultimately damage your ranking.
To avoid this trap, it’s important to focus on quality and not just quantity. Ensure your location-specific landing pages really cater to the individual areas they serve. They should include localised keywords reflecting the search behaviour of your target audience, up-to-date contact information, and clear calls to action that guide users towards the next step, whether booking an appointment, making a purchase, or visiting your premises.
Every location page should provide “added value” content tailored to that specific area. Convenient as AI-generated content can be, it is increasingly screened out by smarter searcher engines and is also likely to feel generic and unengaging to users. Hear that sound? It’s that potential footfall walking away.
One way to create effective local content is to focus on local promotions, customer reviews, or events. This will not only improve local rankings but also establish a deeper connection with your audience.
Google My Business Optimisation
We started this article with Google Maps and ultimately all roads in local SEO do lead back to Google My Business (GMB). As long as Google maintains its dominance of the search business, GMB will effectively act as the digital storefront for your business. Maintaining your GMB profile should therefore be considered one of your top business priorities.
One of the most basic but important tasks is ensuring all information is up-to-date. Countless sales opportunities have been lost as a result of business names, addresses, phone numbers, or operating hours changing without being reflected on GBM. Such discrepancies also affect ranking and so your details must be kept up-to-date across all platforms, including social media.
One way to ensure your digital storefront is maximising its business potential is ensuring your profile shows professional photos showcasing products, services, or premises. According to Google, businesses with photos receive 42% more requests for directions and 35% more website clicks.
The social component of GMB optimisation is often overlooked. Posting regular updates to share local promotions, events and news not only engages potential customers but also signals activity and relevance, which translates into improved search results. Encouraging customers to leave reviews is another way to build trust and improved search results, and any time invested in responding to comments in a professional and timely manner is well spent.
One very important step to achieving maximum efficiency and effectiveness is ensuring that businesses with multiple locations are consolidated under a single GMB profile. This enormously simplifies management of your local SEO and ensures consistent branding.
Generating and managing citations of your contact details on other websites, such as local business directories, are another powerful way of powering up your local SEO. Credible citations help search engines verify business’s credibility and relevance, increasing SEO impact. Again, diligence and consistency are important: discrepancies in contact details across platforms can confuse search engines and harm your ranking.
In order to keep business listings consistent, it’s wise to regularly audit your listings across directories, social media, and review sites. Tools like Moz Local or BrightLocal can streamline this process.
What Next?
While the core priorities in local SEO have stayed remarkably consistent over several years, the growing prevalence of voice search and AI-powered tools means businesses need to stay on top of new developments. But focusing on the fundamentals of mobile optimisation – high-quality local content, and effective GMB management – means that you will not only improve your local rankings but also create meaningful connections with your audience. This is a win-win-win situation leading to satisfied customers, better visibility for your business, and long-term growth.