Local SEO is of far more importance that most people realize. Far too often the data from location incorporated with SEO techniques can make or break a website regarding Google and search engine rankings. Getting Local SEO right isn’t that much of a challenge, but you’ll have to use some sound application and industry skills.

Local SEO exploits the location of the website’s content. A dog grooming shop in Brooklyn, New York, would have the keywords that contain the location and the zip code and anything related to that area that can be used with relevance. If you neglect to put your location data where applicable on your site, including videos, pics, copy, graphics, then you’re just putting a hole in your boat.
First things first, look over your site to make sure it’s professionally put together. All the bells and whistles of a website don’t mean jack to search engines. What matters is professionalism, relevance, quality, and if you don’t start off at these then you’re a lost cause. You’re representing a location, you want to capitalize on this. Just location alone can send immense amounts of traffic from surfers who didn’t know your store or website existed. People from your location will feel team proud of you and mention you on social media. Those well tagged videos, pics, and graphics will go a long way and gradually push your site up the search engine ladder.

If you’re going to represent an area, location, region, then do so with quality content. Your site might be about dog grooming in Brooklyn, NY, but Brooklyn is huge. It’s all of American history rolled into one. These landmarks, celebrations, events, can all be incorporated into the site and become part of the search engine landscape and your brand will be associated with positive local things and increase your search engine presence.
Link building is something to be done very carefully. Google will penalize for outdated or bad inbound and outbound links. You’ll want certain, relevant local inbound links and you want to breakdown your outbound links to local sites in the right categories. For example, if you’re posting on your blog about a parade in Brooklyn, then you would link to some official site of that parade. You would capitalize on it by taking pics of the dogs you’ve groomed that were shown off at that particular parade. You would post videos and pics that are well tagged with your location and contact data. It’s real, relevant content that exploits locality thus making it Local SEO.

Of course, you must make sure your title tags are optimized with your location. Don’t let those slip past you because Google ranks by pages, not by websites. The pages you create with the right Local SEO will be seen, indexed, and vaulted by Google.
When all your ducks are in a row, you then register with Google. This way Google doesn’t have to patchwork your site together. You’ll be starting off on the right foot.

Overall, Local SEO is indeed a more specialized form of SEO, but its importance can never be understated.