It is no secret that the landscape of SEO is sometimes a complex one to navigate. If you are a regular here at the GrowTraffic blog, you know our experts share their insight into so many elements of the SEO and digital marketing sector.
Local SEO has emerged as a crucial strategy for businesses aiming to establish a strong online presence within their local communities. There are multiple ways in which you can grow your traffic in the local area. Among the many tools and techniques available, optimising your website’s schema markup can significantly boost your local SEO efforts. In this blog, I aim to explore how to optimise your website’s schema markup for local SEO.
Understanding Your Website’s Schema Markup
Schema markup, which you might have heard referred to as ‘structured data’, is a language used by search engines to better understand the content and context of your web pages.
Search engines often annotate and categorise what they find on your web pages in order to generate relevant snippets of content which will then be displayed in SERPs.
So you may be thinking – why is this important for local businesses wanting to attract local attention? Schema markup is also responsible for displaying important details such as business name, address, phone number, operating hours, and customer reviews. Everything that helps people understand where you are and how they can find you – which is crucial for local web traffic!
Schema Markup For Local SEO
There are a number of ways in which you can optimise your website’s schema markup for local SEO.
LocalBusiness Markup.
By using the ‘LocalBusiness’ schema markup, Google and other search engines are able to gain valuable information about your business, like the name, address, phone number, and website URL. This type of structured data enhances the accuracy of local search results, ensuring that potential customers can easily find and contact you.
Reviews and Ratings
Reviews and ratings from customers are good for so many things, one of them being they help with local SEO!
We have written a blog post on the effects reviews have on your SEO here.
Reviews and ratings are valuable social proof that can greatly influence the buyer journey, helping them in the decision making stage. Implementing schema markup for reviews enables search engines to display what customers think about you directly in the SERPs making your business stand out.
Opening Hours Markup
Now people know where you are and what you do, they also need to know when they can get in touch with you, or come and visit you! Making your business’s open hours clear using schema markup ensures that potential customers are aware of when you’re open for business.
This further benefits the business-customer relationship.
Optimising Your Website’s Schema Markup for Local SEO
We know why to do it, but now we need to know how. Here are our top tips when it comes to optimising your website’s schema markup for local SEO.
Choose Relevant Schema Types
It’s important to ensure that you are firstly choosing the right schema types that align with your business. There are different types of schema markup for different industries such as ‘Restaurant’ or ‘MedicalBusiness’ markup types.
Include NAP Consistency
Who doesn’t love an anagram? By NAP we mean; Name, Address, and Phone number. It’s important that these details of your business are consistent across all online platforms, including your website, social media profiles, and local directories.
Regular Updates
Like anything with your website, it is vital that you keep your schema markup up-to-date, especially when it comes to local SEO. A huge part of achieving optimum local SEO is trust signals. If there are changes to your business details, events, or offerings it’s really important that the SERPs present this in order to preserve your relationship with your site visitors.
Need Help? Schema Markup For Local SEO With GrowTraffic
In the competitive realm of local SEO, staying ahead requires a variety of effective strategies and schema markup is undoubtedly a powerful weapon in your digital marketing toolkit.
With that being said, we understand how it can sometimes be a complex field to navigate – which is where we come in! We can help you provide search engines with accurate information and relevant structured data about your business, allowing you to enhance your chances of ranking higher in local search results and capturing the attention of potential customers in your area.
If you need more advice on optimising your website’s schema markup for local SEO, or a hand with any other element of website development, please don’t hesitate to reach out to a member of our team!
You can reach us by calling us on 0161 706 0012 or emailing info@growtraffic.co.uk.
