Have you ever been out with friends and wanted to grab a quick bite? Or were you out on the town and your footwear gave way and you needed a quick fix so you searched for a footwear store near you? In the current day and age, the I want it, I need it, I got it, culture is extremely prevalent and people want results, options and a quick fix as soon as possible.
With the rise of “Near Me” searches in the past two years, “Near me” searches have witnessed exponential growth, as highlighted in the stats below:
There has been 150% growth for phrases like “near me now”. For example “Pizza near me now”.While there has also been a 900% growth for commonly used phrases like “near me tonight/today”. A great example of this is when people type in “clubs near me tonight”.This research has also stated that there has been a 200% growth for phrases like “now” + “near me”. For example “stores open near me now”.This only goes on to propound the fact that people want options, they want these options close to them, and they want it “now”.
With Alexa and Google homes also being able to be commanded by just talking to it, it has enabled users to be able to access the products and the services that they want with a few words that are used as commands. This has led to a great surge in the “near me” request increasing.
Some food for thought that could help you in the process of making a decision to rank high on the near me section would be because most of the current mobile users who are also the users of this feature on their devices, now have location or GPS enabled. This is true in all arts of the world and, nowadays, since most, at the time of login require the users to have this feature enabled, users who would have had previously turned off this feature for privacy reasons, because of necessity now leave them on. Which now allows Google to automatically detect their current location and present the most relevant and localized search results to the user.
Turning your focus to “Near me” searches are very important for marketers, the reason behind this is that it allows you to reach the optimum number of people who will be the right target for you, thus you will be able to reach your intended customers during micro-moments when they are in the direst need for the service, and if your product or service fixes the problem, or offers a product or service that they want, then they will most likely engage and that could be a possible lead for you.
The hierarchy of the categories are given below:
Food: 84%
Entertainment: 56%
Banking: 50%
Apparel: 41%
Personal care: 38%
How Do You Optimize For “Near Me” Searches?
Well, do not fret, here are some ways through which you can optimize your business for “near me” searches:
1. List your business on Google My Business and optimize it.
In order to get your business to the top of “near me” searches, what is imperative for you to do well, and for you to have a much higher rank, is for you to ensure that your business is properly optimized with its listing on the Google local search results.
2. Use schema markup.
In the year 2022, having a good schema markup is one of the absolute best ways for you to help your business stand out from competitors in the local search results. The main reason for this is because having a schema data, is very important and it helps search engines acquire more information related to your business. This can help prospective customers find you and then with the data that is offered to them, they are able to make a decision with the data that is presented to them in the form of rich snippets.
3. Acquire backlinks.
Backlinks work well to improve your business rankings on Google local. In order to increase your business rankings for “near me” searches, what is crucial for you to do is that you need to acquire high authority/relevant backlinks with geographically-rich anchor text, these are a great way for you to be able to be authenticated.
4. Create pages targeting every location of your business, and optimize them.
If your business or the services that you offer is available over several locations then you need to create different pages for different locations. An example for this would be, if your bakery business serves six different states in the country, then you need to create six independent and different web pages serving each of these different cities.
5. Make your site mobile-friendly.
Having a website that is mobile-friendly, at this point is a need and not even something that you should be pondering about. You just have to do it. This is also one of the best ways to improve your site experience for users and rank higher for “near me” searches.
2022 is a year that is projected to shake up the world the way we know it, thus it is time for you to pull up your socks so that you are not left behind and you are ahead of the curve.
Keyword:
Local SEO, Local brand organic promotion, local seo strategies, local seo techniques