This brief guide talks about SEO for near me searches in 2023. The techniques and tips discussed in this article are based on my experience.
Many local search engine optimization experts make a big mistake while optimizing businesses for local search.
An important thing is this mistake costs often big. Are you are committing the same mistake?
What is it?
Not optimizing local businesses for ‘near me’ searches.
Yes, my friend, you read it right. As a local search optimization expert, you should not ignore ‘near me’ searches.
If you do, you will leave a good chunk of traffic to your competitors. This is something you would never like to happen.
In today’s post, I’m going to discuss SEO for near me searches.
After reading this post, I’m sure, you will successfully be able to reach people who are searching for “near me’.
But before we dive in, let’s shed some light on the context.
What Are ‘Near Me’ Searches
‘Near Me’ searches are location-based search queries. They are often conducted with a view to get quick results nearby.
Suppose, you are hungry and want to search for a restaurant that is near to your present location. You might search for ‘restaurant near me.’
The results of your search queries are based on your present location.
These are desktop-based Google Maps results.
When I searched on my mobile phone with the same query (location data on), I got the following results.
So you can see that mobile search results show distance as well. And you must have noticed that mobile search results on Google Maps are not ranked according to the distance. Bikkgane Biryani is featured at the bottom of the Google Maps results, but it is only 350 meters away from my location.
The point here is,
Even if you are very close to a searcher’s location, it is not necessary that you will come on the top on Google Maps.
You need to optimize your business for ‘near me’ searches.
Why You Need to Optimize For ‘Near Me’
Today, businesses cannot ignore ‘near me’ searches as more and more people are searching for ‘keyword + near me.’
According to the data from Google,
“Search interest in “near me” has increased 34X since 2011 and nearly doubled since last year. The vast majority come from mobile—80% in Q4 2014.”
Google Trends also suggests a steep growth for search term ‘near me’.
Here is the data about related topics and related queries for ‘near me’ searches.
You see that restaurant topics and beauty parlor queries are on the top. Google Trends will show you the data of 16 topics and queries.
Why is there a tremendous growth in ‘near me’ searches? What is the reason?
Over the years, people have become more exact, precise in how they search on Google. Now, they want results that serve their purposes of search aptly.
By searching with KW+near me, they become sure that the results will be relevant to their locations. It is kind of magical.
What’s more,
As the number of mobile searches is greater than desktop searches these days and mobile search for ‘KW+near me’ shows distances as well, search queries with near me is growing rapidly.
However, people have started to add location qualifiers with near me.
“We’re now seeing a shift toward dropping location qualifiers (like zip codes, neighborhoods, and “near me” phrasing) in local searches, because people know that the results will automatically be relevant to their location—thanks to their phone,” says Google.
Steps to Optimizing for Near Me (SEO for Near Me Searches)
Leaving a few tweaks, near me optimization is the same as local search optimization.
So the best local SEO techniques with a few add-ons work great for ‘near me’ optimization.
According to Google, local search results are based on relevance, prominence, and distance. These factors are combined to deliver the best search results to match searchers’ queries.
Here are some best practices that will help you rank on the top for ‘near me’ search queries.
1- Get Your Business Mobile
As I mentioned earlier mobile searches are now more than desktop searches, you cannot leverage ‘near me’ optimization if you don’t optimize your business for mobile.
In fact, 50.03% of all web traffic in 2017 were from mobile.
Here is the percentage of the web page served to mobile phones:
This data from Statista confirms that trend of people using mobile phones will continue to grow.
How will mobile optimization help you get the top ranking for ‘near me’ keywords?
My friend, Google is going to be Mobile-first indexing. Additionally, the trend of voice search is catching up fast. And people often use their mobile phones to conudct voice search. This all implies that getting mobile will help you when you are optimizing for near me searches.
Here are a few best practice for mobile optimization:
- Keep word count between 700-1000 words
- Use structured data
- Improve site speed
- Don’t use flash media unless it is very necessary
- Adopt AMP
- Have smooth UX
For more details about mobile optimization, refer to my definitive guide to mobile SEO.
2- Update Google My Business Listing
If you want to dominate search results for ‘near me’ search queries, you should make sure that your business information on Google is accurate and up-to-date. This is a must.
Following are the things you should provide to Google accurately:
- Name
- Address
- Website and phone
- Business hours
- Categories
- Menu (if Applicable)
Updating Google My Business (GMB) information is critical for the ranking. So you should take it seriously.
Instead of your toll-free number, you should feature your local number.
Introduction of Google My Business is very important for a high ranking, so you should optimize it properly for ‘KW+near me.’
You should avoid stuffing the introduction of GMB with keywords – use keywords and key phrases in a natural way.
After updating Google My Business information, you should get your GMB listing verified.
If you haven’t listed your business on Google, you can start now by clicking here.
3- Keep Reviews and Ratings Visible to Google
My friend, review, and ratings are important for optimizing for ‘near me’ searches. More positive reviews and higher ratings you have, the better it will be. Why?
Reviews and ratings build your relevance and prominence on Google, so they help you rank higher.
Google itself said,
“Google review count and score are factored into local search ranking: more reviews and positive ratings will probably improve a business’s local ranking.”
So you should encourage your customers to write reviews and give ratings.
Needless to say, you will get a few negative reviews as well. Should you ignore them?
You should never ignore negative reviews, but you should reply to negative reviews according to Google’s Guidelines.
If you use Schema Markup for reviews, Google may show them in SERPs. Search results with reviews have a better click-through-rate, improving local ranking eventually.
4- Keep NPA+W Consistent
To get a higher local ranking, you should make sure that your NPA+W is consistent all over the web.
What is NPA+W?
It is Name Phone Address + Website.
By keeping your NPA+W consistent across the web, you help Google show accurate information to searchers.
Here is an example of complete NPA+W
Ranking By SEO, {+91 (995) 353-2683)}, A-45, Sector 63, Noida, India https://www.rankingbyseo.com/
If your NPA+W is not consistent, Google might get confused to show the most relevant information, reducing the chance of getting the top ranking for ‘near me’ search queries.
Checking NPA across the web is not an easy task. In fact, you will have to spend a great deal of time if you do it manually.
The best way is to use a tool for this task.
5- Build Citations on Authority Sites
To optimize your business for ‘near me’ searches, you should build local citation on high authority websites.
Local citation is nothing but the online mention of NPA+W. How local citations can help you get the top ranking?
Local citations help your business build relevance on Google.
Top citations sites that you should target to build citations are yahoo.com, here.com, opentable.com, bbb.org, yellowpages.com, Angie’s List, etc.
Local citations spread awareness through websites that most people consider reputable and increase CTR, helping your business rank higher eventually.
6- Earn Backlinks With Geographic Anchor
Do backlinks help?
Yes, they do. Google considers backlinks as trust vote. Therefore, high-quality backlinks build your prominence on Google, improving your chance to rank higher.
However, you should make sure that you build and earn backlinks with geographical anchors to optimize for ‘near me’ searches.
Also, you should create locally focused content with geographic elements.
Here are a few ways to create local contents to earn backlinks:
- Incorporate local influencers
- Write guest posts for locally-focused blogs
- Pitch to local media to get featured
7- Get On-Page SEO Right
To optimize your business for ‘near me’ searches, you should make sure to let Google know what you offer and where you offer it.
On-page SEO will help you do it.
Ensure that Title tags, Meta tags, Header tags, Page content, images are optimized for ‘near me’ searches.
Also, don’t forget to add name, address, and phone to every page.
Conclusion:
‘Near me’ searches are something that you cannot ignore if you want to target local people.
I have found that optimizing business for mobile, updating Google My Business, keeping reviews and rating visible to Google, having consistent NPA, building citations on high-authority websites, and earning backlinks with geographic anchor ‘near me’, and on-page SEO improve ranking for near me based queries.
What about you? Do you have any other tip on SEO for near me searches in 2023? Do share it in the comment section. I’d love to know about it.
This article is vast, lots of information and must be prepared by a pro.
I have a quick question; it is not unanswered most of the time.
When we are building a citation on the third party website ( Example: sulekha.com), will it send the citation value after indexing the particular page?
Please clarify.
Yes, it will.
Thanks for the powerful tutorial. A quick question: Can I use an EMD like plumbersnearme.co and rank well in SERPs?
Hi Brian,
I wouldn’t recommend to go for an EMD for your SEO strategy. I would rather recommend to book a better domain with partial keyword in it as that is a safer way. An EMD doesn’t guarantee rankings because if it should have been the case, everyone must be ranking with EMDs only. And, most importantly please don’t forget that Google has been punishing EMDs, so mind it while trying.
Hello, Mr Lalit sharma,
Firstly, Thanks for your Beautiful and Interesting Article on near me Search term. It is Regularly Using on Mobile Devices Search so the need of Near Me Keyword SEO is Generated. Thanks for Your SEO Tips. It is very Helpful for me. Thanks Again
Hi Dear sir, Thanks for a great post and a list of seriously useful resources.
Interesting fact you mention here. Today Keyword+’near me ‘ is mostly used to search.
Great article. Very nicely explained. Keep up the awesome work.
This is a great post. I check your blogs regularly but after reading this blog and I’m inspired. It is extremely helpful information; I read such information a lot, for my personal knowledge. I was looking for this particular info from very long time. Thank you and good luck.
Thanks for sharing this amazing tips with us. I also believe that 2018 will be very competitive for the digital marketer and the voice search is very important to promote your local search, therefore, you should focus on these tips to improve your voice search:- 1. Aim for Featured Snippets. 2. 39% of voice search users are looking for business information; so it’s never been a more important time to optimize your local SEO. 3. Google has mentioned that it’s looking at including voice search data in Search Console, with the idea being that these searches will be separated from keyboard queries, much like desktop and mobile search data is currently separated so try to get inside the mind of searchers. Hope these will promote your voice search in SEO. 4. Voice search is almost exclusively used on mobile, and it goes without saying that your website should be mobile-optimized.
Thanks Raghav for a detailed comment. I do agree that voice search is going to play an important role in the near future. In fact, I have written a post on it. https://www.rankingbyseo.com/blog/optimize-website-for-google-voice-search/
Great read . I’ve always felt that the Near Me Titles were a little spammy. Quick question about adding the near me terms to content and with Adwords? Do you think using ‘near you” is seen the same as “near me”.
Hi Lineisy,
I am glad to know that you found it interesting. I think if you can manage to add “Near me” instead of “Near You” will help more. Or, a better way to do this would be to use near me in URL if you can’t use it in Title. For example: https://www.yelp.com/nearme/restaurants
I hope it helps.
Thanks,
Lalit Sharma
Really great efforts and I really got very constructive knowledge about Local SEO. This article is absolutely great and very effective or someone like me who is doing online trade but some principles are fairly new till date, this article was great, very informative, and accurate.
Thanks Olivia. I’m glad that you liked the post.