Local SEO is more important than traditional SEO for most local brick and mortar businesses. Advances in search and mobile device technology has made Local SEO a great marketing channel for businesses selling their products or services to locally located customers. Basically, Google knows where you are, and serves up local and map results if it detects “local Intent” otherwise known as “transactional search intent”. In other words, you’re looking to make a purchase from a local business. And as you might have guessed, most of these searches are made from a mobile device.
Do a search for “What is Botox” - Google will serve up results as if you’re researching for a school research paper. But do a search for “botox cost”, and it triggers local intent - and accordingly serves up local botox providers, along with a Google Map 3-pack, with what it considers to be the three best local business matches for your search.
A great way to rank for these local searches is to know what the top local intent searches are for a keyword ie. “Botox Cost”, and make sure that your website and Google My Business profile is optimized for that term. Repeat this process for all your top keywords and then make a goal to rank in the top 3 positions for those searches.