Local Positioning Of Websites In 2023 - Semalt Overview

The positioning of websites in the search engine changes from year to year. In 2023, website owners will also have to take care of their website rankings. Admittedly, when it comes to local and national positioning, not much has changed, but you still have to take care of the smallest details, such as NAP's business card. Check what you need to remember when positioning a website for a local business.

Recent years spent under the sign of the pandemic meant that most companies had to adapt to the remote provision of their services or the sale of products. SEO for companies in 2023 plays an even more important role due to increased competition. Without a professional approach to website positioning activities, as well as relying on a reliable audit with The Dedicated Seo Dashboard, there is no chance of appearing high in search results.

It will be even harder to be visible on the Internet in 2023, but this does not mean that major changes will be necessary. Website positioning, including local positioning, has not changed too much. Regardless of the industry in which you operate, you need to take care of details such as NAP business cards that are the basis for local positioning.

In the beginning, you need to answer the question of how effective website positioning works. Whether it's about achieving high results for a local business or operating nationwide, it starts with an audit. It aims to capture all errors in the technical layer of the website, and then set guidelines for corrections.

After the implementation of technical corrections, it is also necessary to verify the keywords on the website relevant to the given business, as well as to optimize the entire text layer. These are universal actions that are always performed. Positioning for companies running their business locally is done in the same way at this stage, but you need to remember the correct matching of local phrases, e.g. containing a city. When it comes to the local positioning of websites, you need to use additional techniques, such as NAP business cards. NAP directories available in many places are used for this purpose.

At Semalt.com, we comprehensively carry out orders in the field of positioning, including audits, optimization and implementation of necessary activities in the field of local positioning.

NAP positioning is an acronym for Name, Address, and Phone. Local positioning of websites should always be started with placing such data in as many directories and websites as possible. An experienced SEO specialist will be able to quickly determine how many NAP business cards will be needed, and will also verify whether such action will be sufficient in a given situation. It should always be remembered that the greater the competition for given phrases, the more difficult positioning is for the company.

However, it is necessary, especially if you want to be visible to your customers. It is worth mentioning that the Google algorithm is currently perfectly adapted to finding local businesses based on phrases entered by customers, so if you only know how to do it, you can relatively easily achieve satisfactory results.

Thanks to the presence of properly constructed NAP business cards in well-matched directories, the website will be displayed high in local search results. This is because the Google algorithm very carefully analyses what a given Internet user had in mind and displays only the most relevant suggestions in the results, the result of which is influenced, among others, by location and indexed address.

A well-made NAP business card should contain elements such as:

NAP business cards constructed in this way will best translate into local positioning, and will also be a source of customers themselves. Keep in mind that you should always use reputable NAP directories. This is key to getting the right results. NAP business cards obtained from unreliable sources will be neutral for the site's position, or may even have a negative impact. 

The best solution is to establish cooperation with an experienced SEO company that will prepare dedicated NAP business cards, and then place them in directories that will effectively raise the visibility of the site in local results. Running a small local business, you can limit yourself to a dozen or so business cards in a dozen or so catalogues. How much will be needed in a given situation should be revealed at the audit stage.

You should also remember to create business cards for NAP directories following SEO rules, i.e. based on keywords appropriate for a given industry. This should not be forgotten either when constructing a description of the company's activities or the name itself. If the entity does not have a name associated with the industry at the same time, some form of optimization can be applied to include the keyword, if possible. Local positioning cannot succeed without this step.

By implementing local positioning, you need to remember that the final results are influenced by the same factors as in the case of positioning for general phrases. This means that you also need to focus on the standard procedure for getting backlinks. They can come from SEO facilities, such as blogs, or thematic websites from a given industry. 

The Google algorithm is very extensive, so it is difficult to clearly determine what number of links will be needed to position a particular website, but at Semalt, we have enough experience to more or less determine it at the stage of SEO audit. It is then that you can also estimate the budget necessary for positioning and optimize the positioning strategy in such a way as not to "burn" the budget. By carefully planning your strategy, you can save a lot this way.

At this point, it should be noted that even in the case of very competitive phrases, but supplemented with, for example, a city, it is relatively easy to obtain high results. For example, the phrase "pizzeria" will be extremely difficult to position due to the huge competition on a national scale. However, the Google algorithm is adapted to show only the best proposals in a given context, so the owner of a pizzeria from a small town does not have to worry about competition from, for example, Warsaw. This also means that you don't always have to spend huge sums to achieve high rankings. It is enough to rely on the knowledge of experienced SEO specialists who will optimize the campaign. 

Local positioning for companies should always start with creating a Google My Business listing. This is one of Google's functionalities, which is designed to allow you to easily find information about local companies concerning the addresses at which the business is conducted. The entire service is based on Google Maps, in which the location of the company is marked. The entire service is free and anyone can set up a business card for their company. Google highly promotes companies that have created business cards, so this should always be the first step when positioning locally, next to creating NAP business cards.

Setting up a business card on Google is very simple and intuitive. It is enough to have an account and then use the panel available there. The business card is supplemented with the following data:

Companies with a Google Maps business card are considered by the algorithm to be more credible, among others because supplementing the data is not everything. You have to wait up to 2 weeks for the application to be verified. Typically, you'll need to pick up a letter sent by post and confirm verification, although other options are available.

Positioning for companies cannot succeed if its first stage is not a reliable SEO audit with an SEO tool like The Dedicated SEO Dashboard. It is at this stage that it is verified whether a given page is technically properly constructed, what the optimal key phrases will be, as well as what competition prevails for given phrases. The latter determines how much the website positioning will cost. An SEO audit may show that you need to slightly verify the positioning strategy and, for example, focus on long-tail phrases. Some people think that the more backlinks the better. They are right, but not entirely. Currently, Google's algorithms have imposed such rules that a website that wants to be high in search results must also be optimized in technical terms, so even obtaining a large number of links may not help without optimizing the page itself.

At the beginning of the audit, the compliance of the coding and programming technologies used with today's standards is always verified. Pages must maintain full functionality and comply with UX standards, and at the same time be light, load quickly and be aesthetically pleasing to the Internet user. The above aspects can be described with specific parameters, such as the page loading speed factor. The SEO audit will show what needs to be improved to make the website meet today's standards. Only then can corrections be implemented, without which further actions will not bring satisfactory results.

The next stage of the SEO audit is to verify the text layer of the page. Each website must have appropriately matched keywords as well as content structure. This is directly related to e.g. internal linking and other aspects that need to be optimized for search engine robots. Local positioning should also start from this stage because although, unlike positioning for national phrases, there is usually less competition here, without such foundations it will be difficult to achieve appropriate results anyway.

Many people ask themselves whether local SEO is necessary for companies. Creating NAP business cards, using NAP directories and dealing with local positioning and SEO can be bothersome. After all, in the long run, it is necessary to be able to constantly acquire customers for your business. There is no doubt that today virtually every industry is exposed on the Internet, and if one of the companies cannot be found, it cannot count on the fact that customers will not go to the competition. However, by outsourcing SEO and positioning activities to an external company, you can avoid the need to explore the secrets of this industry and you can focus only on running your business. At Semalt.com, we provide comprehensive services that will allow companies to achieve high positions in search results.