Local SEO: A Guide to Win the Digital Local Market | 2024

For businesses in the Netherlands, having a website is crucial because 40% of companies in 2023 had a website to reserve, order, or book a service or product. Therefore, a strategic marketing attempt like SEO is robust for businesses in the Netherlands. 

Yet, how do you win the local market? In fact, there were 1.45 million small and medium-sized enterprises in the nation, which can be challenging for them to strive for. Regarding this, local SEO can help them stand out in the market. 

To figure out how local SEO for businesses in the Netherlands can work effectively with comprehensive tactics, read this guide until the end!

What Is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the optimisation technique focusing on improving business to be able to appear on local search results. 

It may help any company that operates locally or serves a specific area. It can assist you expand your business if you search Google for any relevant keywords related to it and a map with three listings shows underneath it.

Search engines employ indicators like links, citations, social profile pages, local content, and other information to determine which local search results are most relevant to the user. 

By utilising this tactic, companies may strategically place their products and services for local consumers and prospects who are looking for them.

Nearly every search result is tailored to the user's nation. However, it focuses on connecting with audiences in more precise areas, such as districts and cities.

Then, how does local SEO work? It helps Google gain an understanding of your company’s location and services. In addition, the right strategy can help Google think more highly of and confidently about your company.

Along with making your website relevant, helpful, credible, and usable, you must focus on making your business rank on Google Maps and the local pack. 

In this case, you must ensure that your business is relevant to the target users, well-reviewed, and well-known. At the same time, Google also considers how far is your shop from the user’s location. 

Why Must You Consider Local SEO for Your Business?

Google returns billions of local search results per month, and location-related queries account for almost 30% of all smartphone searches. It means that a business must be able to appear where people search on the Internet. 

Furthermore, when Google determines that a user is searching for products, services, or facilities close by or in a specific place, it shows local results.

Therefore, keywords like “hotel in the Netherlands” or “Dutch restaurants near me” are crucial to making your business rank higher in local searches.

You can probably use search to find potential clients no matter what kind of business you run or where you are.

How to Carry Out Local SEO?

There are some steps you can adhere to in implementing this SEO strategy in your business, such as:

1. Create and Optimise Google Business Profile 

Google Business Profile (GBP) is an essential step to appear on Google Maps and local packs since this feature stores your business information. 

Moreover, GBP is the best tool for helping your company comply with Google's requirements because it supports, validates, and freely shares its content.

To create one, you can visit Google Business Profile on the search result and follow the registration steps. Most importantly, you must ensure that every information you register is valid and accurate.

The information you can include is NAP (Number, Address, and Phone Number), opening hours, videos, photos, and facilities.

Google may award your company with a desired sidebar spot in its local search results if it can authenticate your company. Then, you can nourish your profile with ratings and reviews from your customers. Positive reviews can make Google and users see your business as a credible entity. 

Not only that, make sure to always update the information on the GBP and ensure that it applies consistently to all of your platforms (website and social media). 

2. Perform Local Keyword Research

Next, you must target ranking on the local keywords to guide potential customers to your website. Initially, you can see what keywords your competitors rank for and consider their volume, difficulty, and intent. Then, you can use a tool like Google Keyword Planner to research the targeted keywords. 

3. Post on GBP and Social Media

Now that you already have a GBP, your work does not stop in updating the information. You must post regularly on it to make it active. You can post recent activities of your business, promos, new products, and others on it. 

Likewise, you should be active on your social media. Social media content is now more crucial to Google than it has ever been. 

Sharing your site, content, and GBP to your social media can enhance brand recognition and traffic. Moreover, you can easily interact with them, increasing engagement. 

4. Optimise Online Citations and Directories

Appearing on online directories and citations can increase your brand awareness, making you easily found by the targeted audiences. 

Yet, you must ensure that the citations are consistent. Check your information and make sure there are no typos, wrong numbers, wrong addresses, or outdated information. 

This is important because Google may not display your business at all in search results if it is unable to identify which of the information about your company is accurate.

5. Interact with Online Review

As mentioned before, information on GBP is not enough to make your customers trust you. In this case, you can encourage your client or customer to leave some reviews about your business. 

Reviews offer social evidence, vouch for your experience, and instill trust in your company among prospective customers. Since reviews on Google are visible to users and one of the local ranking factors, you can target them first. 

Yet, it does not mean that your customers can’t leave a review on other platforms and directories. On top of that, avoid accepting or offering money for reviews because it is against the terms and conditions of some platforms. 

6. Carry Out a Local SEO Audit

Last but not least, you can perform a local SEO audit to see the performance and find areas of improvement. You can see how appearable your GBP is on the search result, how crawlable your site is, do you implement on-page SEO effectively, and how well your competitor is in the market. 

With that, you can continuously improve your local site to be better at gaining leads, traffic, and conversion rates. 

Conclusion

Overall, it may be said that SEO for small business websites in the Netherlands is important, but so is local SEO. Using this tactic, you can reach more location-specific customers around your place. 

Implementing the strategies calls for a proficient team and skilled abilities. You can depend on local SEO services for small businesses like SEO Services by cmlabs, so you don't need to worry if you think this would stress your team. Secure a meeting now and tell us your SEO needs for free