‘Near Me’ searches are offered by Google and other search engines that serves the customer while they look up for locally offered products and services in their specific area.

There are businesses that have a local need, businesses like event organisers, restaurants, hotels, healthcare, yoga classes, cinema halls, banks, local stores, grocery points, etc serves the local customers. So making and optimising the website for local searches is beneficial for local businesses.

There are several ways to get your business visible in the local searches. But this lesson is about making your business website visible in ‘near me’ searches as that not only helps you to get new customers but also opens up a way to make them subscribe to your website, build a closer connection and yes it brings traffic as well as passive income from ads too.

Build A Mobile Friendly Website

The first thing you need to ensure is you have a responsive website that is hundred percent mobile friendly as most of the ‘near me’ searches are made on the smartphones.

You can easily build a mobile friendly website in your budget yourself simply by registering your domain name and then subscribing to a Managed WordPress plan.

Once you own a domain and Managed WordPress, its automated process will let you build your mobile friendly business website in minutes.

Know How Your Customers Search Google

Before you start the optimisation of your website, you need to ask yourself a few questions on how your prospective customers would be searching Google to find a product or service near them.

These questions could be:

• Ok Google, Where the nearest pharmacy store?
• Ok Google, Suggest best event and party organisers near me?
• Ok Google, Where do I find some fresh grocery in so and so area?
• Ok Google, What are the best restaurants in this area?
• Ok Google, Where do I find good dentist in this area?

By knowing how you customers search for the local businesses you would be able to create targeted content on your website.

Use Schema Markup For Enhanced Search Presentation

Schema is a markup that offers enhanced presentation of your website pages and products in the search engine results page by including structured data, rich snippets, and images. You can easily implement it on your WordPress site by using Schema plugin.

Navigate to your admin area dashboard Plugins -> Add New page to find and install Schema plugin on your website. Once installed, you can easily manage its options from your admin area dashboard Schema -> Settings page. The plugin is easy to set and forget with minimal settings and it also offers you a quick configuration wizard.

Create Content With Targeted Keywords

The pages, posts, and products you use to bring local customers should have locally targeted words in the content such as name of the place, your business name, the location, the landmarks, the neighbourhoods, and the city of your business, etc.

You may include target keywords in the title and meta-tags. You may use a SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO, use ALT tags on the images you place and assign relevant tags and categories while creating posts. These can be managed from the edit screen of posts and pages on your WordPress site.

Create important pages with accurate information about your business with relevant details of opening and closing hours, etc. If you have multiple outlets then create multiple pages for them or you may also create separate sites over sub-domains such as subdomain.yourdomain.com, each for one specific outlet.

This all can be easily done with help from the online support team accessible from your Sangkrit.net account.

Start Blogging Your Business

Consistent blogging is the best key to top the search engine ranking, ‘near me’ searches are no different.

So visit your admin area dashboard Posts -> Add New page and start blogging about your business, use relevant tags covering the name and the location of your business outlet and start posting articles, reviews, offers about your products and services.