When I hear the term local seo in Kenya, the first thing that clicks in my mind is Google business profiles (formerly called Google my Businesses)
But that is not all that local seo entails.
It also covers websites.
But when do you know whether to set up a google my business profile as opposed to a website. And vice versa.
Well, it is pretty easy.
All that I ask myself is: what is the goal of the client.
Do they want the readers to visit the physical business location, make a phone call or make a transaction online?
if the answer is to make a phone call or visit the business, then the GMB is needed.
If it is a business that wants you to make a transaction online or learn something from their website, then you need to optimize that.
The difference between local SEO and SEO is that in local SEO, searchers are looking for businesses that are in close proximity to where they are. They could therefore search for terms such as ‘commercial cleaner near me’ or ‘plumber in Limuru’ They are not interested in searches that show international websites, right?
How to rank your Google Business profile in Kenya?
Ranking a google business profile is pretty easy.
It involves the following:
1. Having a Google business profile whose NAP is consistent within all the local listings/citations
2. Having your GMB in the correct category. You can always use GMBspy and GMBeverywhere to check what your competitors have listed as their primary categories
3. Getting as many citations as possible
4. Get as many Google business reviews as possible. It needs not be hard. Google actually advices you to email or share a review link with your past customers
5. Having complete profile with images, correct location, services. FAQs, amenities, products and services.
Whitespark did publish a study on their findings about what most renowned local SEO experts think are the ranking factors for a GMB. Here they are:
How to rank your local business website?
- Content that meets the user intent and topically relevant
When a searcher Googles for the term ‘sharia banking meaning’, they are looking for information. The search engine will therefore serve them with a website that defines this term.
If another user Googles ‘sharia banking near me’, this person is looking for a bank that offers sharia banking. Google will check their location and serve them with a local map pack of 3 sharia banks near them and also local sharia bank websites near the searcher.
Topical relevance simply means that content on the different webpages of the site are related.
A bank for example is able to rank for financial terms because that is their niche. It would be really hard for them to rank for terms related to ‘plumbing’ or ‘physiotherapy’.
I advise webmasters to make sure that their content is topically relevant to each other so that Google can regard them as authorities in the niches they are trying to cover.
- Correct permalinks
- Internal linking
- Technical seo is on point
- Good off page optimization
If two websites have great content, sound technical seo and are well optimized on page, backlinks become the tier-breaker. A business therefore needs to conduct a comprehensive competitor analysis to get why a competitor is ranking better than them. It could be all about the off page optimization (read links) that they have invested in.
How much does local SEO in Kenya cost?
For businesses looking to benefit from local seo, the cost depends on a few factors. If you want to rank both your website and GMB, the cost will be higher as opposed to when you want to just rank your GMB.
At the same time, the competition will come in as a factor. Say for example that a Sacco wants to rank for the term ‘mobile loans’.
Well, the truth is that this is a competitive term and would require the sacco to invest a good amount of money on quality content as well as backlinks to outbeat the financial institutions in the country that are already ranking for this time.
An SEO freelancer or agency is going to tell you that they would need a retainer of upto 1 year so as to work on the Sacco website to rank for this.
There are however new industries that are easy to rank for and would therefore cost less.
The rule of thumb is that if a term has a high search volume which has a transactional intent, then you can expect the cost to be high as well as more time to rank competitively.