WHAT IS LOCAL SEO PITTSBURGH?

Local SEO Pittsburgh is a search engine optimization strategy that assists your business to be more visible in local search results on Google. Any western Pennsylvania business that has a physical location or serves a geographic area can greatly benefit from local SEO. Also, if you search Google for any important keywords that are related to your company and a map with 3 listings appears underneath it, then Pittsburgh local SEO can help you grow your business.

EVOLVING OF SEARCH ENGINES

In the beginning of the internet there were only few websites compared to the million their are today, so navigating the internet was simple. Once the internet started expanding, search engines were developed to allow users to find the websites they were looking for more easily.

If you typed a product or service into a search engine, it was matched to websites that included the keywords in your search. Google used this same approach, but it quickly dominated the other search engines when it became the first search engine to utilized links between websites as an indication of which sites were to be trusted and had authority.

Today Google utilizes hundreds of factors both on-site and off site to determine if it is relevant to display as a search result. In addition, factors form your “digital footprint,” and each of the factors has a different value, which the search engine combines together to return search results. Your digital footprint determines whether or not you are a top result to a search that a user types into Google.

SO HOW EXACTLY DOES GOOGLE WORK?

When you search a phrase on Google, it checks the ranking factors, such as how relevant your website is, to return a list of sites that match your search query. Most people do not realize that Google is not doing a live search every time someone types something into the search bar. It is actually searching a stored copy of all of the websites that Google has already previously discovered. This stored copy is called the Google Index.

The “Spiders” crawl the internet to form the Google index. In addition, every spider works similarly, it begins on a single page then follows all the links on that page, analyzing content on the next pages, and so fourth. As website content gets crawled and stored on Google’s servers the index is built. The spiders work at a super human scale, constantly crawling trillions of website pages at an lighting fast pace. This ensures that the index is as up-to-date as possible and new websites and connections are discovered quickly.

HOW GOOGLE RANKS SEARCH RESULTS

Google utilizes several processes to rank hundreds or thousands of websites in literally the blink of an eye. These processes are named algorithms. When you Google a phrase, an algorithm checks the index and returns a list of sites that match your search phrase in organic results. In addition, those results are chosen and ranked based on relevance, prominence, and popularity given by inbound website links.

The Google algorithm looks at a wide variety on-site and off-site factors to determine which sites have something related to your search phrase. All of the relevant websites are added to the list, which in return is ranked by prominence. Again referring to the wide variety of on-site and off-site factors, the Google algorithm determines which websites best answer your search phrase, and those websites are listed at the top of the Google search results. Improving your Pittsburgh SEO helps both relevancy, prominence and link popularity factors for your site. If the right elements of your website’s digital footprint are optimized properly, your website shows up higher in more search results.

LOCAL SEO PITTSBURGH IS A SEPARATE PATTERN

What about Pittsburgh local organic search results? After reviewing the behavior of users during trillions of searches, Google figured out that people seeking specific types of businesses need results from their immediate geographic area. This is why Google’s local search algorithm includes a proximity element, which is anther way of saying that Google takes your location into account when you search for a local keyword. This occurs even when the searcher does not include a specific city name or “near me” in their initial Google search.

Google Local search has been around for several years, but it was constricted due to people only utilizing their home computers. But, with the growth in mobile internet access mobile search has exploded, so Pittsburgh local SEO has become severally important for the success of any western Pennsylvania business offering local services or products.

WHAT MATTERS FOR LOCAL SEO PITTSBURGH

While the local map pack is displayed within the standard Google organic search listings, separate algorithms power the main Google search results for local rankings and the local map pack results. As a Pittsburgh local business, you have the chance to appear within both the main organic search results and the local map pack all at the same time. If you are brand new to marketing your western Pennsylvania business online, one of your main challenges is knowing what you should focus on to make your efforts count towards ranking.

Localized website content and local link popularity are important factors, just as it is in Google’s traditional search algorithm, so it is important to build local landing pages for each of your businesses locations. In addition, you should follow SEO best practices always optimizing their titles tags, meta descriptions, and follow heading structures. Most importantly, take careful consideration on your content and link building strategy.

Additionally, location-based elements like having a business listing in Google My Business, local citations from all 3 data aggregators, and review signals that should be published by your local Pittsburgh customers. These factors are also taken into consideration in your Pittsburgh local SEO rankings and you should also take them into consideration in your local SEO Pittsburgh efforts.