Get Found for Services Near Me

I’ve noticed an increasing trend recently: people looking for services that are nearby. Is this something your company should consider? If so, how can you be found by people looking for services near you?

I’ve seen this in the Adwords data of my PPC clients. It’s also confirmed by Google Trends.

Why is this increasing?

• With the rise of mobile phones, people want nearby results. In fact, a third of all mobile searches have local intent.
• People’s Google queries are becoming more like an actual question.

This is getting even bigger with the rise of voice-enabled devices.

This is only true for B2C services. People looking for B2B companies might also prefer someone nearby. Not convinced? Visit Google Trends and enter your B2B keyword as modified by “near me” to see. For example, here’s how people have been searching for “distributor near me” over the last 5 years.

By definition a distributor doesn’t need to be nearby. Still, look how people have been searching for distributors near me, recently.

So, if you want people to find your company, as they search for services that are near them, how can you do it?

First, get a good local presence

When Google sees someone asking for a service near me, they often serve local listings (aka- the local pack). In fact, you don’t have to ask for a service near me to get a local pack. Sometimes Google assumes you want a service near you.

This is why you need good local optimization. This is a specialty within SEO. These factors include:

In short, to rank locally you need a productive SEO campaign. Other things include reviews and consistency with name, address and phone number for your business. The later is why I use Yext for my brick-and-mortar clients.

Second, put location markup on your website

Now you can simply include your address and phone number on your site. This is helpful to your website visitors. For Google to read your address, you need to be more clear. That’s why you’ll need to encode your business’s address in Schema’s local business markup. This makes your information more clear to Google. For instance, schema tells Google that the five digit number is a zip code, and not just a number with another significance.

Third, mention your service near me on your web page

Actually, in a recent announcement from Google, they don’t use this word on the page to determine ranking for it. 

This is one of the hardest parts. How do you incorporate a phrase like “digital marketing near me” naturally on a web page.  This is an awkward phrase to incorporate into a page. I’m sure you’ve experienced this as I’ve used this phrase in this post, so far.

For help, I turned to some of my most trusted writers. These are the people who produce the quality content my clients have come to expect.  Here are their suggestions.

Joanne Spataro

You might remember Joanne from a recent interview I did with her about promoting your business. She suggested:

• One of the biggest struggles of the “finding digital marketing near me” question is how far you’re really willing to go to learn about the people behind these services, whether in person or via video chat.
• Answering the “digital marketing near me” question doesn’t have to be complicated; in fact, it can be a click away.
• I get this question so much that I want to explore it in today’s blog: “Does it matter if digital marketing services are near me?” With the popularity of video chat platforms and messaging apps, communicating with your digital marketing company can stay completely virtual.
• People often ask, “Where can I find digital marketing near me?”
• I’m often asked, “Where can I find digital marketing near me?”

Ashley Boswell

Of course, people aren’t just looking for digital marketing near me (notice how awkward this is?). This applies to many different businesses, as Ashley points out:

• Potential clients will often ask, where is the best hair salon near me? Well, you have come to the right place!
• Before heading out with friends, you may find yourself asking, what are the best restaurants near me?
• When the time comes to sell your house, one of the first things you need to ask yourself is, who is the best real estate agent near me?
• If you find yourself in a position where you need legal advice, the first thing to consider is, how can I find the best lawyer near me?

Vanessa Infanzon

• When I’m looking for the best catering company near me, I search local websites.
• If I want the best bagels in town near me, I ask my friends.
• Where do I search for hiking trails near me?
• Who carries party supplies near me?
• I’m often asked how to find good restaurants near me.
• How often do you ask Siri, “what’s the best pizza near me?”

Vanessa had another great idea: client reviews can be a great way to add this phrase into a page.

Of course, the days of keyword stuffing are gone. If you want to “rank” for your service near me, don’t keep mentioning the phrase in your page (like this post does). Once might be enough. If you want to test this, use a TF-IDF tool, to help you see what’s going on.

When I pulled this report for “digital marketing near me” the phrase wasn’t in the 500 most common phrases from the top 20 Google results. That means I might not need to explicitly mention the phrase, to rank for it.