Does Geotagging Help Local SEO? (Beginner's Guide)

Does Geotagging Help Local SEO? (Beginner’s Guide)

Arif Chowdhury
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Last Updated on October 19, 2022 by Arif Chowdhury

If your website is connected to your brick-and-mortar business, then geotagging keywords is vital for local SEO. It may happen that you will receive visitors from outside of your service area.

Though, every website’s goal is to get as many qualities targeted visitors as possible. However, if visitors come to your web page and notice that your service is not in their area, it will surely increase your site’s bounce rate. And that isn’t good for SEO.

In other cases, it shouldn’t be a problem if your website is not a brick-and-mortar business. For example, if it is a blog or online service and the audience can access it without any country restriction, then getting visitors from anywhere is not an issue instead, it is beneficial for digital marketing.

However, you must take this geotagging seriously if your business is not that. Just think of yourself; you search for Pizza delivery and visit a web page. You guessed it was near your location.

Nevertheless, when you are about to place the order, suddenly, an error message appears saying, “Sorry, you are out of our service area.” What are you going to do? You will leave immediately. That website gains a bad reputation from you and search engines like Google. They will rank you for a high bounce rate if it happens frequently.

In this article, I will discuss geotagging keywords. And how does geotagging help local SEO? So, your website will be relevant to your niche and service area, thus boosting SEO in the long term. 

What are geotagging keywords, and how to utilize them?

Simply put, you mention your business’s location, which can be identified using Google Maps. It contains latitude and longitude coordinates.

When you first mention your location with geotagging, if that place’s name does not exist on the map, you may have to input latitude and longitude coordinates to mark that location.

The best example can be the restaurant business. On your contact page, you have to show your restaurant location with a map, and keywords can be like this – “Idle Fast Food New York.”

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How can you create a geotag on your website?

It is a simple process. First, if you want to add geotag on your blog, then add location-specific keywords in the below fields:

  1. Title of your article or page
  2. URL
  3. Meta description
  4. Meta tag and categories
  5. First paragraph
  6. Headings (H2, H3)
  7. Images attribute

No need to do anything else. Write an article about that specific location, and your geo keywords should appear naturally.

For best practice, you can add a custom Google map to your article.

If you have a WordPress site, you can use an open street map plugin to add geotag to your article or any other specific page.

How to add geotag in your images?

Adding a geotag in your image is complex unless you have a GPS feature active in your camera. In case you do not have a photography DSLR camera or you want to add a location (geotag) in your images using a working laptop or desktop, I am going to show you some straightforward steps.

Visit Geoimgr (no registration needed, it’s free) and click the “start now” button.

Upload your image using drag and drop or browse from your local computer.

Does geotagging help local SEO? Use online tools to add geotagging keywords in your image.

On the left side, you can either use the marker to drag and drop a specific location you know on the map. Or, if you know the exact latitude and longitude, type it here.

Upload your image & type the location coordinate & write EXIF tags in your image with just a single click.

Click “Write EXIF tag” to add this coordinate to your image.

That’s it; you are done. Just download it now using the download button.

Adding location to your image is accessible and will boost your SEO. Follow these simple steps.

Finally, click “properties” to check your image and go to “details.” Here you will see the GPS coordinate. Now, upload it to your site.

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Why should you use geotag keywords?

It’s straightforward. When you search in Google, ask yourself what you want to see. You want to see relevant and high-quality results. Thus, you can find what you want with just a single search. Google wants to please its users by providing the most accurate search result possible.

To do this right, Google uses the keyword as a base. So, as I said before, if you are in a hurry and want to eat Pizza right away, you may hit the button in Google search with the keywords “Pizza delivery.”

Now, Google will show you the most relevant result by trying to get an idea of your location, as you didn’t provide your location in your search query. If you permit access to your location, Google will try to find the nearest Pizza restaurant.

In this case, restaurant businesses that provide detailed locational information on their websites will get the advantage in the search result. And if you do not permit Google to access your location, then Google will try to learn about your place with the keywords you have provided.

Let’s say you typed, “Pizza delivery in New York.” Google will use the New York keyword to find your nearest restaurant.

As you can see, Google is trying to give the best result to its user. But, of course, it is best for websites as well. Think for a moment; if somehow people suddenly appear and realize that you do not provide service to their location, they will leave immediately.

Therefore, getting a few relevant visitors to your site is always better than having a bunch of visitors who give you little to no value.

Advantages of geotagging keywords.

Here I want to give you an example of Geotag and Non-geotag. First, start with geotagging.

I searched for the keyword “Pizza delivery in New York.” Take a look at the example below.

Does geotag help with SEO? Yes, targeting a specific location will help you to get a rank in Google.

An ad is displayed at the beginning of the SERP (Search Engine Result Page). The organic result started with a Google map containing several Pizza restaurant locations in New York City. The rich snippet displays valuable information, i.e., opening and closing time, price range, etc.

Further down below, you may see some delivery websites showing a collection of restaurants in that area. These are not restaurant websites but delivery services; they are not included in Google Maps because they are irrelevant.

If you click on the Google map marker or restaurant listing at the beginning, a Google Maps will open with more details. You can visit their website directly, get directions, or call them for support. Their address is also displayed here.

With Google rich snippet, you can easily showcase your business. Don't forget to add geotagged keywords in your site content.

It is a tremendous advantage of Geotagging for your local business. People within your service area will find you easily, even if your website is new. In addition, it will show at the beginning of the SERP. In comparison, even a big hotel outside this area won’t be able to beat you in the competition only because they are not relevant to this search result.

Smartly beat the competition.

There is another benefit you may get by doing intelligent geotagging keyword optimization. If you have a new website, keyword difficulty will be pretty challenging. However, there is a loophole you can tap to get the advantage. And that is geotagging.

How to do it? Simple, to make you understand, let me give you an example. Take a closer look at the example below.

Without a geotag, the keyword can be tough to rank.

As you can see, “pizza delivery” in the United States is challenging. I used Ahrefs keyword difficulty checker, and based on their estimation, to become top 10, you need at least 524 high-quality backlinks.

However, it is only an estimation, but the reality is very different. Just look at the top three websites’ backlinks profiles. The first two are the same website Domino Pizza, and 3rd is Pizza Hut. The lowest backlinks profile is more than 140K.

This keyword is quite a challenge. Well, indeed, it is. Nevertheless, you didn’t leverage the power of geotagging. Now we are going to do it.

Add location (geotagging keywords) to your keyword & make it easy to rank in Google.

Take a look now. The exact keyword, but now it has an “in New York” geotag. And see the difference. The keyword “Pizza delivery in New York” has become super easy. Ahrefs estimated that you need only eight quality backlinks to get on the top 10. If you look at the top 3 results, the highest backlink profile has only 165 backlinks.

Where should you place geotagged keywords?

The answer is simple. Use everywhere on your website that is relevant to your niche. It can be on a blog post title, headings, paragraphs, or snippet. The same goes for other pages of your website where it is relevant and looks natural. However, don’t overuse it; it will do more harm than good.

For example, let’s take the “Pizza delivery in New York” keyword for this example. You can use it in the title. Instead of only “Idle Fast Food Pizza,” you can use “Idle Fast Food Pizza New York.” Don’t forget to use geotag in slug; it is also vital. Try to do the same modification on all your website pages where relevant.

Recommended Reading: How to Create Content for Your Brand? (Beginner’s Guide)

Conclusion.

I tried to make things as straightforward as possible; so thus, even a kid could digest them. I hope you get your answer to this question, does geotagging help with SEO?

It’s all about relevancy in the search result. Google always takes care of its users; therefore, you should do the same. Only then, you won’t fall behind or won’t have to worry about SEO.

Just think about it; everything I said in this article suits your audience. If you do this geotagging to your website, your audience will easily find you with a single search. So your audience and you both will become beneficial from this. And this is the ultimate conclusion.

Be honest and create quality, relevant content for your audience. If you do, you won’t have to chase SEO; it will happen naturally.