Over the years, there has been a lot of talk about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in business, especially in digital marketing and social media. In fact, it has been reported that 9 out of 10 businesses are now leveraging AI in some form to gain a competitive advantage. When it comes to improving local SEO, the use of AI is becoming increasingly prominent.
After all, its ability to analyze data and automate what used to be a lengthy process has changed the way businesses approach local SEO as a whole. Plus, with 46% of daily Google searches involving location, this means that any business marketing their goods and services online needs to know how to leverage it to get the best results.
What does AI do for local SEO?
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| What does AI do for local SEO? |
AI can help small businesses understand and predict user behavior. AI can also help improve local search listings and automate various SEO tasks. Essentially, the evolution of AI in SEO is allowing local businesses to more easily manage their online presence, ensuring that their business appears in local search results when they need it.
By using tools like voice search optimization to create personalized search results, AI is now allowing businesses to approach local SEO in a more tailored and effective way. At Brand Nova Digital, we specialize in helping clients reap the benefits of using AI in local SEO, along with tools that are leading the way in this area.
What AI tools can you use for local SEO?
There are a number of AI-powered tools that can be game-changers when it comes to local SEO. The following can help provide valuable insights into strategy, simplifying a complex process and allowing businesses to spend less time on local SEO but still achieve great results. Here the explanation of AI tools you can use:
- Bright Local - Offering a comprehensive local SEO audit as well as reputation management and rank tracking, Bright Local helps businesses understand where they stand and where they need to improve.
- RankTracker - Easy to use, simple and effective, RankTracker's AI Article Writer can easily craft SEO-optimized local content; perfect for small business owners with little budget or time to do it themselves. Additionally, RankTracker provides tools for analyzing, monitoring and improving your local SEO rankings, as well as a helpful SEO glossary.
- Yext - Entering information into various online directories can be tedious and time-consuming. Yext uses AI to manage and optimize this information, ensuring it is accurate, which is crucial for local SEO.
- Moz Local - Moz Local simplifies local listing management. Again, this ensures that your business information is listed accurately across the web. Not only that, but it also provides insights into your website’s performance and recommends improvements.
- Answer The Public - While Answer The Public isn’t solely AI-based, it uses AI to look at search queries and provide insights into what your customer base might be asking. This means you can create content that answers specific local search queries as well as other keywords you’ve identified.
How AI is changing local SEO?
AI is having a significant impact on local SEO that goes beyond the tools used. In fact, AI is changing the strategies that businesses use to optimize their business for local searches. For example, AI algorithms can now analyze user behavior and preferences.
This means they can provide highly personalized search results. Think of it as something akin to Netflix’s AI-powered recommendations, which they believe now influence 80% of what people watch on their platform. Apply the insights gained through this method to local users who frequently search for vegan food near them, and businesses can use it in their local SEO strategy. For example, they can ensure that every relevant search takes them to a specific page of a restaurant that suits their preferences, such as a vegan menu, rather than a main menu that includes meat dishes.
Therefore, businesses need to focus on creating highly relevant local content to have a chance of performing well in these searches. AI can help with this by creating locally-focused blog posts and social media content. However, it will be essential for humans to help with this type of content to avoid being penalized by Google for using too much AI content.
Additionally, voice search optimization is becoming increasingly important. As more people use voice-activated assistants like Alexa and Siri, and become more reliable (On average, voice assistants can now answer search queries with 93.7% accuracy), AI tools can help businesses understand the natural language used in such searches and this allows businesses to optimize their content. Its ability to analyze the conversational nature of voice searches will likely capture more long-tail keywords related to the locality of the query.
Additionally, predictive analytics now provides businesses with more information about anticipated search trends. This means that businesses can proactively adjust their strategies, stay ahead of competitors and meet evolving demand.
And finally, as mentioned, AI is clearly automating some of the most common SEO tasks such as content optimization, keyword research, and performance tracking. This not only saves time, but also ensures that local SEO efforts are more data-driven and therefore more precise.
The Future of AI in Local SEO
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| The Future of AI in Local SEO |
While the above section explains how AI works in SEO today, as many business owners know, things are changing rapidly in search engine optimization. So what do we see in the future?
1. AI and customer reviews
Many businesses are only as successful as their customer reviews, which is why business owners should shift some of their focus to analyzing and responding to those reviews. Over time, AI will be able to analyze and respond to customer reviews, freeing up valuable time, while still knowing what your business is doing well, and perhaps not so well. It will also confirm to your customers that their views on your business matter to you.
This, in turn, will lead to more reviews being left, which can do wonders for your SEO and sales figures. With statistics showing that one-third of consumers view reviews as the most important purchasing consideration, the importance of handling reviews well cannot be overstated.
2. Competitor analysis
As AI continues to expand, there will be incredible opportunities for businesses large and small to dive deeper than ever before into what their competitors are doing right and wrong. AI tools can already provide insight into competitors’ SEO strategies, and focusing on what and how they are doing local SEO will be even more enlightening.
3. Ethics
Of course, the ethical issues surrounding the responsible use of AI will only increase as AI becomes more widely used. Business owners will need to ensure that they are always on the right side of the coin when it comes to using AI for local SEO, ensuring that data privacy is a top priority in any strategy they implement.
4. Strategy
As tools and strategies continue to evolve, business owners will need to be selective about what they use. For those new to AI, the advice is to start small and build slowly, to create a robust and flexible strategy that can evolve as the technology evolves.
Conclusion
In conclusion, research shows that AI has not yet made a significant impact on search engines or replaced basic SEO strategies. While AI tools offer valuable enhancements, they do not make traditional SEO practices obsolete. Local businesses and franchise owners can benefit from understanding that SEO is not dead. By maintaining a mix of established and evolving techniques, your business can achieve lasting online success.
Overall, local SEO is clearly evolving rapidly, and business owners will need to stay on top of these developments to stay competitive, especially in their local area. While this is a challenge, those who use the SEO tools we’ve listed above will be well placed to benefit from this exciting technology.
