Can you help me with a simple guide to local SEO, along with primary ranking factors ruling over there?

The short answer is yes, I’ve got a simple guide to local SEO that covers the main ranking factors observed by the major search engines (like Google itself). Taken in general, they all are falling into two basic categories (depending on their areas of optimization). So, in this basic guide to local SEO, we are going to cover the following: Google My Business (GMB) page, and the commonest aspects related to Links. That being said, let’s delve.

Basic Guide to Local SEO

Google My Business page

Your GMB page is the very foundational area that must be completed first and foremost. So, when claiming your business page with Google, make sure to cover the following elements:

• Owner Verification – before anything else, you should write a unique and reasonably long business description. Make sure to choose a correct category (categories). Doing so, try to be as specific as possible – let your business be genuine and unique to stand out of severe local search competition.
• Google Reviews – given that they have arguably the highest correlation with your local rankings, Google reviews can provide a powerful ranking signal telling the search engines that your business is worth being promoted. So, make sure to read Google’s basic guidelines for reviews. That way, make sure to ask customers for reviews, in line with making it as quick and easy to drop some positive feedback as possible. Also, don’t forget to respond timely, and tackle all negative customer feedback (should it happen so).
• Photos – yes, it may seem like a no-brainer, but the importance of having sound image portfolio for business should never be underestimated. Consider hiring a professional photographer to clearly showcase your business, its interior/exterior, products/services you’re providing with it, as well as your own photo, and some shots of your working staff members.

Links

Among the most important factors related to backlinks, there are three main areas for us to be focused in this guide to local SEO. Here they are:

• Number of Link Domains – ideally, you should inspect your closest niche competitors, and use the best findings seen in their own link profiles.

• Quality of Backlinks – given that far not all links are created equal, make sure to inspect your potential link donors using a good analytical platform or link building online tool. Among the others, I recommend trying Semalt Analyzer, or Moz’s Open Site Explorer for getting everything in place to that point.
• Link Text Anchor – make sure to embed every link you have with a correct text anchor giving it a precise summary rich with your core keywords. Doing so, be careful when using “exact-match” keyword-based link anchors. You’d better avoid them at all – mainly to a potential issue with duplicate content.