How to promote business in your city with local SEO in Ukraine

With growing competition and digitalization of business, local SEO is becoming a key tool for attracting customers in your city. Optimizing your search engine presence based on your geographic location allows small and medium-sized businesses to compete effectively with larger players. In this article, we'll look at the main strategies and tools for local SEO that will help your business become more visible to your local audience.

1. Create and optimize your Google My Business profile

Google My Business (Google Business Profile) is a free and powerful local SEO tool. Create a company listing, add up-to-date contact information, business hours, photos, and links to your website. Pay special attention to the company description, using keywords such as your business type, area, and city.

• Fill in all fields, including attributes and categories
• Add photos of the interior, facade, team, and products
• Actively collect reviews and respond to them

Google's algorithms favor businesses with high activity and reviews. Therefore, it is important to keep your listing up to date.

2. Mentions and local directories

Post information about your company in popular Ukrainian online directories and maps: Google, Bing Places, 2GIS, InYourCity, Zakupka, Prom.ua, Relax.ua. The main thing is to ensure consistency of NAP data (name, address, phone number) across all platforms.

Search engines take into account the number and quality of brand mentions (citations) when ranking in local search results.

3. Geotagged keywords

Adapt your website content to queries that specify a region. For example:

• iPhone repair in Kyiv
• beauty salon in Odesa
• bakery in Chernihiv center

Include such phrases in titles, meta descriptions, H-tags, image alt texts, and URLs. This will increase the relevance of your site in local search results.

4. Pages for regions and districts

If you serve several towns or districts, create separate landing pages for each one. For example:

• /services/lvov
• /repair-kharkiv
• /delivery-zhytomyr

Use unique content, photos, reviews, and keywords relevant to the region on these pages.

5. Work with customer reviews

Reviews are one of the most important factors in local SEO. Encourage satisfied customers to leave comments on Google, Facebook, and local platforms.

• Respond to every review, even negative ones.
• Show gratitude and customer focus
• Integrate reviews into your website

Real reviews increase trust in your business and improve your local search rankings.

6. Website responsiveness and loading speed

Your website should be mobile-friendly, as up to 70% of local searches come from smartphones. Google takes mobile-friendliness and loading speed into account when ranking local search results.

Use Google PageSpeed Insights and Lighthouse for optimization.

7. Create local content

Publish articles related to your city: participation in events, charity work, local news, case studies with clients from the region.

This content helps build local relevance and attracts the attention of both customers and search engines.

8. Use Schema.org microdata markup

Add microdata markup for your organization and addresses to your website to improve your display in Google Maps and snippets.

For Ukraine, use:

• LocalBusiness
• PostalAddress
• GeoCoordinates

This allows search engines to better understand the structure of your site and improves visibility.

Fresh tips for 2024

• Google has added visual cues to local search results: photos of facades, reviews in cards directly on the SERP.
• AI reviews and aggregated reviews: affect ranking — it is important to work on the quality and structure of the text.
• Hyperlocal keywords: (streets, neighborhoods) show an increase in CTR in search results of up to 30%.

Frequently asked questions

Where to start with local SEO for small businesses?

Start with Google My Business, optimizing your website for regional keywords, and listing your business in local directories.

Do I need local SEO if I have an offline store?

Yes. Over 80% of shoppers search for products online before visiting a store.

Can I promote my business locally without a website?

Yes, you can use your Google profile and social media, but having a website gives you more analytics tools and SEO options.

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Want to increase customer traffic from your city with local SEO? Contact us, and Mmix.ua specialists will help you develop a promotion strategy tailored to your region and niche.