If your business is location-bound, local search engine optimization (SEO) should have a prominent place in your marketing strategy. It can generate qualified traffic for your website and secure more sales. If you don’t know where to start, your best bet is to hire someone who’s been around the block.

Local SEO experts know all about Google’s search algorithm. They can help you build an effective strategy, localize your website, and provide helpful tips to boost and maintain your local reputation. Their expertise can ensure your efforts are efficient and your investment returns tenfold.

We’ve devised this simple guide to help you hire a local SEO expert successfully. You’ll learn about their typical duties and the process of screening and selecting candidates. You’ll also discover how MarketerHire can connect you with pre-vetted SEO experts and other marketers.

What Is a Local SEO Expert?

SEO and local SEO marketing are related but distinct disciplines. When someone searches for a local business, Google’s algorithm takes into account the proximity factor, displaying different results depending on the searcher’s location. In other words, even if you have a great SEO strategy, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re optimizing for local results.

While it’s possible to do it yourself, the process of local optimization can be laborious and time-consuming. Besides, the algorithm changes often, so your strategy today may not be as effective tomorrow.

Local SEO experts are marketing professionals who’ve mastered the art of local optimization. They keep up with industry trends and best practices, so their strategies are always relevant. They can help you build a local online presence efficiently and bring your website and business in front of the right people at the right time.

What Does a Local SEO Expert Do?

Here’s how a local SEO expert can help boost your company’s local presence:

• Website optimization: They can suggest ways to localize your website, such as adding your location throughout the website and its metadata and creating separate landing pages for business branches
• Local content and linking: They can devise a strategy for local content creation and link-building. Publishing helpful, high-quality SEO content aimed at local searchers can help you establish local authority
• Google Business Profile: They can advise you on setting up and maintaining an impressive Google Business Profile, which is crucial for informing potential visitors and ensuring your credibility. These experts can also suggest ways to combat spam reviews 
• Keyword research: They can identify the top keywords local searchers use and suggest ways to implement them. This step may be the most complex since searchers’ behaviors change all the time, and there are often many combinations
• Citation management: They can help you build and track citations on local business directories, popular review sites, and social media, which is especially tricky if you run a large, multi-location business
• Reputation management: They can advise you on how to deal with reviews—making the most out of positive ones, addressing negative ones, and requesting reviews from customers
• Monitoring performance: They can establish a solid auditing system to assess your rankings and reputation. This lets you determine the effectiveness of your efforts and figure out the next best steps

When and Why Should You Hire a Local SEO Expert?

If any of the following rings true for your business, it may be time to call in a local SEO expert:

• You haven’t optimized your website for local search results
• You’re opening a new business branch and need to raise awareness
• Your website is ranking low on local search engine results pages (SERPs)
• You’ve implemented local SEO, but the returns are low
• Your website hasn’t been updated for a while or contains outdated information
• Your customer base isn’t growing or is decreasing
• You don’t have time to deal with local SEO or keep up with trends

Investing in your local SEO strategy and hiring an expert offers five major advantages:

1. Higher visibility: With a higher ranking on Google, you’ll get more traffic to your website and generate qualified leads
2. Increased brand awareness: Even if they’re not interested in it at the moment, searchers will know about your business and may keep it in mind for later
3. Trust and credibility: A company that keeps popping up on Google with an informative business profile and stellar reviews will seem trustworthy
4. Better conversion rates: Passers-by will be more likely to convert into paying customers if your brand instills trust
5. Return on investment: A local SEO expert can ensure effective resource allocation and maximize the value you get from localization efforts

How To Choose the Best Local SEO Expert

You should look for an expert who has years of experience improving companies’ local SEO rankings and the numbers to prove it. They should also be:

• Proficient in Google Business Profile, auditing tools like Google Analytics, and tools for keyword research, such as Ahrefs
• Knowledgeable in SEO, keyword research, analytics, link building, and citation management
• Curious about the latest trends and always striving to improve
• Communicative and easy to collaborate with
• Punctual and well-organized

Still, the ideal candidate profile depends on your specific needs, so you should figure them out before hiring. It’s also important to consider your budget and decide whether you require temporary or ongoing support. That way, you’ll know whether to hire an in-house expert or a freelancer. Find out more below:

You also have the option to employ a local SEO expert on a fractional basis. This solution gets you the best of both worlds since fractional SEO specialists have scalable hours and are affordable like freelancers but are usually more available and invested in your business.

How To Hire Local SEO Experts 

Once you’ve figured out your hiring needs and terms, you can start looking for a local SEO expert. Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Source: One of the optimal ways to source reliable candidates is through referrals and first-hand recommendations. You should also post a job ad on job boards, freelancing platforms, and social media. Here are some sites you don’t want to miss:some text
   1. LinkedIn
   2. Indeed
   3. Upwork
   4. American Marketing Association
   5. MarketerHire
2. Screen: Review the applications as they come in. Discard those that don’t meet your work terms, skills requirements, and timeline. Prioritize candidates with extensive experience, preferably with businesses within your industry and area. Check out their case studies, references, testimonials, and reviews
3. Interview: Once you’ve narrowed down your choice to a few candidates, meet with them to evaluate their soft skills, personality, and cultural fit. You can also ask them to elaborate on their past work and how they’d approach your local SEO strategy
4. Hire: Offer the job to the top candidate quickly and discuss expectations before they start working

Challenges of the Traditional Approach To Hiring a Local SEO Expert

Recruiting a marketing expert on your own is challenging, especially a niche one such as a local SEO specialist. The process is often:

• Resource-intensive: It requires weeks of hard work, even months if you’re hiring a full-time expert. During that time, you could miss many lucrative opportunities
• Risky: If you end up hiring an unsuitable candidate, the consequences could be costly. You’d need to deal with the potential fallout and rehire, spending even more resources

The good news is that you can avoid these issues by partnering with MarketerHire—an on-demand platform for hiring marketers across all niches and verticals. It removes all the hassle and risk of hiring as it pre-vets marketers and offers free rematching if they’re not the right fit.

Why Is MarketerHire the Best Choice for Hiring a Local SEO Expert?

If you need to recruit a local SEO expert, here are eight reasons to delegate the process to MarketerHire:

How MarketerHire Works

Discover the steps for recruiting a local SEO expert with MarketerHire:

1. Describing your needs: Schedule a 30-minute call with your marketing manager to discuss your company and hiring needs
2. Finding your match: The platform will single out a fitting local SEO expert within 48 hours
3. Project kick-off: If you’re satisfied, you can hire the expert within three days

Meet your audience where it’s at—build an impactful local SEO strategy with one of MarketerHire’s proven experts.

Other Hiring Guides To Check Out

We have many more guides to help you recruit expert marketers—see them below: