What's the difference between doing National SEO vs Local SEO?

[mikepcservice]

Hey guys, I know this is a forum for "local" search but asking anyway if anyone can explain to me please what's needed to do differently for National SEO than what one does for local SEO?

 

[JoyHawkins]

Local SEO involves optimizing for queries that have local intent. A lot of these times these queries trigger a local pack so you need to pay attention to Google My Business, unlike national SEO.

I split the types of queries into 2. Explicit queries are things like "plumber denver" where the person types in the service they want + the locality they're searching in. Implicit queries are things like just "plumber" where the person doesn't define a locality but Google will still serve up results in that locality anyway because they know the user is looking for something local due to the nature of the search (you don't hire a plumber that's not near you).

 

[djbaxter]

I would just add that for most business, including SABs, you probably want to do both.

 

[dgrunited]

Hey guys, I know this is a forum for "local" search but asking anyway if anyone can explain to me please what's needed to do differently for National SEO than what one does for local SEO?

There is not much difference. Just focus on national SEO (your website) & 90% of your local SEO (your GMB listing) will be taken care of automatically. Explained slightly differently, your website can help your GMB but it's highly unlikely that your GMB can help your website (in terms of ranking).