Local SEO: getting found by people searching near you

Someone looking for a hotel, restaurant or shop nearby doesn't type your business name. They type the place name: "restaurant in Bologna", not the name of your venue.

What local SEO is

It's the part of SEO specifically about searches tied to a place. Someone searching "near me" or a city name is already showing strong intent — they want to go there, not just get information — which is why local searches bring in more concrete customers than generic ones.

What people near you actually search for

Local searches almost always include an explicit geographic reference: a city, a neighborhood, "near me". If your site never contains those words, you don't show up — even if your business is right around the corner.

The simplest signal: saying where you are, clearly

A map pin embedded in the site helps human visitors, but on its own it's not enough for engines and assistants: the city, neighborhood or service area needs to be written in words in the page text, not just inside a widget or an image.

The same applies to AI assistants

When someone asks ChatGPT for "a good restaurant in Florence", the same principle explained in why ChatGPT doesn't mention your business applies: without clear information about where you are and external confirmation, an assistant is unlikely to include you in the answer, no matter how close you are to the person searching.

Where to start

If you serve a single area, write the city and neighborhood in your homepage text, not just in the contact details at the bottom of the page. If you serve multiple areas, consider a page for each one, instead of a generic "where we are" page that lists them all together.

The right words to use change from area to area: dig deeper in keywords. For the bigger picture, see also how to get found online.