In one of my recent blogs I did a short video on how to check your website traffic in WordPress.  Surprisingly many people do not know how to do this.  I check mine just about every day and even head on over to Google Console where I have my website registered so I can see how many clicks I am getting and where I show up for a search term.  I noticed there was something called a “near me” search.  This would be people looking for a service or product near them.  I noticed one of my client’s websites was getting quite a few hits for “acupuncture near me”.  I thought to myself what is this near me thing?  Google to the rescue.

From an article I read on searchengineland.com, near me is just that, people looking for a product or service close to them.  Most computers and devices know where you are and can find what you are looking for in an area that is closest to you.  So how do you make sure your website is optimized for this?  Here are the main points for this question:

• Make sure that the business name, address and phone number (NAP) are frequently and prominently displayed on your website in an easy-to-index format. Ideally, you should have a separate page for each location, but the addresses of all your locations should at least appear somewhere on your site.
   
• Mark up your NAP information with structured data that relates to the business. Google provides instructions on how to do this here.  (By the way, this seems a bit too technical for me, but I would do it if it works and shows results)
   
• Google My Business should be properly set up and optimized. Each of your locations should have its own Google My Business listing. Ensure that the business name, address and phone number of each location match what you have on your website.
   
• Get as many positive reviews as you can for each location, especially on Google. Reviews on other sites can help, too, but Google reviews are likely to have the highest impact on local map pack rankings.

You can check out the full article here.  If you are going to come away with anything from this tidbit, just make sure your full address is found prominently on your website if you want local people to find you on search.   Hope that helps!