Have you been wondering how local Nigerian businesses are ranking in the top positions in Google search results, or how they keep getting cited and mentioned by ChatGPT answers and Google AI answers?
Those Nigerian businesses optimize their website to put themselves in those positions; you need to optimize your website for local SEO.
A search-optimized website can bring your business these extra 20 to 50 leads every month. This guide shows the exact website on-page changes we make to move Nigerian businesses up in the local search results.
In this guide, I will teach you how to optimize your website for local seo to win local customers.
Key Takeaways
To optimize your website for local SEO, you need to
- Optimize the title tag, meta description, H1, the first 100 words, main content, and images of every webpage by including the right local keywords in them.
- Include internal links, schema, clear CTAs, and Breadcrumbs on service pages, location pages, homepage, and blog posts.
- Ensure every webpage is mobile-friendly and loads fast by using WebP images and plugins like WP Rocket to speed up your WordPress website.
- Select and use the right local keywords. Keywords that have location modifiers (near me, Lagos etc,) and are relevant to the search of your target customers.
- Build relevant citations and backlinks to grow the authority of your website.
What is a local business?
A local business is a business that sells goods or services to customers within a specific, limited geographic area, like a city, town, or state.
Examples of local businesses in Nigeria.
- Plumbing companies
- Laundry companies
- Real estate companies
- Dental clinics
- Cleaning companies
- Law firms
- Event management businesses
- Restaurants
- Pharmacies
To name a few.
How to optimize your website for local SEO: Homepage optimization.
To optimize your website for local SEO start from your homepage. This page can bring your business lots of leads from search. A lot of Nigerians search for local businesses using phrases like “Solar company in Lagos” or “Solar company in Nigeria”.
These kinds of searches usually have homepages as 60 to 80 % of the listed answers, this is why you need to start from your homepage to optimize your website for local SEO.
People making these kinds of searches are usually in research mode or buying mode; hence, it should be optimized and also conversion-ready.
- STEP 1: To optimize your website for local SEO, start by replacing or adding a title tag and meta description to your homepage. Use the prompt below to ask ChatGPT to write them for you.
ChatGPT prompt
[Write for me a title tag and meta description for my “your type of business” website. We provide the “your business main service you offer” to “homeowners or your target customers” in the “Main state or location you operate in.” They should include “your main keyword, e.g, plumbing”. Our unique offer is “your business’s unique selling point, e.g, fast response”.]
- You can also use these templates below:
Title tag (template)
{Type of business} in Nigeria | {Primary Service} in {Top City} | {Brand}
Meta description (template)
{Brand} offers {Primary/Secondary Services} across {Top Cities}. {unique selling point, e.g, Fast response, fair pricing, and warranty}. {CTA, e.g, Call/WhatsApp +234… Book a visit today.}
- STEP 2: Improve your Hero section,
- Include an optimized H1: {Primary Service/main keyword} in {Nigeria or main location} e.g: Top solar company in Nigeria.
- Include a small explanation of your value proposition that is less than 150 words.
- Include your CTA that calls your business phone number instantly.
- STEP 3: Include an About Your Company section.
- Start with an H2 tag that has your business name
- Write about the main achievements or milestones of your business. Detailed but brief and straight to the point. {e.g, We have installed 10,000 boreholes in the past 3 years, and the Nigerian Ministry of Environment awarded us the best Borehole drilling company.}
- Include details and stats like Ratings stars and review count.
- Include a few before/after sliders
- Include your business badges.
- STEP 4: Include a service section
- Include an H2 that has your brand name, type of business, or main keyword in it. E.g., Top Ekiema plumbing services
- Include a maximum of 6 of your services on this page. Start with an H3 that includes the title of the service, followed by a concise note about it, and then link to each of them.
- Include a link to your service hub page, which is your general service page.
- STEP 5: If you serve multiple locations, include a section for it.
- H2 should read like {brand name} service areas.
- Add something unique about each location.
- Include a link to each of your locations.
- STEP 6: Add a “Recent Jobs” section with carousels and short narratives for each, also add the Nigerian neighbourhoods where you did the job. (e.g., “AC gas refill in Gwarinpa done in 2 hours”).
Note: Keep every job caption unique and mention neighbourhoods to strengthen location entities. - STEP 7: Include a “Why choose us” section, include 3 to 5 unique benefits of working with your business and not others (e.g, same-day service in Ikeja/Surulere, vetted technicians, parts warranty).
- STEP 8: Include a Call to action & pricing. You can use a call-to-action like “Get a free quote” or “Discuss with a specialist.”
- STEP 9: Include a mini-FAQ section with 3 questions. Give answers to the most common questions your customers ask.
- STEP 10: Your Footer must include
- Your business name
- Office address
- Business phone number
- Hours of operation
- Links to your service pages and top location pages.
Note
When you have to optimize your website for local SEO, ensure your homepage should be more of a landing page than an article. Potential customers won’t bother going beyond your homepage if you don’t give them the impression that you can serve them.
Check out this YouTube video for a visual guide.
Need Expert Help?
Our team has helped over 10+ Nigerian businesses increase their local visibility by 200% on average.
How to optimize your website for local SEO: service hub page optimization.
To further optimize your website for local SEO, you need to optimize your service hub page because this page helps your website visitors understand the services that your business offers to its clients. This central page should list and explain every core service.
- STEP 1: Improve or add a service page title tag. Use this format
Service Hub page title tag template
“{type of business} in {Nigeria or main location} | All Services | {Brand}”.
According to Google, your title tag can help people decide if your webpage is the right one.
- STEP 2: Improve or add a service page meta description. Use this format:
Service Hub page title tag template
{Brand} offers a wide range of {Your Service Category, e.g, electrical} services. Explore our services, including [Service 1], [Service 2], and [Service 3], and {CTA}!
- STEP 3: Improve the URL of the page to include your category and services. e.g https://yourwebsite.com/plumbing-services
- STEP 4: Include an optimized H1: All {Brand} {type of business} services, e.g, All Brandon electrical services.
- STEP 5: Include an optimized introductory paragraph.
- Talk about who you serve, your main service locations
- Talk about your Unique Selling Point. You can use this prompt to ask an AI chatbot to write something for you:
Prompt
[Write an introductory paragraph optimized for {target keyword} for my service hub page. Here are some details about my business: we serve “list your target customers”, our main service locations are { locations your business serves}, we offer our customers {your unique selling point.}]
- STEP 6: Include a service list or grid that lists all your business services.
- Start with an H2, e.g, Plumbing service
- Each of your business’s services should have 2 sentences explaining that service, and a deep link to that service page.
- STEP 7: Include a booking form or CTA here. It should include fields like
- Name
- Phone number
- Which service do you need?
- What date do you need our service?
Pitfalls to avoid
Avoid having number strings as your URL slug; instead, use descriptive text. According to Google’s official documentation, always use descriptive URLs.
How to optimize your website for local SEO: Service page optimization.
The step while you optimize your website for local SEO is your service page optimization. You need to optimize this page because it can drive most of your website’s organic traffic revenue.
It will attract people who are ready to pay for your services on the go. This page would rank for searches like solar panel repair near me, solar panel cleaning in Lekki.
- STEP 1: Add or improve your title tag. You can use this template:
Title tag template
{Service} in {Top City} | Fast Response & Warranty | {Brand}.
Note: you can replace fast response & warranty with your preferred unique offer.
- STEP 2: Add or improve your existing meta description. You can use this template.
Meta description template
[Service] in [City/Area] | [Company Name] – {Key Benefit/USP, e.g, Licensed, insured & [years] years experience. Free estimates, same-day service available.} Call [your phone number] today!
Learn more about this from Google.
- STEP 3: Improve the URL of the page. You can use this format. https://yourwebsite.com/ac-repair-service
- STEP 4: Improve your H1 heading. It can follow this structure. {service} – {Brand}
- STEP 5: Include an introduction on every service page. It should include common problems this service solves in Nigeria, the service page target keyword, and how your service eliminates those problems.
- STEP 6: Include an H2 for the Benefits of the “XYZ” service section. e.g, Benefits of our AC repair service in Nigeria.
- STEP 7: Include a list of the benefits of this service you offer.
- STEP 8: Include a Before and After gallery. Start with an H2, use this template “Previous {service} successful projects”. Pictures of your past successful projects for this service, ensure you include the location for each project in the caption, e.g, pest fumigation in Ajah, Lagos.
- STEP 9: Include a “How we work in {location}” section. A 3-step process with real timing and constraints.
- STEP 10: Include a pricing section. It should entail your price range and what each pricing structure entails.
- STEP 11: Your testimonials for this service should include the location where the project was carried out.
- STEP 12: Include a CTA section: Your CTA should be so bold that they can’t miss it. A direct link to call your business or a Booking form that has at least these fields.
- Name
- Phone number
- Which service do you need?
- Which package do you prefer?
- What date do you need our service?
- STEP 13: Include a related services section, start with an H2 heading, e.g, Our other related services. It should include a link to your service hub page, as well as a link to your related services.
- STEP 14: Include an Areas we serve section, start with an H2, e.g, Areas we offer {service} service. List the locations you offer this service to and link to their various location pages.
- STEP 15: Include an FAQ section, 3 to 5 common questions your target customers usually ask. You can search the service name on Google, scroll to the People also ask section, and then answer them as FAQs for this service page. Use ChatGPT to generate an FAQ schema for this page, then turn on the schema feature. If your website is a WordPress website. Rank Math makes local SEO for WordPress websites easy through the schema function.
- STEP 16: Use ChatGPT to create a schema for this page. It should be a service type schema with a local business reference.
Ensure you include the service synonyms, e.g, AC repair/air conditioner service, city names, and unique offerings in the content of this page.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Avoid overusing the same keyword on multiple service pages, instead, use the right keyword for each individual service page.
- Avoid loading your pages in PNG format; this makes your service pages load slowly.
- Avoid having more than 1 H1 on your service page.
How to optimize your website for local SEO: Location page optimization.
Searches like Law firm in Lekki, website designer in Ibadan, real estate company in Port-Harcourt are common searches Nigerians make, hence you cannot optimize your website for local SEO without optimizing your location page.
If your business serves multiple locations, optimize each location page for search. It should convert local visitors to leads. You should use keywords like {Plumbing company in “location”, Pest control company in Abuja}.
- STEP 1: Improve or add a new title tag if you don’t have one. Use this template:
Title tag template
{Type of business} in {City or state}, Nigeria | {Primary Service} | {Brand}
- STEP 2: Improve or add a new meta description. You can use this template:
Meta description template
{Brand} provides {Primary/Secondary Services} across {City}. {Unique selling point: Fast response, fair pricing, & warranty}. Call/WhatsApp +234… now!
- STEP 3: Improve your H1: {Type of business} in {City/state}: Fast Response, Fair Pricing. E.g., Law firm in Lagos: excellent representation
- STEP 4: Include an Intro paragraph: Mention your {City/state}, 2–3 neighborhoods, and your top services (plumbing, electrical, AC repair, inverter/generator, fumigation/pest control, cleaning, borehole). Keep it Nigeria-specific (₦, response times, road/traffic realities).
- STEP 5: Include any awards you have received in that location, the number of reviews, and ratings. You can include your Google Business Profile reviews for that location.
- STEP 6: List the Services you offer in that {City or state} (bulleted grid, and link to each service page)
- STEP 7: Include a few Before/After pictures (jobs from {City}), add a short note on each of them in the caption, mention their neighborhood, and the service you rendered.
- STEP 8: Include testimonials from the City or location, e.g, port-harcourt or Abuja, and add the short quotes for the testimonials.
- STEP 9: Always include a strong CTA (Call / WhatsApp / Book form). Here are the booking form details:
- Name
- Phone number
- Which service do you need?
- Which package do you prefer?
- What date do you need our service?
- Which neighborhood do you need our service in?
- STEP 10: Include a mini FAQ with 3 to 5 common questions customers ask you about your services in that location. Ensure you add an FAQ schema as well.
- STEP 11: Include a map for your service area in that location.
Pitfalls to avoid.
- Avoid repeating the same copy on different location pages. Ensure you include authentic information, such as information about that specific location and neighborhoods, and the road network to your office.
- Don’t pin a specific location on the map you embed on your location page.
How to optimize your website for local SEO: About us page optimization.
To optimize your website for local SEO you should also optimize your About Us page to build trust with your target customers. You should prove that your business is real, experienced, and safe to hire.
- STEP 1: Use this template to write the About Us page title tag.
Title tag template
“About {Brand} | {type of service your business offers} in Nigeria.
- STEP 2: Use this template to write the meta description of the page.
Meta description template
“About {Company Name}. {Nigeria or the top city you serve.}”s trusted {service type} experts. {Key information, e.g, Licensed, insured with [X]+ satisfied customers.} Learn our story!
- STEP 3: The URL of this page should be https://yourwebsite.com/about-us
- STEP 4: H1 of your about us page should be About {company name}, e.g, About Friedo plumbing company
- STEP 5: Add a brief history or story about your company as an intro; it should include your mission and vision.
- STEP 6: Add an H2 – {company name} team.
- STEP 7: For each of your staff, add their photo and a 1-sentence note about each of them.
- STEP 8: Add an H3 – About {Company name} founder.
- STEP 9: Add a brief summary of the founder or lead technician, including their years of experience, certifications, and specialties. Include their image as well as links to their social media profiles.
- STEP 10: If you have a group photo, add your team photo. They should be in their branded shirt.
- STEP 11: Add successful 2 to 3 cases with results: Add the before image, issue to be resolved, and after image. You should also include the solution proffered with the exact date of service rendered. Include relevant stats for each case snippet. Ensure the stats you include are verifiable.
- STEP 12: You also include associations or local bodies your business belongs to, and add links to their website if they have any available.
- STEP 13: You should also include charity works your company has been involved in lately.
- STEP 14: Finally, use ChatGPT to write a schema for your About Us page. A local business schema, or an organization schema if your business is national.
How to optimize your website for local SEO: Contact us page optimization.
- STEP 1: Optimize your title tag:
Contact Us page title tag template
Contact {Brand} | Call, WhatsApp, Book now!
- STEP 2: Optimize your meta description. You can use this template:
Contact Us page meta description template
Contact {Company Name} for {service} in {Nigeria or top City} – Call {phone number}, text, or get a free quote online. Available {hours/availability}. Get started today!
- STEP 3: Optimize your website for local SEO by fixing your URL slug: use https://yourwebsite.com/contact-us
- STEP 4: Include the following contact information.
- Phone (tap-to-call) and WhatsApp (tap-to-chat) include a note of how long you take to respond; remember, Nigerians love speed.
- Short form (Name, Phone, Service, City, Message).
- Available working hours and same-day promise were realistic.
- Service areas list (repeat top cities).
- STEP 5: Include your service area map. Don’t pin any specific location.
Pitfall to avoid
- Don’t use the same tracking parameters for your form submission, call button click, and WhatsApp button click.
How to optimize your website for local SEO: Gallery page optimization.
A lot of Nigerians would love to see your previous excellent work before making the final decision to hire your business. Hence, while you optimize your website for local SEO dedicate a page where you would showcase your best work.
- STEP 1: Include a title tag.
Projects page or gallary page title tag template
Before and after gallery | {Your Brand name}
- STEP 2: Include a meta description on your gallery page.
Projects page or gallary page meta description
View {Your Company Name} {your main service} gallery – See our completed projects in {Nigeria or your broad location}. {number of projects}+ before & after photos. Quality workmanship. Browse projects now!
- STEP 3: Optimize the URL slug. You can use this template – https://yourwebsite.com/Brand name-type of service-project-gallery, e.g, https://yourwebsite.com/briedo-plumbing-project-gallery.
- STEP 4: Include an H1. You can use this template – Brand name, type of service, project gallery – Before & After
- STEP 5: Start including images of your previous work. Group the images using headers in pairs of service and city. e.g, H2 – AC repair in Lekki phase 1.
- STEP 6: For each image, ensure you include a descriptive file name, alt text, and caption {service + neighborhood, e.g, “Electrical rewiring in Wuse 2”}. According to Google, alt text explains the relationship between the image and your content, so always add it.
- STEP 7: To optimize your website for local SEO, finish up by linking from each image to the relevant service page.
Ensure that all the images are on lazy load and are in WebP format.
Note: Include your most powerful jobs. Not all your jobs.
Pitfalls to avoid
- Avoid including all your jobs if they are too many; only feature your most powerful jobs.
- Avoid uploading heavy images without converting them to WebP format. Lightweight images ensure your pages load fast.
Technical SEO tactics needed to optimize your website for local SEO.
These technical details ensure your business website is technically sound to rank high for local searches.
If you use WordPress. Then plugins like Rank Math SEO, Yoast SEO, Site Kit by Google, and WP Rocket make Local SEO for WordPress websites easier.
Internal Linking, Breadcrumbs & CTAs
Linking to other relevant parts of your website ensures that Google finds your webpages and ranks them higher, as stated by Google in their documentation.
- Every webpage should include Breadcrumbs: e.g, Home › Services › {Service}, and Home > Blog > blog post.
- Each webpage should link to related webpages: From Homepage → service hub → Service pages; from Service pages → related services + Contact.
- Footer links: Your footer should link to the top service pages and top city pages.
- CTA consistency: Use the same call to action “Call / WhatsApp / Book visit” everywhere.
Schema & Structured Data (page-level)
To optimize your website for local SEO, ensure every important webpage on your website has the right schema, which makes it easy for AI bots and Google’s crawlers to understand what that webpage is about.
According to Google, it uses the schema it finds on the web to understand content better. Local SEO for WordPress websites can be implemented using the RathMath SEO schema feature or Yoast SEO schema feature.
- Homepage: LocalBusiness + Organization (logo, sameAs, areaServed) schema, check out Google’s guide on local business schema.
- Services Hub: Item list of services schema.
- Service pages: Service (serviceType, provider) schema.
- FAQPage: Your FAQ page should have a schema, and every webpage that has a frequently asked questions section should also have an FAQ schema attached to it.
- About: Use an Organization schema or LocalBusiness schema.
- Breadcrumbs site-wide: Every page should have a breadcrumb as well as a corresponding BreadcrumbList schema.
- Review schema: If you have first-party reviews on your site, consider the Review/AggregateRating schema.
Note: Don’t mark up reviews you copied from third-party sites (It violates Google guidelines).
Speed & Mobile UX (quick wins)
To optimize your website for local SEO, every webpage on your website should load fast and be very easy to use on mobile phones. According to Shopify Nigeria, Google and Bing prioritize mobile-friendly and fast-loading websites; hence, do the following to ensure your website loads fast.
- Convert all your website images to WebP, compress, and lazy-load them. Plugins like Smush and Imagify can help you achieve this for WordPress websites.
- Minimize the design animation you have on your webpage designs.
- Use WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache to speed up your website if it was built on WordPress.
- Ensure your webpages have a sticky Call/WhatsApp button that visitors can click to contact your business immediately.
Test all your webpages with Google Pagespeed Insights; aim for green CWV on key pages.
Local keyword research is needed to optimize your website for local SEO.
Whether you are implementing local SEO for WordPress website or just optimizing your whole website, you will have to use the right keywords on every webpage to ensure your webpages show up when your target customers search on Google or ChatGPT and Perplexity.
- You should use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, and Ahrefs keyword tool to discover the right keywords to optimize your pages with.
- Whatever keyword you decide to use should be relevant to the page, as well as have enough volume, and a relatively low ranking difficulty (when compared to your website authority).
- Most of your keywords should have a location modifier. E.g., solar company in Asaba, Law firm in Lagos.
Check out this article on how to perform local keyword research.
How to optimize your website for local SEO using backlinks and local citations.
To optimize your website for local SEO, you need backlinks and citations. It helps your website to rank in Google search engine results or get cited by ChatGPT or Perplexity answers.
- Your website and brand need to be mentioned on relevant Nigerian directories for your industry, for example, finelib.com, Ngex.com, as citations.
- Your website also needs to be linked back to by other relevant authoritative websites. These websites should be Nigerian websites to give your website local relevance. These signals would help your website rank high in search results and AI-powered results.
Read further on how to build your website authority using backlinks and citations.
FAQs
Target keywords that combine your service + city/area, plus “near me” variations. Example: “AC repair in Lagos”, “dental clinic Abuja”. Use Google Autocomplete, Google Keyword Planner, and competitor SERPs to find phrases that real customers search.
Each city/service page should have:
- A unique H1 with service + city.
- Localized content (mention neighborhoods, landmarks, case studies).
- Optimized title tag & meta description.
- Clear CTAs, reviews, and NAP details.
- Internal links to related services.
Start with on-page basics: fast mobile-friendly site, optimized titles & meta descriptions, schema markup, and strong CTAs. Add local signals: Google Business Profile, consistent NAP, local reviews, and location pages. Track KPIs like calls, map views, and local keyword rankings.
Conclusion
To get organic traffic on your website as a local business in Nigeria. You have to optimize your website for local SEO using the right local keywords, local relevant content, fast loading, and a mobile-friendly website.
The value optimizing your website brings to your business goes beyond just new customers from search, but also brand awareness.
If you want to implement a holistic local SEO strategy, then read and implement this 90-day local business local SEO strategy.
