lmost every business owner is looking for ways to increase their customer base. There are many different strategies that you can use, but one of the most effective is local SEO. Local SEO has been proven to be more effective than ever before and in this blog post, we will discuss how it works and what you need to do if you want your business to reap the benefits.
What is Local SEO?
Local search engine optimization is a branch of SEO that focuses on optimizing your website to be found by people who are looking for local businesses around them. The content, on-page optimizations, and link building all have more focused localized intent as this type of work goes into the business efforts.
Why does the Importance of Local SEO Matter?
Optimizing for local search is of utmost importance to those running a physical store business because this will help them reach customers in their specific towns, cities, regions, and even states. Local SEO is a must for any business! It allows people to find your information and get in contact with you quickly. This will save time, money, and effort on the customer's part while increasing sales opportunities for both parties involved.
What Benefits you can get with Local SEO?
With local SEO, your business can be found by the right people who are interested in exactly what you have to offer. You'll stay competitive with other businesses and show up consistently on different sites so that even those from far away will see you. Local search optimization helps give small-town shops an edge over larger corporations because shoppers can find them easily through various channels like maps directions, reviews from other users around them who might are interested.
In this article, we'll take a look at the quickest and most effective way to rank consistently. This is what you should do to shoot up in Google's search results.
Google my Business
Google My Business is a free tool created by Google to help business owners manage how they appear in search results and with it, you can claim your local listing on the site and add things like pictures of what you offer, hours of operation, etc., for people looking to buy from them locally. A well-made Google My Business (GMB) profile will significantly boost the ranking of your business in search results. It helps Google understand where you operate your business, and at the same time, it has an advantage over other businesses in ranking.
If you want to start a business on Google, you need to set up your online address and location either physical store or not. You can also add your contact numbers to give out to your customers and verify your business before you can list it. If you're looking for a physical store, you'll need to choose between an online store and an online business.
Optimize your Google My Business Listing
Google My Business is a powerful tool for local businesses to manage their online presence across different search engines and for that reason, the GMB listing is essential to show up in Google Maps and the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Adding a description of your business to Google My Business will help potential customers understand what services you offer.
Create a Google My Business profile with comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date information. This includes filling out all the necessary fields such as introducing your business in an engaging way, uploading photos of what you do best so potential customers can see who are they dealing with before making contact or buying anything from you. Keep your GMB profile up-to-date. A regular, important task for any business owner is keeping their Google My Business listing updated to reflect changes in the company. If anything about your service offering or contact information has changed - such as a change of name, phone number, hours open - make sure that these are reflected on this webpage so potential customers can find you easier and more accurately when searching online.
Publish your Google My Business Post
In short, Google My Business is your business’s most powerful and affordable way to advertise. Not only does it give you more control over where customers see your posts even the world map option lets you target specific areas in order to get a better feel for how many potential clients live nearby. You can also use posting as an opportunity to share valuable information about special offers or new products with all of those who follow along on this platform. This free advertising tool will help increase traffic by funneling interested parties straight into your website without having them spend money on ad space that may not be relevant.
It's good to have a social media profile for your business, but that doesn't mean you need it on every platform. Google My Business is so powerful because of its simplicity and it allows businesses the opportunity to post updates about their company and connect with potential customers in an easy manner. These posts can positively impact how well people find your page when they search online, which makes posting updates really important.
Customers to do Reviews
One of the most amazing parts about modern-day marketing is that you can get customer reviews without even asking for them. Every customer has an opinion; so why not use those opinions as powerful tools? Customer feedback in the form of product reviews will be one way we'll know how our products measure up against competitors' offerings. The more positive responses people give us, the better chance we have at winning over new converts who might try out what other users suggest, and it's no secret that your reviews can have a big influence on how well you rank in Google.
Incentivizing reviews may seem like the easiest way to get your customer’s thoughts on their purchase, but it can actually undermine a customer's trust in those reviews and it'll be much more effective for you if they know that there is something of value waiting for them when they leave feedback about their experience with your company. Offer free swag or content (like exclusive previews) as an incentive and watch how many people will rush to provide honest opinions.
Build Citations
Moz found that Google considers citation signals such as citation volume and NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency in local search results, and this means your information should be on major citation websites besides GMB to think Bing Maps, Yelp, and Facebook AND focus on directories that have higher domain authority than smaller listing sites like Yellow Pages or YP Diner Reviews.
When you're building your business one of the most important aspects to be mindful of in business is your NAP, or "name, address, and phone number” and be sure that you maintain uniformity across all platforms and make notes if there are any misspellings on listings or discrepancies with addresses and fixing these mistakes will increase the local SEO for your company. Your NAP information should always be consistent across the internet and you need to use the same structure and spelling for when you are citing your business info so that Google can read it easily and as well as reducing confusion with potential customers who may try to find you on various search engines or social media sites.
Social Media
Social media is a great way to generate link less backlinks for your brand, and also provide opportunities to reach out to new customers and it's important not just the represent yourself online but to be aware of how you appear on search engine results pages as well.
You must have these 4 social media channels.
Facebook is a social media platform with the largest user-base and most active users. You should make it your top priority for local SEO if you want to reach out to more people in your area or region. Facebook is a great way to promote your business and drive traffic back to it and it offers tons of opportunities for you to do this such as running an ad or promoting keywords in newsfeeds via sponsored posts.
Instagram is an underrated traffic source that can be used to boost your search presence. Even though it might seem limited in terms of SEO, Instagram has a startling 90% of users following at least one business profile and this number will only keep rising as the platform grows more popular every day. Your bio link on Instagram with just 1 link for your entire account should lead followers somewhere useful or interesting so make sure you are setting up something worthwhile when inputting text into the bio box.
The importance of hashtags in your Instagram captions can't be underestimated. Hashtags not only help you connect with potential new followers but also show up via Google searches which is great for SEO and organic growth and here's a good example of how to use them on an account that showcases local content.
Twitter is an excellent resource for smaller, local businesses to connect with potential customers. As opposed to just a distribution channel, Twitter allows the user access to otherwise inaccessible conversations and discussions in their niche that would not have been possible without it and when coupled with hashtag usage people can engage more deeply within topics and create better insights about those industries they are interested in or know little about beforehand giving them new ideas on how best to market themselves locally through social media channels.
Twitter should be carefully considered, like your Instagram bio and your Twitter homepage is a solid place to include relevant keywords and hashtags related to your business so that you can improve search efforts on the site.
LinkedIn is an essential network for anyone who deals with B2B customers, especially considering that it’s responsible for providing 80% of all leads and since Facebook and LinkedIn share many features like company details and the “About” section and you can use keywords to increase your visibility on these platforms too.
Local Research Keywords
We need to know what type of leads our client wants more before we can continue with any keyword research. If the goal is qualified prospects, then it's important for us as a local SEO company to focus on these types of keywords and phrases in order to bring people into their business who are most likely going make their money.
If you want to be successful with your local keyword research, you must first figure out who the target audience is and their ultimate goals and next start by analyzing each of your keywords' SERPs (search engine result pages) for search volume and difficulty level. This will help in understanding which keywords are easier to rank on than others so that time can be spent more efficiently ranking these higher-ranked terms instead of wasted trying every single one until they all stop working.
On-Page SEO Optimization
Local SEO is a lot more than just optimizing your online presence for Google. It's about attracting potential customers through search engines such as Yelp, Apple Maps, and Bing in addition to the major players like Google and Yahoo. Local SEO doesn’t just mean targeting local keywords that match your business name and local content marketing requires identifying where you are located geographically on the web, including geotargeting campaigns with service area shapes or polygons (for instance) so people searching locally will find what they need close by without having to scroll too far down their results page.
Landing Pages
Local landing pages are a must-have for any business that is located or offers its services in more than one area whether it’s within the same city, state, country, or across multiple continents, and with a local landing page, you can reach potential customers who search online with keywords related to your service areas and brick-and-mortar locations.
Now that your local landing pages are ready and online, there is no shortage of ways for you to find new customers, and whether it's with organic or paid traffic focus on the small things like boosting SEO and SEM campaigns which can help you rank higher in Google and complete a few off-site activities such as pimping your My Business profile using Google’s brand new Local Campaigns feature. It is important that each location has its own URL and landing page. A good idea, when you are just starting out with a few locations, would be to add the local landing pages to your main navigation.
If you have many different sites with tons of traffic going through them adding lots of links in the footer could devalue Google's search engine results because it will look like spam SEO tactics are being used rather than genuine customer interest for specific areas or services offered by the company and it can be difficult trying to find consistency across all these online properties if there isn't a NAP (name, address, and phone number) that appears on every site.
Build Backlinks
It is not a secret that link building has been an important factor in SEO and local businesses for years. A recent study by Ahrefs found 91% of all pages never get any organic traffic at all, which means people are browsing through search engines rather than following links from one site to another. 85% of websites have 0-3 backlinks meaning they can't attract enough attention on their own sites to create content worth reading or searching again outside the web browser window.
How can you distinguish that backlinks are high-quality is when searches rank a link's importance based on the number and value of links. Links located in the main portion of a website, versus anywhere else like headers or footers, carry more weight; relevant anchor text such as your brand name can also make it seem more valuable to Google search rankings.
Your Page is Mobile Friendly
You can't rely on good SEO alone to bring in new customers and you need a well-designed, user-friendly website that is optimized for the search engines and gives your visitors all of the information they're looking for without making them dig through site after site or page after page just to find what they came here searching for and stop wasting time with outdated web design practices it's not as simple as picking up some basic HTML anymore. Your business deserves more than the best and makes sure you put forth an effort into creating something unique before someone else does it first because if there are too many pages out there like yours then naturally people will start thinking 'I've seen this one already. Make sure it is unique above others!
There are many ways to utilize local SEO efforts for your business. You can take a variety of different strategies into effect if you're targeting multiple locations with online marketing campaigns however, the most important factor is that they all need to be cohesive in order for them to work together and follow these steps to take your local SEO efforts past the next level. Keep in mind that you can apply these tactics across various locations, and even on multiple if you're going after more than one area with them and make use of this knowledge so as not to let an opportunity for growth pass by without doing anything about it.
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