Do You want to Increase your Business with Local SEO?

Local SEO is the method of improving your business’s web presence so that you show up when nearby customers perform a search related to your business. It is a branch of SEO that spotlights optimizing a website to be found in local search results.

Local SEO is essential to smaller businesses that work on a regional, as opposed to a national, level. While national SEO focuses more on positioning in searches across the country, local SEO prioritizes appearing on SERPs in a specific location. This strategy relies on marketing your brand, products, and services to local leads and customers.

Local SEO exists since search engines need to provide the most important and valuable results possible. The key difference between local SEO and traditional organic SEO is the geographical component, which enables search engines to show users relevant results for nearby solutions.

To provide the best local results, Google considers three ranking factors.

• Proximity: How close the business is to the searcher
• Relevance: How relevant the business is to the search phrase
• Prominence: How well-known the business is and how much online authority it has

To improve local SEO, a business must optimize its online presence to appeal to these three ranking factors.

Advancing your local SEO implies more website traffic, leads, and conversions since the strategy are more pertinent to your base of local customers. Consider this engaged strategy as a way to approach you compete more effectively against larger national brands that have unlimited resources to spend. By focusing on specific local-SEO tasks, you can neutralize the advantage of bigger brands that regularly optimize for extensive keywords and depend on brand recognition, instead of value propositions, to bring in traffic.

Here are few ways to make your local SEO successful.

Create a Google My Business Account

Google My Business has turned to be the most important part since Google understandably feels most comfortable sharing content it can support and verify, Google My Business is their tool to help your business meet Google’s needs. Improving your Google Listing (aka your Business Profile) is perhaps the best way to rank higher on Google Maps as well as gain visibility in Google Search local results. To get access to your Business Profile to make these improvements, however, you need a Google My Business Account associated with that profile. Once you provide all of the requested information in your Google My Business account dashboard, all of that information will be added to your Business Profile, which appears in Google Search local results, the Google Search Knowledge Panel, and Google Maps.

To ensure you’re optimized for Google My Business, you’ll want to:

• Create and verify a Google My Business page
• Use Google Posts within your account
• Encourage your customers to share reviews online
• Respond authentically to reviews, specifying the location.

Get Regular Reviews from Customers

Getting your customers to write glowing reviews for your business doesn’t just optimize your Google My Business presence; it also encourages more local customers to buy from you.

Here are some tips to encourage customers to leave reviews:

• Ask for a review in person after the close of a sale
• Send a post-purchase email or text asking customers to write a review
• Respond to existing reviews professionally, thanking reviewers, and addressing complaints in not-so-favorable reviews

Engage on Social Media and add posts to Google My Business

Google considers content shared on social media more important now than ever before. It is very essential for the Brand to have Social Media presence. The content used in social media, makes the content eligible for the visibility in Google Platform.

Now that you’ve carved out a beautiful Google My Business page, share the page on social media, further aligning social and search.

Ensure your name, address and phone number are consistent online

You’ve got to make it easy for people and search engines to find you. To do this, set up your NAP, which stands for name, address, and phone number (with area code). This should be included as crawlable HTML text on your site.

Avoid the common mistake of only including the NAP within an image — images can’t be crawled from search engines like HTML text. The most common location for the NAP is in the footer or header of the site.

Optimize your Website for Mobile

Local search and mobile search go hand in hand. Some of the most common ways people will use your site in a mobile environment are to look up reviews, find directions to your location, and search for contact information. In fact, “near me” searches on mobile have increased 250% since 2017. Make it easy for your prospects and customers by making your site mobile-friendly.

Use Location Pages or a Location-specific “About Us” Page

If you have more than one brick-and-mortar location, create location pages. Location pages provide readers with your name, address, phone number, store hours, unique store descriptions, parking/transit information, promotions, and testimonials from happy customers.

It’s also important you avoid duplicating content across multiple location pages. For single-location businesses, create a locally descriptive About Us page. You’ll get big-time bonus points if you add a Google Map to your website on your respective location page(s).

Search engine optimization changes quickly. You never know when Google will introduce new features on its SERPs for local searches, yet you can depend on these progressions coming. That is the reason it’s fundamental to consistently keep steady on top of local SEO. By implementing these actionable items, you will ensure that your business doesn’t just take advantage of lucrative local searches but also has a solid foundation when new SEO features are introduced. And if you don’t have the opportunities to make these adjustments, you may want to look into a small business SEO service provider. Creative Wave Tech can guide you with regards local SEO and other digital presence of your business.

Contact us for further details.
Creative Wave Tech