Tricks to improve your local SEO
James Canington, Marketing Director, Ardent Creative
Set up Google My Business. Create a free listing for your company on Google My Business and be sure to complete the verification process. Don’t forget to make sure your business name, address and phone number are correct; this will help customers find and review your business more easily when searching for you online. It is important to use authentic photos of the exterior, interior and products or services of your business instead of stock imagery. Google will find and delete stock photos.
Encourage customers to review your business. Online reviews can help your business rank higher in local search engines and, of course, they can influence potential customers to buy products and services. Ask for reviews on Google and Yelp (mainly Google) from your satisfied customers but do so with “keywords in mind.” In other words, ask customers to mention the specific product or service in their review (ie, “He provided the best plumbing service.”) This may help you rank higher on search engines. local when people search for that particular keyword. You can offer discounts or gifts to customers in exchange for their review.
Have a “local-friendly” website. Local friendly websites will always include the company name, address and phone number. Be sure to describe the specific geographic locations you serve. Place an interactive Google map on the site and make sure it is preset to find your address.
View your website copy through the lens of your audience. Brands should speak in a simple way that matches how your customers speak – avoid jargon or being so vague that it doesn’t explain your business.
Provide customers with value on your website, not just content. For example, if you host events, list those on your site and share them on social media. Answer common questions about your services or products. Create articles and videos that explain your services and teach relevant tips to your customers. Do a little research with Google Trends (it’s free!) and talk to your customers to spark ideas.
Get your website and business some exposure. Find business affiliates you can join. Talk to local media and influencers in your industry. Sponsor a cause you care about. Search engines care who cites and links to your business.
If you have brick and mortar locations, claim your business listings online and fill in any details you can. Start with Google, of course, but don’t forget Facebook, Yelp, Apple Maps or Bing. This will help a lot with your map lists
Certain aspects of SEO can also get a little technical, but don’t let that tell you. If you can, spend an hour and learn HTML; you will be able to understand your web developer better. Don’t work with anyone who tells you it’s too complicated or makes bleak promises to “Make you Number 1” at anything.
Claire Brunner, Partner and Executive Vice President of Growth, Enilon
Think mobile first. Although the mobile phone is not a new philosophy to begin with, its importance continues to grow stronger. Google is rewarding those with mobile optimized sites and content. This is important for all businesses but especially for location based businesses. Consider onsite and offsite for local mobile search. This would include your mobile optimized website, the map package and other high authority websites where your content is posted.
Google My Business is key. Also known as the “map package,” how you appear in Google My Business results is very important for local search – both on desktop and on phone. Make sure your profile is set up properly, you have a strategy for collecting reviews and improving your profile by posting relevant content and information to help improve your search results.
Have an inbound strategy. Even if you have the proper pages and SEO tags in place, if Google doesn’t think your site is credible, your rankings won’t be as strong as you’d like. You need to develop a plan to collect credible links to key pages on your website to help increase its authority.
Set metrics for success. Whether your business is service-based or brick-and-mortar, it is important to measure the overall success of your program. Are your efforts providing the expected lift? Or should certain things change? If you don’t have a way to track success, you could be wasting valuable resources – time and money.
Keep testing. There is no silver bullet when it comes to SEO, or digital marketing for that matter. It’s important to constantly be tweaking and testing your program so that you can continue to engage the highest quality customers in the most efficient way and fill your prospects for future growth.
Why local SEO is important?
Local SEO helps your business stand out – even if you don’t have a website – and helps drive more traffic to your premises through online leads. Since these leads come from people who are specifically searching for products or services that your business offers, they are also likely to give you a high conversion rate.
What is local SEO and 5 reasons why it is important? 5 Top Reasons Local SEO Is Important
- It Makes You More Competitive. Even if you are not investing in local SEO, you can be sure that the other local businesses are within your niche. …
- You Attract Visitors and New People. …
- People want to buy local. …
- Sales Drive Search Phone. …
- It’s Free.
Who benefits from local SEO & Why?
With local SEO, your business gets more visibility as the right people who are interested in your product find it at the right time. When your business is more visible, this means more profits, sales, and even relevance.
Who needs local SEO?
Any business that has a physical location or serves a geographic area can benefit from local SEO. If you search Google for any important keywords related to your business and a map with 3 listings appears below (also known as a map package), local SEO can help you grow your business.
What is the benefit of local SEO?
Local SEO helps increase online visibility so that new customers notice you. Google Maps and Google My Business optimization can generate more direct calls, leads and sales. By optimizing your website for localized terms, you attract better targeted traffic and leads.
What is local SEO & Why local search is important?
Simply put, local SEO is where you focus to improve your rankings and visibility in local search results such as Google Maps/Local Pack. Organic SEO is how you improve the rankings of a web page in organic search. How your website is ranked in those organic results can positively impact your Local Pack rankings, as well.
What is local SEO and why is it so important?
Local SEO is the practice of optimizing your online presence to increase search engine visibility with local users and potential customers in your area. So why is local search important? Because 45% of all Google searches are local businesses.
How do you know if you need local SEO?
How do you know if you need Local SEO? If your customer base is primarily located in the same city or metropolitan area where your business is located (i.e. local business), you will need local SEO. If you have a brick-and-mortar site (or sites), you need local SEO.
Why is local SEO important for SEO?
Benefits of local SEO Better online visibility: Local SEO activity, such as citations and link building, increases your online visibility. So it’s easier for your business to find new customers. More in-store foot traffic: Greater local visibility brings more foot traffic to your brick and mortar location.
What are the 3 main features of a quality backlink?
Many factors go into making a good backlink, but most quality backlinks share these three characteristics: The link text occurs naturally within the context of the page. The referring domain is reputable. The reference page is topically relevant to the link destination.
What makes a quality backlink? A quality backlink is a link that comes from a high domain authority website that is well trusted by search engines and searchers alike. In other words, not only do the robots trust the website, but real people also trust the website.
Why are high quality backlinks important?
Backlinks are important because they help build trust and authority for many search engines. Quality backlinks also bring you new customers, readers, and leads, because they come from topically relevant sources like major media, trade publications, and niche blogs.
What are backlinks and why are they important for SEO?
Backlinks are important for SEO because they let Google know that another resource is valuable enough to link to your content within their own content. As a website earns additional backlinks, it signals to search engines that the website has valuable content worthy of ranking well on the SERPs.
What is high-quality backlinks?
quality backlinks A quality backlink is a link that comes from a high domain authority website that is well trusted by search engines and searchers alike. In other words, not only do the robots trust the website, but real people also trust the website.
Are high content or great quality backlinks more important?
Conclusion: Content Is Better for Your Website Backlinks are important and they help you rank. But content works across all channels from PPC to SEO, media coverage, and referral traffic. Good content can also lead to backlinks. If you have to choose between the two, I would go with the subject.
What do you consider a quality link?
A quality link, or a high-quality link, is one that comes from a high-quality website. Backlinks are one of the pillars of an effective SEO strategy. They are essential to drive organic traffic and increase your site’s authority. In addition, search engines consider them one of their top three ranking factors.
What are the three types of link?
In general, there are three types of links: Internal links – hyperlinks that go from one page to another within your own website; External links â hyperlinks leading from your website to another resource; Backlinks â a hyperlink that goes from another site to your site.
Can I do SEO by my self?
If you thought, “Can I do SEO myself?” the answer is definitely. You don’t need to hire an outside agency to improve your SEO, and this guide gives you some basic SEO tips to get you started.
Is it hard to do your own SEO? SEO is only as hard as people make it out to be; you can get 95% of the effort with 5% of the work, and you don’t need to hire a professional SEO to do it, and it won’t be difficult to start ranking for well-chosen key terms.
Do I need to hire someone for SEO?
Yes, hire an agency if you are looking for long-term success. If your site doesn’t have something that can be easily fixed (like blocking it completely with your robots.txt file), most SEO is building long-term success and value.
How much does it cost to hire someone for SEO?
Average SEO costs are $100-$250 per hour for US SEO agencies. SEO costs often range from $2,500 – $10,000 per month for US agencies. The average SEO plan costs $2819 per month (per Ahrefs) SEO companies abroad may charge $10-$50 per hour.
Can one person do SEO?
Some companies are so metric-heavy that SEO teams can easily have one person dedicated to churning out reports and estimates of revenue rise/fall based on proposed changes.
Can I do SEO by myself?
You can do SEO entirely yourself or DIY SEO (Do it Yourself SEO). With some research and a lot of practice, anyone can learn how to do SEO for their business. A quick way to get started with SEO is to enter your URL here and then focus your SEO efforts on the recommended action items.
Can you hire someone to do SEO on your website?
If you want extra help navigating these SEO tips or don’t have time to improve your website’s SEO, hiring an SEO specialist is another option. If you find the right person, they can become a long-term partner as you improve your website and business.
What are SEO activities?
SEO Action Plan is a toolbox for customizing an adjustable workflow, allowing users to address all aspects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to meet their website goals and challenges.
What are the 3 types of SEO? The three types of SEO are: On-page SEO â Anything on your web pages â Blogs, product copy, web copy. Off Page SEO – Anything that happens away from your website that helps your SEO Strategy – Backlinks. Technical SEO â anything technical done to improve Search Rankings â site indexing to help bot crawling.
