If you’re a small business owner, then you know how difficult it can be to compete with larger companies, especially if you find yourself in the same location as them. Fortunately for small businesses everywhere, there are many ways to grow and promote your company while still keeping costs low. One of these is building an effective local SEO strategy. Implementing small business search engine optimization is important if you have a good product or service. Moreover, with the right marketing strategy, it can be very easy to upgrade your business.
Even if you have a great product or service, without the right marketing strategy in place, it can be very easy for your business to get lost in the shuffle.
Local SEO focuses on the search terms that local customers use to search for your products and services. By optimizing your online presence for these terms, you’re able to attract more customers who are specifically looking for what you have to offer.
This type of SEO is also known as “geo-targeted” or “localized” SEO because it uses geographic information.
Local SEO can be much more effective than traditional SEO because the search engine results are more closely tailored to what people in your area are looking for.
When you use local SEO to promote your business, you’ll notice that you get better results with less effort.
But how does one go about doing this? In this post, we’ll show you some simple ways that any local business owner can use to create an effective local SEO strategy for their website. The best part is that some of them don’t even cost anything.
Create or Improve Your Google My Business Page
You’re going to want to create or improve your Google My Business Page.
Google My Business is a free tool that you can use to manage your business information on Google Search and Maps. This is the first step to optimizing your local SEO because it allows you to manage your business information and make sure that it’s accurate.
When you create or improve your Google My Business Page, you’ll be able to claim your listing so that no one else can claim it as their own (this is important because without claiming this page, people won’t be able to find you on Google.
You can add images, videos, and customer reviews to help customers learn more about the kinds of experiences they can expect when they visit your location.
By claiming your business listing and responding to reviews, you can show potential customers that you provide quality service—and that they should give you their business!
Adding a website address will also help people find out more about what it’s like working with your company.
Add local keywords to your website content
Your website content is one of the most important areas on your site. It’s where you can directly influence Google’s search algorithms and persuade it to rank you higher in local search results.
You also have control over how many times Google crawls your website, so creating compelling content will increase the chances that it does so more frequently.
The more frequently Google visits your site, the better chance you have of improving your rankings in organic search results.
In order for Googlebot (the crawler) to read and understand what a page on your site is all about, there are certain keywords or phrases that need to be present on every page. It is known as “keyword density.”
Keyword density refers to how often these terms appear relative to other words on a web page. If they appear too often then they can be interpreted negatively by both humans and machines. When it comes to SEO, the goal is to have a high density of keywords but not so many that it looks like you’re stuffing them in.
Collect reviews
Getting reviews is another effective way to boost your local SEO. It’s important for your customers to be able to see that you have a lot of positive reviews, so they know you’re not just trying to get them into your business with empty promises.
Reviews are also extremely useful for Google. It displays them in its search results and uses them as part of its algorithm when determining what pages are most relevant for a given query.
Reviews can make all the difference between being ranked on page two or page one!
So how can you get more reviews?
The first thing is to ask politely. Don’t just shove an email into people’s inboxes randomly and ask for reviews. Instead, make sure they actually want what you’re offering before asking them anything at all!
If you do this right, most people will say yes without any hesitation whatsoever. The second thing that you can do is to provide a really good product or service. If people are happy with what you’re offering, they’ll be more likely to provide a positive review.
Ask for citations
Next, you should ask for citations. They’re the most important part of local SEO and can help boost rankings, increase traffic and generate more leads.
If you’ve never heard of a citation before, don’t worry—we’ll explain what they are and how to get them below.
Citations are a type of backlink that point to your website from third-party sites. This is different from the links that you find on Google or Bing, which are called organic links.
Organic links come from natural sources like other websites, blogs, and social media posts. When people link to your site, it means they want their readers to learn more about what you do. Citations are similar except they’re usually found on business directories or review sites instead of blogs.
Citations can be good for your business because they show that you’re a legitimate company with real customers. They also tell Google and other search engines that your website is trustworthy and up-to-date. When you get citations, it means someone has added your website URL to their directory or review site.
Let’s recap
To make local SEO work for your business, you need to have a comprehensive plan that includes creating great content, ensuring site structure and technical elements are optimized and using major as well as niche directories.
Local SEO is not just the name of the game; it is the game. Local businesses can’t afford to rank well in search engines without getting customers, and they can’t get customers unless they do a good job of ranking well in search engines.
When you are looking for a business, the first place you go is Google. If your website doesn’t come up in the top 10 results, then it doesn’t exist for the person searching for your product or service. So, if you want to stay competitive and increase sales, then local SEO is something that every business needs to invest time and resources into.
Guest Blogger
Robb Fahrion is a Co-Founder and Partner of Flying V Group. He is passionate about helping businesses grow using the power of the internet. Robb graduated from Chapman University in Orange, CA and currently resides in Costa Mesa, CA. Robb enjoys writing about digital marketing, helping his clients turn their dreams into reality, and he is a HUGE Mike Trout fan.
