If you are a business selling products or services in the local area a good knowledge of local SEO is essential.
Local SEO is slightly different to a general SEO strategy but can be done just as effectively if implemented properly.
If you’re choosing a local SEO company to carry this out on your behalf it’s still beneficial to understand it.
And of course these tips are factors you can implement yourself to help towards the ranking of your own website.
7 Local SEO Tips For Small Businesses
Keyword Research & Landing Pages
Keyword research is a must as without this it really is a guessing game and the time put in could bring little return.
Use tools such as Google AdWords, once this is set up make full use of the keyword tool.
Type in the product or service provided along with the location to determine the popularity or competition of each keyword or phrase.
Once you’ve sought out those keywords you’ll need to create separate landing pages for each keyword.
You can find how to create the perfect landing page here
Quality Content
Heard this phrase before? Content Is King? Well it really is!
High quality content on both pages and blog posts is essential.
The content on your website speaks to potential customers about the product or service you are providing.
Well written keyword rich content will help towards your local SEO efforts, when creating those landing pages spend time curating content that makes your business stand out from the competition.
And if you aren’t producing regular blog posts, start now! You’ll find the benefits of blogging on one of our recent posts.
Encourage Customer Reviews
A good customer review speaks volumes not only for potential customers but also from an local SEO point of view.
Why? Because search engines and Google in particular favour user generated content.
Encourage customers to leave reviews on your Google + page by providing step by step instructions on how to do this.
Whilst it may be common knowledge to one person, the next may be unsure how to do this and of course it helps towards that 5 star review and the customer service those people receive.
Business Listings & Citations
Local SEO is primarily about the location so ensure that across your website, business listings and social media that the address and contact details of your business are up to date and visible.
On your website display in the footer/header and include a map to pinpoint the exact location.
Submit your business to different local directories such as
Social Media Marketing
Another key factor to carrying out effective local SEO is the correct use of social media.
Now we aren’t talking about posting memes although effective with encouraging interaction they won’t help with local SEO.
But posting links to blog posts and pages from your website WILL help.
Use the location tool on Facebook to narrow down and target the local area where your service is provided.
For Twitter, location based hashtag hours will help target the local audience. If you’re not familiar with these you’ll find an up to date list of local networking hours here.
Social media is all about encouraging engagement so it may be worth while paying to boost a post on Facebook or promote your page to the local area.
Mobile Friendly Websites
You may of heard us talking about this before but a responsive website is a no brainer.
The percentage of people using mobile devices such as tablets and phones to search for local services is always rising so to not have a website that doesn’t increase user experience just won’t cut it.
You can check if your website is fully responsive here.
Use Keywords Sensibly
It may be tempting to stuff Content full of keywords but use them sensibly.
A post full of your chosen keyword may seem like a good idea but if content doesn’t flow well you’ll hit a problem not only with Google who may see your site as spam but also with visitors to the site.
If content is hard to read you are at risk of pushing visitors away from your website
Final Thought
Local searches for products and services account for 73% Google searches so the need for local SEO is a must.
The one misconception when it comes to any form of SEO is that you’ll see results immediately – you won’t straight away, however following the tips above will help improve rankings over a period of time.
If you’d like to discuss anything SEO related you can contact our team here.
